Why eat local? What if it isn’t easy? What if the things I want aren't available? What's the point? Alison and I have both considered these questions for ourselves and factored them into decisions that we’ve made about how we live our everyday lives. We didn’t make the changes overnight, and we don’t even suggest people do so. After the many books we have read, the real-life experiences we have had, and guests we have interviewed on the subject of factory farming vs humane peasant farming, we have come to some conclusions about eating local that might surprise you. They might not be the conclusions or the “arguments” you were expecting.

This episode features an aftershow which could possibly be described as a little bit salty, where some spicier opinions came to the fore. It was impossible to include everything we had to say and keep the main episode at a reasonable length of time. If you want to hear this aftershow as well as over 140 other episodes on our more informal, private podcast Kitchen Table Chats, hop over to ancestralkitchenpodcast.com/join and join at companionship or above level. Thank you for your continued support and to all the supporters, reviewers and listeners who made this episode possible.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

One Earth Health make the grass-fed organ supplements we use and trust. Get 15% off your first order here and 5% off all subsequent orders here.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Get more news from Alison & Andrea by signing up to their newsletter at the top of the page here.

For more tips, inspiration and recipes plus a free 30-page guide to Baking with Ancient Grains sign up for Alison's newsletter here!

Get our two podcast cookbooks:

Meals at the Ancestral Hearth

Spelt Sourdough Every Day

Alison's course, Rye Sourdough Bread: Mastering The Basics

Alison's Sowans oat fermentation course

Get 10% off US/Canada Bokashi supplies: click here and use code AKP.

Get 10% off UK Bokashi supplies.

Visit our (non-Amazon!) bookshop for a vast selection of ancestral cookbooks: US link here and UK link here.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Our podcast is supported by a community of ancestral cooks around the world!

Come join our community! You can choose to simply sponsor the podcast, or select from a variety of levels with benefits including monthly live Zoom calls, a private podcast feed stuffed with bonus content from Alison and...

Back in episode 117, we gave you 26 nuggets of ancestral wisdom. We’ve got more. Another 24 to be precise. And just because these are in this second episode doesn’t mean they are any less important!

Over the next hour, on opposite sides of the Atlantic, with cups of tea in our hands we'll be channelling our great-grandma wisdom and bringing you some ancestral truths relating to food, creativity, family, health, work and life.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

One Earth Health make the grass-fed organ supplements we use and trust. Get 15% off your first order here and 5% off all subsequent orders here.

For US listeners, we recommend Grand Teton Ancient Grains. They sell regenerative, organic flours and berries that can satisfy all your baking needs. Stock up and get free shipping at AncientGrains.com

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Get more news from Alison & Andrea by signing up to their newsletter at the top of the page here.

For more tips, inspiration and recipes plus a free 30-page guide to Baking with Ancient Grains sign up for Alison's newsletter here!

Get our two podcast cookbooks:

Meals at the Ancestral Hearth

Spelt Sourdough Every Day

Alison's course, Rye Sourdough Bread: Mastering The Basics

Alison's Sowans oat fermentation course

Get 10% off US/Canada Bokashi supplies: click here and use code AKP.

Get 10% off UK Bokashi supplies.

Visit our (non-Amazon!) bookshop for a vast selection of ancestral cookbooks: US link here and UK link here.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Our podcast is supported by a community of ancestral cooks around the world!

Come join our community! You can choose to simply sponsor the podcast, or select from a variety of levels with benefits including monthly live Zoom calls, a private podcast feed stuffed with bonus content from Alison and Andrea, and a Discord discussion group.

To read more about becoming a supporter and explore the various levels, click here!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

5* reviews on Apple Podcasts, mean the world to us!

Here's how you can leave one:

1. Open the Apple Podcast app
2. Find...

Khorasan rye, spelt, emmer, millet, quinoa - what do all of these delicious foods have in common? They are considered ancient grains, grasses harking back to a time before industrial development and heavy hybridisation.

You are what you eat eats, and that goes for grains as well as anything else. The nutrients your grains are pulling up out of the soil are the ones you will find in your finished product. Grains are an incredible source of minerals and micronutrients when grown in a regenerative manner.

This is why today I am so excited to introduce you to Grand Teton Ancient Grains! You can find this incredible family business online at www.ancientgrains.com and in this episode I got to sit down with Jade Koyl, the owner of this incredible family farm, and learn more about the way they feed the soil, their crop rotations, grain storage, and how their family uses grains in their everyday diet; as well as why they started growing them in the first place.

Supporters can stick around for a couple minutes in the Aftershow on the private podcast, Kitchen Table Chats, where Jade shared some of the titles he's reading right now and a little more about his family life.

Everybody can check the show notes for both the link to his company's store as well as a link with an amazing wealth of recipes for utilizing ancient grains at https://www.ancientgrains.com/grain-recipes. Now, let's get to the show!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

One Earth Health make the grass-fed organ supplements we use and trust. Get 15% off your first order here and 5% off all subsequent orders here.

For US listeners, we recommend Grand Teton Ancient Grains. They sell regenerative, organic flours and berries that can satisfy all your baking needs. Stock up and get free shipping at AncientGrains.com

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Get more news from Alison & Andrea by signing up to their newsletter at the top of the page here.

For more tips, inspiration and recipes plus a free 30-page guide to Baking with Ancient Grains sign up for Alison's newsletter here!

Get our two podcast cookbooks:

Meals at the Ancestral Hearth

Spelt Sourdough Every Day

Alison's course, Rye Sourdough Bread: Mastering The Basics

Alison's Sowans oat fermentation course

Get 10% off US/Canada Bokashi supplies: click here and use code AKP.

Get 10% off UK Bokashi supplies.

Visit our (non-Amazon!) bookshop for a vast selection of ancestral cookbooks: US link here and

In so many of our episodes over the last four years, we have explored how no food we eat is intrinsically ‘bad’. Instead, it’s what we as humans living in a rapidly globalising and industrialising world, have done to that food that causes problems. The topic of today’s episode, cacao, epitomises this. Originally, in its home, central america, cacao beans were revered and used unsweetened as a drink. Our world has taken and transformed them into an unrecognisable sugary commodity that fills the shelves of shops globally. A commodity that can, as Alison personally knows, through at 20, being addicted to the stuff and obese, ruin health.

But as ancestral cooks, we need not be scared. And our guest today knows that better than anyone we’ve ever come across. Marcos Patchett is a self-confessed cacao geek and has written two books on this bean’s wonders, the first of which, The Secret Life of Chocolate is 700 pages of incredible research, of which Alison has devoured every page!

Cacao is an incredibly nutrient-dense food and one that can give us both pleasure and health. Let’s talk about why, and, how, you should be eating chocolate.

Supporters of the podcast, check your private feed for a fascinating discussion on addiction that we just couldn’t squeeze into the main episode.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

One Earth Health make the grass-fed organ supplements we use and trust. Get 15% off your first order here and 5% off all subsequent orders here.

For US listeners, we recommend Grand Teton Ancient Grains. They sell regenerative, organic flours and berries that can satisfy all your baking needs. Stock up and get free shipping at AncientGrains.com

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Get more news from Alison & Andrea by signing up to their newsletter at the top of the page here.

For more tips, inspiration and recipes plus a free 30-page guide to Baking with Ancient Grains sign up for Alison's newsletter here!

Get our two podcast cookbooks:

Meals at the Ancestral Hearth

Spelt Sourdough Every Day

Alison's course, Rye Sourdough Bread: Mastering The Basics

Alison's Sowans oat fermentation course

Get 10% off US/Canada Bokashi supplies: click here and use code AKP.

Get 10% off UK Bokashi supplies.

Visit our (non-Amazon!) bookshop for a vast selection of ancestral cookbooks: US link here and UK link here.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Our podcast is supported by a community

Ancestral food is not just all livers and bone broth! You not only can find amazing treats and desserts in the ancestral food world, but this is where delicious, comforting goodness was invented. The modern and industrial versions of sweet treats are like looking through a glass Pyrex pan darkly, and when you are introduced to the ancestral food world and the amazing ingredients we have available to us here you can in fact meet the richness and goodness of delicious treats face to face.

In this episode we share some of our favorite treats including a range of baked, custardy, dairy-free, gluten-free, or egg-free treats to keep you going all winter and into the spring. And the question I know which is burning in all of our hearts, is chocolate part of an ancestral lifestyle, can it be part of an ancestral life? Find out in this episode.

We also included a few of our favorite hot beverages - on a cold rainy day there is nothing better than wrapping your fingers around a hot steaming mug of something delicious and nestling in with a good book for a long afternoon … and then of course you gotta get up and put on your overalls and your hat and go back out into the rain and do the evening chores but that's ok, you've got something delicious to come back inside to!

For supporters of the podcast there is an additional download with a couple extra recipes for you (thank you for keeping us on the air!), and for everybody listening be sure to check the show notes, we linked the heck outta this one. Let us know if there are other sweet treats we should have mentioned or that you love!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

One Earth Health make the grass-fed organ supplements we use and trust. Get 15% off your first order here and 5% off all subsequent orders here.

For US listeners, we recommend Grand Teton Ancient Grains. They sell regenerative, organic flours and berries that can satisfy all your baking needs. Stock up and get free shipping at AncientGrains.com

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Get more news from Alison & Andrea by signing up to their newsletter at the top of the page here.

For more tips, inspiration and recipes plus a free 30-page guide to Baking with Ancient Grains sign up for Alison's newsletter here!

Get our two podcast cookbooks:

Meals at the Ancestral Hearth

Spelt Sourdough Every Day

Alison's course, Rye Sourdough Bread: Mastering The Basics

Alison's Sowans oat fermentation course

Get 10% off US/Canada Bokashi supplies: click here and use code AKP.

Get 10% off UK Bokashi supplies.

Visit our (non-Amazon!) bookshop for a vast selection of ancestral cookbooks:

As you know, if you’ve been cooking ancestrally for any length of time, the ancestral mindset does not stay in the kitchen! Some of us come to this as part of a health journey, already thinking about our life as a whole…others of us start with food and find the wisdom of our ancestors seeping into the rest of our lives. There are things we just can’t not see any more, things we feel are wrong; things we know are right.

We have, together, been living this lifestyle for over 25 years. And we were both on health journeys long before then. Our lives, not just our kitchens, have transformed.

In this episode you’ll hear 26 nuggets of wisdom. They are things we’ve learned, often the hard way, and things we have to remind ourselves of again and again as we step forward. Join us, and our community of listeners, as we share some truth.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

One Earth Health make the grass-fed organ supplements we use and trust. Get 15% off your first order here and 5% off all subsequent orders here.

For US listeners, we recommend Grand Teton Ancient Grains. They sell regenerative, organic flours and berries that can satisfy all your baking needs. Stock up and get free shipping at AncientGrains.com

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Fermentation Summit 2025 is a free, online gathering of top fermentation experts sharing their wisdom, recipes, and techniques—from sauerkraut and kimchi to miso, kefir, kombucha, and beyond. Whether you’re a curious beginner or a seasoned fermenter, this 3-day virtual summit offers practical, science-backed guidance and hands-on inspiration to help you master the microbial magic at home.

Name: Fermentation Summit 2025

Dates: October 21-23, 2025

Location: Online (Free Virtual Event)

Host: Holly Howe of MakeSauerkraut

https://ancestralkitchenpodcast.com/hollysummit

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Get more news from Alison & Andrea by signing up to their newsletter at the top of the page here.

For more tips, inspiration and recipes plus a free 30-page guide to Baking with Ancient Grains sign up for Alison's newsletter here!

Get our two podcast cookbooks:

Meals at the Ancestral Hearth

Spelt Sourdough Every Day

Alison's course, Rye Sourdough Bread: Mastering The Basics

Alison's Sowans oat fermentation course

Get 10% off US/Canada Bokashi supplies: click here and use code AKP.

Get 10% off UK Bokashi supplies.

Visit our (non-Amazon!) bookshop for a vast selection of ancestral cookbooks:

Leftovers again? Oh good, I can’t wait! I love it when half the work is already done. In this episode we talked about leftovers as well as scraps and items that are often discarded in home kitchens. Let’s maximize those precious food dollars and make the meal stretch as far as possible! We went a little bit crazy sharing about all the ways we love using the trash items in our kitchen - including some of the actual trash. We asked our supporters in Discord for their ideas on using commonly wasted food items and oh boy they delivered! I could barely cram it all into this episode. Supporters of the podcast, check the downloads section of the podcast website. I dumped all my notes into a PDF and shared it there so you can hang it up inside your kitchen cupboard as reminders of how to frugally, efficiently and deliciously wring every penny out of that purchase! This episode got me hoping for some dry bread, a gallon of scrap whey, and a jar of bland egg whites! What could be more delicious!?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

One Earth Health make the grass-fed organ supplements we use and trust. Get 15% off your first order here and 5% off all subsequent orders here.

For US listeners, we recommend Grand Teton Ancient Grains. They sell regenerative, organic flours and berries that can satisfy all your baking needs. Stock up and get free shipping at AncientGrains.com

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The Fermentation Summit 2025 is a free, online gathering of top fermentation experts sharing their wisdom, recipes, and techniques—from sauerkraut and kimchi to miso, kefir, kombucha, and beyond. Whether you're a curious beginner or a seasoned fermenter, this 3-day virtual summit offers practical, science-backed guidance and hands-on inspiration to help you master the microbial magic at home.

Name: Fermentation Summit 2025

Dates: October 21-23, 2025

Location: Online (Free Virtual Event)

Host: Holly Howe of MakeSauerkraut

http://ancestralkitchenpodcast.com/hollysummit

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Get more news from Alison & Andrea by signing up to their newsletter at the top of the page here.

For more tips, inspiration and recipes plus a free 30-page guide to Baking with Ancient Grains sign up for Alison's newsletter here!

Get our two podcast cookbooks:

Meals at the Ancestral Hearth

Spelt Sourdough Every Day

Alison's course, Rye Sourdough Bread: Mastering The Basics

Alison's Sowans oat fermentation course

Get 10% off US/Canada Bokashi supplies: click here and use code AKP.

When life is overwhelming or busy, or I don’t know what to cook - What are a few simple meals I can have in my back pocket? As a person new to ancestral cooking, how do I know if my easy meal is ancestral or not? Can I still use my old cookbooks? In this episode, we will share four favorite easy, go-to meals that our families love. You will see how each of these meals evolve with the seasons for us, and we will share some of our best tips for making your favorite dishes ancestral. As a thank you for bringing these episodes to the public, we also have a special document for our paid podcast supporters at the 2nd tier on up with these four recipes written down. You’ll find this document by logging in to www.ancestralkitchenpodcast.com and going to the downloads section. If you want to support the podcast and grab this download as well as many others, visit our website or check the show notes. And now, on with the show.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

One Earth Health make the grass-fed organ supplements we use and trust. Get 15% off your first order here and 5% off all subsequent orders here.

For US listeners, we recommend Grand Teton Ancient Grains. They sell regenerative, organic flours and berries that can satisfy all your baking needs. Stock up and get free shipping at AncientGrains.com

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Get more news from Alison & Andrea by signing up to their newsletter at the top of the page here.

For more tips, inspiration and recipes plus a free 30-page guide to Baking with Ancient Grains sign up for Alison's newsletter here!

Get our two podcast cookbooks:

Meals at the Ancestral Hearth

Spelt Sourdough Every Day

Alison's course, Rye Sourdough Bread: Mastering The Basics

Alison's Sowans oat fermentation course

Get 10% off US/Canada Bokashi supplies: click here and use code AKP.

Get 10% off UK Bokashi supplies.

Visit our (non-Amazon!) bookshop for a vast selection of ancestral cookbooks: US link here and UK link here.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Our podcast is supported by a community of ancestral cooks around the world!

Come join our community! You can choose to simply sponsor the podcast, or select from a variety of levels with benefits including monthly live Zoom calls, a private podcast feed stuffed with bonus content from Alison and Andrea, and a Discord discussion group.