February 21, 2025 • 39 mins
In this episode, Tudor discusses the importance of health and nutrition with Marjory Wildcraft, a leader in the Survival and Preparedness Movement. They explore the current health crisis in America, the benefits of growing your own food, and the decline in food quality over the years. Marjory shares her journey into gardening, the significance of teaching children about food production, and the need for local farming to ensure food security. The Tudor Dixon Podcast is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network. For more visit TudorDixonPodcast.com
#health #revolution #nutrition #foodsecurity #pharmaceuticals #gardening #selfsufficiency #localfarming #familyhealth #growingfood #empowerment
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Today, we are going
to be talking all things health and that is because
we are suddenly in this new I guess revolution where
we've been talking about what we actually should eat and
what the health factors are and what maybe big food
has been putting in our food that we.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Didn't know about.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And I think we can all say this is really
thanks to Robert Kennedy Junior. If he hadn't come out
and started talking about this, I don't know that there
were people that were just on the grassroots level that
would have been discussing this. I know that we've seen
this for years from activists, and there needs to be
kind of that light to really ignite the fire behind
(00:44):
the grassroots to say, wait a minute, is this why
we are so unhealthy as a country, Because if you
are paying attention, then you would see that our statistics
compared to the rest of the countries, I mean, the
rest of the western world, we're very unhealthy. Why we
suppose have these great health systems. Well, some people would
say that these are sick systems there where you go
(01:05):
when you get sick. Why are we getting so sick?
Maybe it has to do with what we're putting into
our bodies every day, and I think that might be
what my guest today would say. I have Marjorie Wildcraft
with me. She is the female leader of the survival
and preparedness movement and in two thousand and nine she
founded the Grow network. She's all about growing your own
(01:26):
food and taking care of your body.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Marjorie, thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Ok, thanks for having me on tutor. I really appreciate
the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Well, it's funny because actually an email came in.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
It was like, oh, you know, we want to talk
about this amazing woman.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
She's all about taking care of the earth and taking
care of your body. And I was like, this is
what I need to know.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I a few months back somebody was selling like these
hydroponic grow you could grow your own food in your kitchen,
And honestly, I looked at it and I'm like, this
is what I want to do, But I have no
idea with a family of how do I How could
I grow enough out of the stick in my kitchen?
You know, I mean for someone who hasn't done this,
(02:06):
you look at it, You're like this seems overwhelming.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
I agree, and getting started is probably the hardest part
of the process. And no, you're not going to be
able to grow the food for six people in small
device in your kitchen, regardless of what the marketing says.
But if you have an average subourbon backyard, you know,
a quarter acre lot, you absolutely can grow a huge amount.
You know, I would say you could grow at least
(02:29):
half And I've done it year after year, and I've
taught a lot of people how to do it, and
I recommend getting started small. So and if it's winter
and that's what you got, you know, that's a great
place to start, like, no doubt, right, And I think
there is a place for that. But ultimately, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
It makes no sense to me because I think winter
is when I should just be like sitting in my
kitchen with a tub of ice cream, ignoring growing, which
sounds terrible. So how do I I look outside, everything's white,
How can I possibly be growing something?
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Well, you know, honestly, the best thing that I recommend
for people to start, and especially if you're one of
those people that think you have a black thumb, is
to get a couple of potted plant herbs, you know,
like basil, mint, chives, rosemary. Now these plants are bulletproof,
which means they're really hard to kill. You can kill them,
(03:23):
but they're really hard. And all you really need is
a sunny window. Sell and get one with as big
a pot as you can get, because if you get
a little pot, it doesn't have much soil in it,
and the more soil you have in there, the more
it will retain moisture and be forgiving for your erratic
watering schedule. And you know, just three or four of
(03:44):
these plants in the windowsill, and I'm going to tell
you, you know, there's a reason that they charge like six
dollars for that little packet of basil. It's because when
you add a little bit of fresh herb on a dish,
it's unbelievable how much changes that, like your spaghetti and sauce,
right your normal stuff. Your families used to. You put
(04:04):
a little bit of frustraisal on there, and they're going
to think you have a whole new recipe. And it's incredible.
The power of herb is incredible. And I've had a
lot of people get started just with growing a few herbs.
Here's the really good thing about it. Everything you learn
from those three or four plants in that windowsill, Like
if they don't get enough sunlight, they tend to get
(04:25):
real light green and get what we call leggy. They
try growing up and up and up because you're looking
for sunlight. Or if they get too dry, then their
little leaves start turning brown on the edges and then eventually,
you know, they die. Or if you jacket up with nitrogen,
they'll turn like bright yellow or orange. You know, don't
do any synthetic fertilizers, please, but everything you learn from
(04:49):
those plants are going to be the same way that
those plants will behave when you do have your garden outside,
whether it's a little four by four bed or whether
you're managing acres as and don't tell me, oh, I'm
never going to be managing acres of crops, because we
right now are living in an incredible vortex of change,
(05:09):
and you have no idea what you're going to be
doing next year, five years, ten years down the road.
So one thing you will be involved with is growing
some of your own food, because we're past that point
where it's an absolute necessity.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I just frequently feel like you were reading my mind
just now, because you're like, you can get these and
then they'll live with your erratic watering schedule.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I'm like, oh, how does she know that about me?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
And then you said that about the crops, and you're like,
don't say you're never going to do it, because instantly
in my head, I'm like, oh, that's not me. But
I don't know, because honestly, life is changing, and I
do think that as I've seen having kids changes you.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, really in so many ways.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Because you watch what you put into your child's body
and how it affects your child. And I think you know,
as adults, we can kind of mask how different foods
affect us, even though we may be feeling, you know,
sad or sluggish or angry or anxious.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
We can mask that.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
But I can see when I feed my kids certain
foods how they react. And we've had in our family
all of the food dyes that are in our foods,
which are just toxic in my opinion, How are total
behavior changes total behavior changes when they go into our kids' bodies.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Yeah, I used to My kids would go off to
the grandparents for the weekend, and I loved it because
we got a break, but I hated it because they
would come jacked up with sugar and god knows what,
you know, would take a week to kind of get
them to calm down again.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
A couple of hot times to say. When you started this, well.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Pretty much like most women, you know, right when I
was getting pregnant and starting to we had I had
two they're now twenty three and twenty five. And you
start getting very, very interested in nutrition and health most
most women and do it. I mean, it's always been
a part of our makeup, but you really start focusing
on it when you have kids and it's so vital.
(07:09):
There's a wonderful chart, it's actually in my book that
shows that over the years from you know, the nineteen hundred,
and this is data from the USDA. It's not anything
I've made up. The nutrition in the food has just
gone down to absolutely nothing. As of like two thousand,
there was no nutrition in the food supply at all,
and yet the rates of diseases are absolutely skyrocketing. They
(07:31):
also correlate their things like life essay and artificial fertilizers
and that kind of thing, which has helped it. In fact,
the disease thing is going so high off the chart,
it's basically they cut the chart off it's very simple.
On the physical level. There are two causes for disease,
and one is malnutrition and the other is toxicity. And
(07:56):
we know malnutrition is common sense, right. You know, if
you don't have vitamin C, survy, if you don't have
vitamin B, then you get peleegra. If you don't have
enough vitamin D, oh my god, there's a whole gamut
of things that can go wrong. So it's pretty simple
in that way, and you really do and there is nothing.
One example is, so I'm sixty two and when my
(08:17):
mom gave me a carrot for a snack, well for me,
then this is like twenty years ago for me to
give my kids the equivalent amount of nutrition, I would
have to give them on eleven carrots.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Why wait what?
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Okay, I was thinking there was limited nutrition in you know,
the cereal and the processed food that we're getting. You're
talking about the actual vegetables and fruits and everything.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Yeah, it's right. Yeah, because the soils are depleted, so
most of our agriculture is growing in the same place,
and they only really focus on three nutrients, which is nitrogen, phosphorus,
and potassium, the big three that makes most plants throw,
but plants need I don't know, some ninety plus nutrients,
and some of them in very trace amounts. But if
(09:06):
you keep growing and growing and growing in that same place,
eventually all those minerals are gone except for the nitrogen, potassium,
and phosphorus, and that's what gets produced. And then so
these plants are devoid of any significant nutrition. I believe
that that's why, I don't know how big is the
supplement industry now is like huge, several hundred billion dollars,
(09:27):
And it's because people are realizing that there is no
nutrition in the food. But you can correct that fairly easily,
and really growing your own food, I believe, is an
absolute necessity. And what you grow in your backyard, you
can absolutely have nutrient dense, rich, fertile soil where you're pulling,
(09:49):
you know your plants are full of nutrients and vitality.
I can give you one example of it in my
own experience. When I first started by the way, I
did not grow up learning any of this stuff. Like
my first degree was an engineer. But when I had
decided to start growing food and we picked out a
piece of land, it was just nothing but sand and
(10:09):
I didn't know how important soil was. He So I,
you know, read the packet, broccoli plant the siege water
come back in three months, and you got your broccoli, right,
And broccoli is supposed to be a plant that's pretty
cold hardy. You know, if we have a cold snap
or even a freeze, it's supposed to do well. Now,
one other piece to this story is I'm a native
(10:32):
Floridian and for most of my life, if it got
below seventy degrees, I'm grabbing a jacket. Right. I was
always very very you being up and you're in Michigan,
you probably are laughing at this, but right, but you know,
I mean I just really was very very cold sensitive.
So anyways, I'm growing this broccoli and it dies and
(10:52):
and I'm like why, And so I go do what
you should do. Is I'm going through the neighborhood and
my friend Brandon was like the most amazing gardener ever.
And I'm like Brandon and his broccoli had gone through
the same freeze and it was like woo, not felt good,
you know, And I'm like, what is the difference? And
Brandon is he also happened to be a farrier and
(11:15):
he was gardening in, you know, like two feet of
composted horse maneuver and just really really rich fertile soil.
So his plants had all the minerals and nutrients and
everything that they could possibly want. So, you know, I
start building up my soil and having really rich, vital soil.
By the way, that is the secret to a green
(11:36):
thumb is having really good soil. Most of us think
of soil as don't get that in the house, you know,
like it's just dirt, right, you know, but soil is
so vital for the plants. So anyway, after a couple
of years of growing in really fertile soil, and I
was kind of shocked. And another thing, my homeschooled my daughter,
(11:57):
and we used to love to go to Idaho in
September to go to these primitive skills gatherings. It's just
a fun, fun thing to do. And it was such
a harsh transition because I'm going from Texas, which was
often one hundred degrees in the day and cooling down
to ninety at night, and then going to Idaho where
there'd be you know, you'd be crunching through the grass
(12:18):
in the morning with the frost, and one morning I
noticed I was going to get coffee with everybody else,
and I was barefoot, and I had a light jacket
on in a beanie and a pair of jeans, and
I've said wow. And my friend Janet was bundled up
to the Max boots, scarf, thick jacket and everything like that,
(12:40):
and We're both holding our steaming cups of coffee, and
I'm like, oh, my goodness, my cold tolerance has improved dramatically.
And I directly correlated that eating food for a couple
of years that was grown in really nutrient dense soil,
and my broccoli loved being right. And I'm eating these
(13:01):
foods that are extremely tolerant to all kinds of ranges,
and I became extremely tolerant to all kinds of ranges.
So the old saying you are what you eat, yeah,
it's a real deal.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
So.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
I mean you talked about disease and how much chronic
disease we have. Obviously we've seen a major uptick in
cancers and gastrointestinal cancers especially, which people are saying, well,
this is where all the food is landing and being processed,
and that's probably because the food is not good. That
we're ending up with these toxic cancers. But I wanted
(13:40):
to ask you. I mean, you've kind of come out
and said, well, you don't really believe that we should
be on excess pharmaceuticals, and I think that right now.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Well, I'll tell you.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I was at a conference not too long ago and
a guy came up to me and was like, Hey,
I'm working with a group who can get free pharmaceuticals
to anybody in the country. And I was wondering if
you want to join, and I said, you know, that's
not really my thing, so I don't think so. And
I said, he was like, well, you might be wondering.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
How it works.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
The pharmaceutical companies will give them to you free because
they want everyone in the household to be on a
pharmaceutical and they figure if you get some people on
for free, eventually everybody will be on a pharmaceutical. That
I get it as from a marketing standpoint, this is
what you make, and just like I would if I
made I don't know, if I made muffins and I
(14:29):
wanted everybody to eat my muffins, I would market to everybody, right,
I'd try to get everybody in the house eating my
muffins similar situation to having.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
A pharmaceutical that's what they want to do.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
I would say, as human beings, our goals should be
to try to have as few drugs in our system
as possible. And I have seen so many quick fixes
to taking care of your body with pharmaceuticals. I mean,
obviously we can talk about the ozempic, but even from
the the standpoint of parenting, I was talking to my
(15:02):
girls about this just yesterday. Actually, they were going through
all the kids in their class who are, well, she's ADHD,
and this person suffers from anxiety, and this person suffers
from depression. And all these kids have to go to
the office and take their medicines during the day. And
I believe that in many of those cases, changing their
(15:24):
diets would change that.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
I totally agree with that one hundred percent. There's numerous
numerous studies on school children when they eat a higher
quality diet. First of all, they score higher on intelligence
tests if you have higher quality food. The other thing
is they have way less behavioral problems, and of course
(15:46):
you have less health problems because you're meeting the fundamental
need of the body, which is nutrition, vibrant, living foods,
and I'm so glad you're getting tired of quick fixes.
I mean, that's the American motto, like give me a pill,
you know, growing your own food, which is something that
is basically what we've done forever until the last you know,
(16:07):
fifty years or so. And you know, your great grandparents
they never went to doctors hardly.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Ever, let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next
on a Tutor Dixon podcast. I lost my dad two
years ago to pancreatic cancer, and I look at my grandparents.
I mean, my dad's grandfather lived into me going to college.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
He was ninety eight years old.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
You know, I look at the fact that the people
in past generations have lived past my parents. You know,
my father have lived past even his parents, like the
grandparents lived beyond. How is this happening that our lifespans
are getting shorter? That to me is very disturbing. And
my grandparents were on multiple medications for heart you know,
(16:56):
for blood pressure and everything else.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Everything you can be on.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
It was like the stat and this that everything you
can be on. And I'm not saying that there are
times when people don't have to be on medication, you know,
there are certainly, but it does seem like we've become
a very sick society.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
And I so let me ask you this.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
One of the things that we keep hearing about is
making sure that kids have free breakfast in lunch in
school because they don't have you know, a lot of
these kids don't have the ability to get breakfast in
lunch at home. But if we're putting and Michelle Obama
was famous for saying we wanted to have healthy lunches,
but then when we pilled back the layer of the
onions there, and I don't believe, like I'm not blaming her.
(17:39):
I think that school systems, they would find the best
price and then they get whatever that consists of a meal.
What would you say if you could get public schools
to have a snack time? Like, what would those snacks
be if you could bring in fresh food for kids?
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Well, that's actually how I got into this whole thing.
So my first degree is an electrical engineering and I
worked for quite a few years in that industry. I'd
grown up in a fairly poor family, so I was
always interested in money. I'd become a section manager of
engineering as an expat for Motorola in Hong Kong and
Hong Kong is a place full of people who are
(18:20):
interested in money, and the Hong Kong Chinese and the
guys that worked for me said, hey, Marjorie, you should
we know you're interested in that. You should go listen
to this guy Robert who has this course. So I
went to this guy Robert's course, and he had these
mind blowing ideas and it eventually inspired me enough to
leave engineering create a very successful real estate investment business
(18:45):
that was so successful that Robert came back to me
and said, would you be the lead testimonial on some
of my infomercials? And that's how for four years I
was promoting Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad products and
had a tremendous amount of success. By the time I
was forty, I'd already made my first million. I was
looking at making more, and I was volunteering at a
(19:06):
local elementary school to get locally grown organic food into
the elementary school. And I was working with Steve Bridges,
who at the time was the president of the Texas
Organic Farmers and Gardeners Market Association, and we thought what
we would do is we'd get this going and then
we would just duplicate it throughout Texas, right, which makes
a lot of sense. We would love to have organic
(19:27):
food into the school system. And that project was a
complete and utter failure. It completely changed my life, and
that's how I got into growing food, because I'll never
forget that final meeting when the whole thing completely collapsed
and I had organized. We were working in Red Rock,
Texas to get this little elementary school going, and we
(19:48):
were putting pen to paper on who would be the
farmers to provide the stuff to the schools. And there
were not enough organic farmers, small, organic farmers, big, or
for any kind of organic farmers in all of Bastrop
County to provide even part of the vegetables for one
small rural elementary school. Wow, and Texas has some big
(20:13):
counties and Steve once people heard about this project, people
kept hitting Steve up and saying, well, we want that
Nar county, we want that Nar county. And there were
not enough organic farmers in all of Texas to provide
anything near the amount it was poultry. I mean, the
people in Dallas nothing there for it work, you know.
(20:33):
And Bastrop, by the way, is right outside of Austin.
Supposedly fairly progressive area, and for me personally, I could
not stop shaking that night. Actually, I had organized the
community center where we're meeting, and you know, I'm trying
to put the chair under the table. I mean I'm
physically shaking. Everybody just sort of wandered off because we
(20:56):
knew the project was dead. But I knew there was
only four day is worth food in the grocery stores.
There are no big inventories. It's all adjusting time system
and on averager food gets delivered to you about fifteen
hundred miles. And I knew that at that time, I
was surrounded by about twenty million Texans who are all
armed to the teeth. And when they say there's only
(21:18):
we're only nine meals away from anarchy. I realized it
in that moment that night, and for years afterward, I
had night sweats and panic attacks, and I had too
small what do you do?
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Because you think we have a food security issue?
Speaker 3 (21:34):
We have a ginormous food security issue. And I realized then,
you know, I had been focusing on making wealth right
and making money, and I realized, you know, there's a
lot of people who know how to make money, and
I had definitely demonstrated then I knew how to make money.
There's hardly anybody who knows how to grow food, and
there are definitely scenarios where no amount of money is
(21:56):
going to buy you food for your kids. I said,
I just I've got to learn how to grow food,
and I've got to teach other people how to grow food,
and we have to completely rebuild the entire food supply
from the ground up. So, you know, bless his heart,
Willie Nelson, with all the small farm made concerts, it
(22:16):
didn't it didn't work. You know, most of those small
farms all have all gone out of business. Now we've
since then.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
You're giving me chills because this is something that we've
talked about in the state of Michigan. And I think
that one of the things that you probably don't even
see is the amount of overreach that has happened from
these bureaucracies that come in and try to shut down
the small family farm. You know, you've got you've got
these big food companies that have lobbyists and they have
(22:45):
a way to get We have no local slaughterhouses. We
have family farms shutting down. I've been saying this for years,
like when are we going to pay attention to what
is happening there is not. I mean, we are selling
off farmland to create solar And it's not to say
that renewable energy isn't important. It's to say, wait a minute,
(23:07):
this is not These are two things that are not
mutually exclusive. You can't have one and say, well, food's
not that important. We have to still have the family farm.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Yeah, they shut off water to five hundred thousand acres
of potatoes last year in Idaho because they want to
build a data center and they needed that water. Now,
there was enough of an uproar that after a week
or two, you know, the water got back turned on.
But do you think that's not going to stop. You
know that's not going to stop.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
You talked about the seventies before we got on, and honestly,
a few weeks ago, we have a factory that is
coming into the state of Michigan, going right on the watershed.
This is planning to take seven hundred thousand gallons of
water a day there and they'll be running forever chemicals
through this factory. And I'm like, where do the seven
(23:57):
hundred thousand gallons go once they're processed?
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Every day? And I immediately.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Thought about my childhood and I'm like, I feel like
I've become one of those people that's going to go,
you know, tie myself to.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
The tree, you know, and say what are we doing?
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Stop?
Speaker 1 (24:12):
And when I was a kid, I was like, what
are these people doing?
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Why do they why do they think they can fight this?
And now I'm like, I get it. It was because
it's the future.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Well here's here's the thing that is the saving grace
for this. So yes, I had a horrific time. And
by the way, this was the early two thousands, and
everybody thought I was crazy, you know. And after a
while I was talking about it to people and we
were like, no longer. I'm married into a big Texas family.
And after a while we were like not being invited
(24:45):
to events, and I mean there was a shunning, right,
But I just said, I know what I know, and
I'm going to do this. But here is a saving
grace is when you first of all, it doesn't it
doesn't take that much space. Really, in a backyard sized space,
you can grow a huge amount of food. And I
have a very simple system that I've developed where somebody
(25:06):
who doesn't know anything, maybe they're older, or they're out
of shape. They can be producing a lot of food
in their backyard at least half and it's very simple.
It's easy to do. I've cherry picked of the hundreds
of ways to grow food. I've cherry picked the three
easiest and fastest that anybody can do. The other thing
(25:27):
is is by doing this for myself, I have been
healed on every single level that you can imagine physically,
no more allergies. You know, my energy levels are amazing,
My body is extremely healthy. I train in jiu jitsu
and everybody can't believe, like, oh my god, you're sixty
two and you just submitted that guy over there who's
(25:49):
thirty and muscle bound. I'm like yeah, yeah. Emotionally, you know,
I was not concerned during the twenty ten era or
even in the twenty twenty when all the grocery stores
were closed, like I know how to provide my own
basic needs for myself and my family. Again, mentally, you
(26:12):
are smarter when you eatigh quality food. As Again, there's
reams and realms of studies that demonstrate that that when
you're eating really nutrient dense food, you are more intelligent.
They just have tons of intelligence and then spiritually, you know,
you're working with your hands with forces of creation, and
(26:32):
regardless of what religious or spiritual tradition you're from, you
will start to have magical things happen. It's unbelievable how
wonderful it gets to be, so really every level that
I can imagine that you can imagine all the Maslow's
hierarchy of needs. By simply growing, you know, some of
your food in your backyard will heal you on so
(26:56):
many ways. It's incredible. And the other really saving grace
in this is and I hear you about the whole thing.
I know, I never wanted to be one of those
that chained myself to a tree, but I really like,
so what can I do? I can teach people how
to grow food in their backyard is my activism. But
the saving grace in all of this is, in order
(27:17):
to provide your basic needs for yourself, you do not
need a military, industrial and governmental complex to feed you.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Yeah, that's what we're missing. I mean we really for
so long we've believed that we need that.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Exactly, And you say, when will people do it? And
I've been asking that myself for years, for decades, because
I know this is my magging mission. I want to
get people to grow more food. And it's the solution
to so many things, you know, like what, And it's
really the most pleasurable half an hour a day that
you'll spend or hour a day that you'll spend in
your backyard with your plants and your chickens and doing
(27:55):
your thing.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
I mean, really, let's take a quick commercial break. We'll
continue next on the Tutor Dixon pot cast. I'm a
visual learner and I know you have a book and
I want to talk about the book too, but you
have a DVD also and the DVD. I'm like, oh,
you have a DVD series about growing here, and there's
the book The Grossest.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
My publisher like, like, they would kill me if I
didn't get on and push them.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
We'll put that.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Well, we'll connect that too so people can see where
it is. So you have the book, you have the
DVD series.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
What tell us a.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Little bit about that so people, because it does sound overwhelming.
I mean over the summer, I was like, Okay, I'm
going to try to start this. And we put out
some tomatoes, and we put out some strawberries and the
girls were planting some cucumbers and pumpkins and things like that,
and we were we're working. So even getting the girls.
I have four girls, so even getting them involved, I've
(28:47):
been trying to push them and you know, we start
with flowers and then we moved onto vegetables and fruits.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
And and we've and we have I have one.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
That loves plants. She's like the plant kit. She takes
care of all the plants in the house. And she
seems to have figured that out. But it is I
mean I think that that's it seems overwhelming. But even
starting small was really fun.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
With the kids.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Yeah, well, yes I did. I actually was. In two
thousand and nine, I created this whole video series on
you know, food production systems for a backyard or small farm,
a total engineering title which has absolutely no sex in
the marketing at all. But it went viral. I mean
this is early internet days, and like almost a million
(29:34):
downloads on that thing, and I was just giving it
away for free. Missed a huge marketing and business opportunity.
But that's another conversation since then. And the feedback I
got from that was it was like overwhelming, for it
was too much. I wish there's any rainwater collection systems
and you know, some all kinds of things that it
was too much, and so since then I've simplified it,
(29:56):
and anybody who wants to watch it, it's a free
webinar at back Yardfood Production dot com. That's Backyardfood Production
dot com and it's a free webinar and again it'll
show you how to grow you know, lots of food
at least half of your own food in a backyard
sized space in less than an hour day. And this
is assuming that you have no experience and that you're
(30:16):
older or out of shape. It's a very simple three
part system. And actually you could even do it in
the size of three parking spots if you didn't have
a lot of room, and you can do that. I mean,
if you think about this, it's in your blood, it's
in your genetics throughout all of your lineage. Other than
say the last century, this is what everybody did. Everybody
(30:38):
had a kitchen, garden, everybody had some chickens, you know,
it was that was the part of life. By the way,
with your girls. Traditionally, taking care of the chickens is
children's work, So collecting the eggs and then taking care
of the hens and feeding them and make sure they
got water, and there's these wonderful, wonderful bonds that build
(30:59):
with the chickens and the b and then you know,
giving kids meaningful work these days is a really important thing.
And having them bringing the eggs in that then you
teach them how to cook palm lists, you know, uh,
you know, it's hugely significant that they're contributing to the
family in this way, and it's it's really important to
(31:21):
do that with them as you know.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
As possible, I say before, and that's what we've found
with the girls.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
It's like there's a there's a real pride.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
I mean, I always say anytime you're making something, because
I come from a manufacturing background, anytime you're making something,
there's a real pride in ownership of what you've made.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
You know, like I did that, I contributed.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
And I think that's the same even when it's the
family meal, when the kids, whenever I'm in the kitchen,
the girls are like, what's my job?
Speaker 2 (31:48):
What's my job?
Speaker 1 (31:49):
There's never a time when they are like, Okay, Mom's
making dinner, I'm out of here, which I find fascinating me.
Even in their preteen and teenage years. They're like, what's
my job? What can I do you? And that is
I do think that gives them ownership over the household,
ownership over what they're putting in their bodies, and it
just makes them more conscious of like how food is
(32:11):
made and how what we put inside of ourselves to
fuel ourselves. And it has been fascinating to watch how
they when we did plant the garden last summer, how
they wanted to always say.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
They were like, I'm harvesting.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
I got to go look, mom, the tomatoes are red.
I gotta go harvest them. And there was a joy
in that.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
There is there, really is. I did a serious so
I've been trying to get people to grow food forever
and that was the train that thought that I lost.
But one of the things I did was I found
a bunch of the perception is people the only people
who grow food are people that are absolutely desperate, or
their migrant workers, or it's some horrible thing. And we
get a lot of that quite frankly from the programming. Yeah,
(32:53):
I mean, we're all becoming more and more aware of
what Hollywood and what the music industry actually is. And
if you look every movie you can think of the
farmer's portrade as an idiot or the only people who
are doing this are starving, but nothing actually can be
further from the truth. And so I did a whole
series of podcasts with people who were extremely either wealthy
(33:15):
or well positioned. So like one guy was an executive
for a healthcare company with a division of two thousand people.
Another was a CEO of a high tech company with
twenty five million in a you know, a seed funding,
and you know those kind of people. And the characteristic
that they had in common was they were producing some
part of their own food in their backyard. And I'd
(33:38):
ask them, you know why, you know what? And the
first thing is, these are extremely productive people, and they
have more than enough money to buy anything they want.
They were not doing this for any kind of economic reason.
And most of them said, well, first of all, electronics
and the yard don't mix, so it was great to
get away from my phone and my computer for that
(34:01):
half hour, forty five minutes hour or whatever time it was.
The other thing is they are extremely productive people, so
they still want to be producing something even when they're
in more of a downtime. And growing your own food
fits that bill, you know, And they were so proud.
And of course, when you're at that higher level in something,
(34:21):
you're not producing anything tangible, right, You're right, you know,
there's nothing tangible. So when they had jars of their
own salsa, or you know, three dozen eggs that were
all the different multicolored eggs, or you know, the different
things that they had produced, they were so happy and
proud and they were eating it and they were giving
(34:42):
it to their friends when they came over and it
was you could tell it was you know, they were like, really,
you know, I know, I'm mister big so and so,
but this is the most enjoyable thing than I do
every day, and I wouldn't give it up. So we
have a lot of programming to undo.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah, absolutely, and at the very least do it because
you will be smarter and you'll feel better.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
I mean, honestly, the feeling better.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
I don't think that people even understand how bad they feel.
I always say, it's like when I was pregnant, I
had twins, and right at the end of my pregnancy,
people were like, oh my gosh, how isn't it so hard?
But you gain weight slowly, even though it's quickly in
the amount of time that you're pregnant, you gain weight slowly.
So I thought the whole time, yeah, I'm doing really well.
(35:30):
You know, I've never been on bed rest. I'm going
grocery shopping. I'm totally fine. And then you lose that
weight overnight because you have the babies. And then I
will never forget that first grocery store trip after having babies,
after they were out, because I was.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Like, I can do everything so fast, and I.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Don't think like when you're unhealthy, and not that I
was unhealthy, it's just really heavy. But if I had
been just generally that overweight, I had no idea how
much it was weighing on every part of my body,
you know, And I just think about that that has
stuck with me for all these years because I'm like,
(36:07):
it was such a quick difference, and I could my
ankles felt different, my body moved differently. I mean, obviously
I was like, you know, all off balance with two
people inside me, but it's just like that amount of
weight just being gone, and I just think, when you
look at the stuff, you can be so healthy and
it doesn't have to be something that you're popping a
(36:30):
pill every day. It's something that you feel good about
that you've created and it's from nature. Really quick, before
I let you go, tell us about again where they
can watch that webinar and the book.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Yes, it's a free webinar and it's a Backyard Food
Production dot Com. And I'll show you that very simple
three part system for producing a lot of your own
food in your backyard, even if you have no experience,
you're older, you're out of shape. And of course at
the end of the webinar, I'm going to give you
a pinch. You know, I do as much as I
(37:02):
can for free, and I'm running. You know, it's basically
a nonprofit because we don't ever make any money. But
then I'll make you an offer with the book just
published by a Penguin Random Mass, which is quite a
big coup, and it's called The Growth System, The Essential
Guide to Modern self Sufficiency from growing your own food
to making your own medicine, and includes I have like
(37:22):
twelve common home ailments that you can easily take care of,
just with probably the weeds that are going to grow
up in your gardens. So yeah, Backyard Food Production dot Com.
If nothing else, it'll really inspire you and you go like, oh,
I could do this, I really could. That's the biggest
response I get from a lot of people, like, oh,
(37:45):
you know what, this is not nearly as hard as
I imagined it would be, you know.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
And well you have inspired me. And I think this
is the perfect time for people. It's almost spring. It's
that time when we're starting about rebirth and new things,
and this is the time for everybody to sit down,
read the book and get ready to start their garden
as soon as I mean, it's going to be a
little earlier for some.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
People here in Michigan.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
We don't know when we'll see grass again, but after
all these winter storms are gone, we will.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Oh if I might from Your Girls chapter nine, I
knew that girls and smaller children. In fact, I used
to give that chapter away as a book, and it's
about how I got bit by a copperhead snake and
we treated it at home, and my daughter Kimber at
the time, was pretty primary in helping giving the care.
And kids love that chapter. So if you read a
(38:36):
chapter to them, it will really inspire them. And part
of the reason I was so felt so confident of
treating a snake bite at home, which you know, it's
a potentially fatal bite is because I knew I had
been eating healthy food, and I knew the strength of
my immune system, and I had practiced with these home
medicine techniques. But the kids love that story. In fact,
(38:56):
I used to give that out just a different school
teacher and fourth grade teachers. After a couple of years
they came back and they said, can we get some
more copies because this book is everybody reads this book
every year and it's tattered and we need a new one.
So if I can recommend that, if you to read.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
To your girls, that is amazing. That would I will
do that.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure talking to you.
Everybody check her out. It is Marjorie Wildcraft. We appreciate
you so much.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Thank you, Tutor, appreciate me, let me on absolutely.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Thank you all for joining the Tutor Dixon Podcast. For
this podcast and others, go to Tutor dixonpodcast dot com,
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Podcasts and join us. Next time. Have a blessing.
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Today, we are going
to be talking all things health and that is because
we are suddenly in this new I guess revolution where
we've been talking about what we actually should eat and
what the health factors are and what maybe big food
has been putting in our food that we.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Didn't know about.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
And I think we can all say this is really
thanks to Robert Kennedy Junior. If he hadn't come out
and started talking about this, I don't know that there
were people that were just on the grassroots level that
would have been discussing this. I know that we've seen
this for years from activists, and there needs to be
kind of that light to really ignite the fire behind
(00:44):
the grassroots to say, wait a minute, is this why
we are so unhealthy as a country, Because if you
are paying attention, then you would see that our statistics
compared to the rest of the countries, I mean, the
rest of the western world, we're very unhealthy. Why we
suppose have these great health systems. Well, some people would
say that these are sick systems there where you go
(01:05):
when you get sick. Why are we getting so sick?
Maybe it has to do with what we're putting into
our bodies every day, and I think that might be
what my guest today would say. I have Marjorie Wildcraft
with me. She is the female leader of the survival
and preparedness movement and in two thousand and nine she
founded the Grow network. She's all about growing your own
(01:26):
food and taking care of your body.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Marjorie, thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Ok, thanks for having me on tutor. I really appreciate
the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Well, it's funny because actually an email came in.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
It was like, oh, you know, we want to talk
about this amazing woman.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
She's all about taking care of the earth and taking
care of your body. And I was like, this is
what I need to know.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
I a few months back somebody was selling like these
hydroponic grow you could grow your own food in your kitchen,
And honestly, I looked at it and I'm like, this
is what I want to do, But I have no
idea with a family of how do I How could
I grow enough out of the stick in my kitchen?
You know, I mean for someone who hasn't done this,
(02:06):
you look at it, You're like this seems overwhelming.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
I agree, and getting started is probably the hardest part
of the process. And no, you're not going to be
able to grow the food for six people in small
device in your kitchen, regardless of what the marketing says.
But if you have an average subourbon backyard, you know,
a quarter acre lot, you absolutely can grow a huge amount.
You know, I would say you could grow at least
(02:29):
half And I've done it year after year, and I've
taught a lot of people how to do it, and
I recommend getting started small. So and if it's winter
and that's what you got, you know, that's a great
place to start, like, no doubt, right, And I think
there is a place for that. But ultimately, yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
It makes no sense to me because I think winter
is when I should just be like sitting in my
kitchen with a tub of ice cream, ignoring growing, which
sounds terrible. So how do I I look outside, everything's white,
How can I possibly be growing something?
Speaker 3 (03:02):
Well, you know, honestly, the best thing that I recommend
for people to start, and especially if you're one of
those people that think you have a black thumb, is
to get a couple of potted plant herbs, you know,
like basil, mint, chives, rosemary. Now these plants are bulletproof,
which means they're really hard to kill. You can kill them,
(03:23):
but they're really hard. And all you really need is
a sunny window. Sell and get one with as big
a pot as you can get, because if you get
a little pot, it doesn't have much soil in it,
and the more soil you have in there, the more
it will retain moisture and be forgiving for your erratic
watering schedule. And you know, just three or four of
(03:44):
these plants in the windowsill, and I'm going to tell
you, you know, there's a reason that they charge like six
dollars for that little packet of basil. It's because when
you add a little bit of fresh herb on a dish,
it's unbelievable how much changes that, like your spaghetti and sauce,
right your normal stuff. Your families used to. You put
(04:04):
a little bit of frustraisal on there, and they're going
to think you have a whole new recipe. And it's incredible.
The power of herb is incredible. And I've had a
lot of people get started just with growing a few herbs.
Here's the really good thing about it. Everything you learn
from those three or four plants in that windowsill, Like
if they don't get enough sunlight, they tend to get
(04:25):
real light green and get what we call leggy. They
try growing up and up and up because you're looking
for sunlight. Or if they get too dry, then their
little leaves start turning brown on the edges and then eventually,
you know, they die. Or if you jacket up with nitrogen,
they'll turn like bright yellow or orange. You know, don't
do any synthetic fertilizers, please, but everything you learn from
(04:49):
those plants are going to be the same way that
those plants will behave when you do have your garden outside,
whether it's a little four by four bed or whether
you're managing acres as and don't tell me, oh, I'm
never going to be managing acres of crops, because we
right now are living in an incredible vortex of change,
(05:09):
and you have no idea what you're going to be
doing next year, five years, ten years down the road.
So one thing you will be involved with is growing
some of your own food, because we're past that point
where it's an absolute necessity.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
I just frequently feel like you were reading my mind
just now, because you're like, you can get these and
then they'll live with your erratic watering schedule.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
I'm like, oh, how does she know that about me?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
And then you said that about the crops, and you're like,
don't say you're never going to do it, because instantly
in my head, I'm like, oh, that's not me. But
I don't know, because honestly, life is changing, and I
do think that as I've seen having kids changes you.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, really in so many ways.
Speaker 1 (05:54):
Because you watch what you put into your child's body
and how it affects your child. And I think you know,
as adults, we can kind of mask how different foods
affect us, even though we may be feeling, you know,
sad or sluggish or angry or anxious.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
We can mask that.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
But I can see when I feed my kids certain
foods how they react. And we've had in our family
all of the food dyes that are in our foods,
which are just toxic in my opinion, How are total
behavior changes total behavior changes when they go into our kids' bodies.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Yeah, I used to My kids would go off to
the grandparents for the weekend, and I loved it because
we got a break, but I hated it because they
would come jacked up with sugar and god knows what,
you know, would take a week to kind of get
them to calm down again.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
A couple of hot times to say. When you started this, well.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
Pretty much like most women, you know, right when I
was getting pregnant and starting to we had I had
two they're now twenty three and twenty five. And you
start getting very, very interested in nutrition and health most
most women and do it. I mean, it's always been
a part of our makeup, but you really start focusing
on it when you have kids and it's so vital.
(07:09):
There's a wonderful chart, it's actually in my book that
shows that over the years from you know, the nineteen hundred,
and this is data from the USDA. It's not anything
I've made up. The nutrition in the food has just
gone down to absolutely nothing. As of like two thousand,
there was no nutrition in the food supply at all,
and yet the rates of diseases are absolutely skyrocketing. They
(07:31):
also correlate their things like life essay and artificial fertilizers
and that kind of thing, which has helped it. In fact,
the disease thing is going so high off the chart,
it's basically they cut the chart off it's very simple.
On the physical level. There are two causes for disease,
and one is malnutrition and the other is toxicity. And
(07:56):
we know malnutrition is common sense, right. You know, if
you don't have vitamin C, survy, if you don't have
vitamin B, then you get peleegra. If you don't have
enough vitamin D, oh my god, there's a whole gamut
of things that can go wrong. So it's pretty simple
in that way, and you really do and there is nothing.
One example is, so I'm sixty two and when my
(08:17):
mom gave me a carrot for a snack, well for me,
then this is like twenty years ago for me to
give my kids the equivalent amount of nutrition, I would
have to give them on eleven carrots.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Why wait what?
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Okay, I was thinking there was limited nutrition in you know,
the cereal and the processed food that we're getting. You're
talking about the actual vegetables and fruits and everything.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Yeah, it's right. Yeah, because the soils are depleted, so
most of our agriculture is growing in the same place,
and they only really focus on three nutrients, which is nitrogen, phosphorus,
and potassium, the big three that makes most plants throw,
but plants need I don't know, some ninety plus nutrients,
and some of them in very trace amounts. But if
(09:06):
you keep growing and growing and growing in that same place,
eventually all those minerals are gone except for the nitrogen, potassium,
and phosphorus, and that's what gets produced. And then so
these plants are devoid of any significant nutrition. I believe
that that's why, I don't know how big is the
supplement industry now is like huge, several hundred billion dollars,
(09:27):
And it's because people are realizing that there is no
nutrition in the food. But you can correct that fairly easily,
and really growing your own food, I believe, is an
absolute necessity. And what you grow in your backyard, you
can absolutely have nutrient dense, rich, fertile soil where you're pulling,
(09:49):
you know your plants are full of nutrients and vitality.
I can give you one example of it in my
own experience. When I first started by the way, I
did not grow up learning any of this stuff. Like
my first degree was an engineer. But when I had
decided to start growing food and we picked out a
piece of land, it was just nothing but sand and
(10:09):
I didn't know how important soil was. He So I,
you know, read the packet, broccoli plant the siege water
come back in three months, and you got your broccoli, right,
And broccoli is supposed to be a plant that's pretty
cold hardy. You know, if we have a cold snap
or even a freeze, it's supposed to do well. Now,
one other piece to this story is I'm a native
(10:32):
Floridian and for most of my life, if it got
below seventy degrees, I'm grabbing a jacket. Right. I was
always very very you being up and you're in Michigan,
you probably are laughing at this, but right, but you know,
I mean I just really was very very cold sensitive.
So anyways, I'm growing this broccoli and it dies and
(10:52):
and I'm like why, And so I go do what
you should do. Is I'm going through the neighborhood and
my friend Brandon was like the most amazing gardener ever.
And I'm like Brandon and his broccoli had gone through
the same freeze and it was like woo, not felt good,
you know, And I'm like, what is the difference? And
Brandon is he also happened to be a farrier and
(11:15):
he was gardening in, you know, like two feet of
composted horse maneuver and just really really rich fertile soil.
So his plants had all the minerals and nutrients and
everything that they could possibly want. So, you know, I
start building up my soil and having really rich, vital soil.
By the way, that is the secret to a green
(11:36):
thumb is having really good soil. Most of us think
of soil as don't get that in the house, you know,
like it's just dirt, right, you know, but soil is
so vital for the plants. So anyway, after a couple
of years of growing in really fertile soil, and I
was kind of shocked. And another thing, my homeschooled my daughter,
(11:57):
and we used to love to go to Idaho in
September to go to these primitive skills gatherings. It's just
a fun, fun thing to do. And it was such
a harsh transition because I'm going from Texas, which was
often one hundred degrees in the day and cooling down
to ninety at night, and then going to Idaho where
there'd be you know, you'd be crunching through the grass
(12:18):
in the morning with the frost, and one morning I
noticed I was going to get coffee with everybody else,
and I was barefoot, and I had a light jacket
on in a beanie and a pair of jeans, and
I've said wow. And my friend Janet was bundled up
to the Max boots, scarf, thick jacket and everything like that,
(12:40):
and We're both holding our steaming cups of coffee, and
I'm like, oh, my goodness, my cold tolerance has improved dramatically.
And I directly correlated that eating food for a couple
of years that was grown in really nutrient dense soil,
and my broccoli loved being right. And I'm eating these
(13:01):
foods that are extremely tolerant to all kinds of ranges,
and I became extremely tolerant to all kinds of ranges.
So the old saying you are what you eat, yeah,
it's a real deal.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
I guess.
Speaker 3 (13:14):
So.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
I mean you talked about disease and how much chronic
disease we have. Obviously we've seen a major uptick in
cancers and gastrointestinal cancers especially, which people are saying, well,
this is where all the food is landing and being processed,
and that's probably because the food is not good. That
we're ending up with these toxic cancers. But I wanted
(13:40):
to ask you. I mean, you've kind of come out
and said, well, you don't really believe that we should
be on excess pharmaceuticals, and I think that right now.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Well, I'll tell you.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
I was at a conference not too long ago and
a guy came up to me and was like, Hey,
I'm working with a group who can get free pharmaceuticals
to anybody in the country. And I was wondering if
you want to join, and I said, you know, that's
not really my thing, so I don't think so. And
I said, he was like, well, you might be wondering.
Speaker 2 (14:08):
How it works.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
The pharmaceutical companies will give them to you free because
they want everyone in the household to be on a
pharmaceutical and they figure if you get some people on
for free, eventually everybody will be on a pharmaceutical. That
I get it as from a marketing standpoint, this is
what you make, and just like I would if I
made I don't know, if I made muffins and I
(14:29):
wanted everybody to eat my muffins, I would market to everybody, right,
I'd try to get everybody in the house eating my
muffins similar situation to having.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
A pharmaceutical that's what they want to do.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
I would say, as human beings, our goals should be
to try to have as few drugs in our system
as possible. And I have seen so many quick fixes
to taking care of your body with pharmaceuticals. I mean,
obviously we can talk about the ozempic, but even from
the the standpoint of parenting, I was talking to my
(15:02):
girls about this just yesterday. Actually, they were going through
all the kids in their class who are, well, she's ADHD,
and this person suffers from anxiety, and this person suffers
from depression. And all these kids have to go to
the office and take their medicines during the day. And
I believe that in many of those cases, changing their
(15:24):
diets would change that.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
I totally agree with that one hundred percent. There's numerous
numerous studies on school children when they eat a higher
quality diet. First of all, they score higher on intelligence
tests if you have higher quality food. The other thing
is they have way less behavioral problems, and of course
(15:46):
you have less health problems because you're meeting the fundamental
need of the body, which is nutrition, vibrant, living foods,
and I'm so glad you're getting tired of quick fixes.
I mean, that's the American motto, like give me a pill,
you know, growing your own food, which is something that
is basically what we've done forever until the last you know,
(16:07):
fifty years or so. And you know, your great grandparents
they never went to doctors hardly.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
Ever, let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next
on a Tutor Dixon podcast. I lost my dad two
years ago to pancreatic cancer, and I look at my grandparents.
I mean, my dad's grandfather lived into me going to college.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
He was ninety eight years old.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
You know, I look at the fact that the people
in past generations have lived past my parents. You know,
my father have lived past even his parents, like the
grandparents lived beyond. How is this happening that our lifespans
are getting shorter? That to me is very disturbing. And
my grandparents were on multiple medications for heart you know,
(16:56):
for blood pressure and everything else.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Everything you can be on.
Speaker 1 (16:59):
It was like the stat and this that everything you
can be on. And I'm not saying that there are
times when people don't have to be on medication, you know,
there are certainly, but it does seem like we've become
a very sick society.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
And I so let me ask you this.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
One of the things that we keep hearing about is
making sure that kids have free breakfast in lunch in
school because they don't have you know, a lot of
these kids don't have the ability to get breakfast in
lunch at home. But if we're putting and Michelle Obama
was famous for saying we wanted to have healthy lunches,
but then when we pilled back the layer of the
onions there, and I don't believe, like I'm not blaming her.
(17:39):
I think that school systems, they would find the best
price and then they get whatever that consists of a meal.
What would you say if you could get public schools
to have a snack time? Like, what would those snacks
be if you could bring in fresh food for kids?
Speaker 3 (17:58):
Well, that's actually how I got into this whole thing.
So my first degree is an electrical engineering and I
worked for quite a few years in that industry. I'd
grown up in a fairly poor family, so I was
always interested in money. I'd become a section manager of
engineering as an expat for Motorola in Hong Kong and
Hong Kong is a place full of people who are
(18:20):
interested in money, and the Hong Kong Chinese and the
guys that worked for me said, hey, Marjorie, you should
we know you're interested in that. You should go listen
to this guy Robert who has this course. So I
went to this guy Robert's course, and he had these
mind blowing ideas and it eventually inspired me enough to
leave engineering create a very successful real estate investment business
(18:45):
that was so successful that Robert came back to me
and said, would you be the lead testimonial on some
of my infomercials? And that's how for four years I
was promoting Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad products and
had a tremendous amount of success. By the time I
was forty, I'd already made my first million. I was
looking at making more, and I was volunteering at a
(19:06):
local elementary school to get locally grown organic food into
the elementary school. And I was working with Steve Bridges,
who at the time was the president of the Texas
Organic Farmers and Gardeners Market Association, and we thought what
we would do is we'd get this going and then
we would just duplicate it throughout Texas, right, which makes
a lot of sense. We would love to have organic
(19:27):
food into the school system. And that project was a
complete and utter failure. It completely changed my life, and
that's how I got into growing food, because I'll never
forget that final meeting when the whole thing completely collapsed
and I had organized. We were working in Red Rock,
Texas to get this little elementary school going, and we
(19:48):
were putting pen to paper on who would be the
farmers to provide the stuff to the schools. And there
were not enough organic farmers, small, organic farmers, big, or
for any kind of organic farmers in all of Bastrop
County to provide even part of the vegetables for one
small rural elementary school. Wow, and Texas has some big
(20:13):
counties and Steve once people heard about this project, people
kept hitting Steve up and saying, well, we want that
Nar county, we want that Nar county. And there were
not enough organic farmers in all of Texas to provide
anything near the amount it was poultry. I mean, the
people in Dallas nothing there for it work, you know.
(20:33):
And Bastrop, by the way, is right outside of Austin.
Supposedly fairly progressive area, and for me personally, I could
not stop shaking that night. Actually, I had organized the
community center where we're meeting, and you know, I'm trying
to put the chair under the table. I mean I'm
physically shaking. Everybody just sort of wandered off because we
(20:56):
knew the project was dead. But I knew there was
only four day is worth food in the grocery stores.
There are no big inventories. It's all adjusting time system
and on averager food gets delivered to you about fifteen
hundred miles. And I knew that at that time, I
was surrounded by about twenty million Texans who are all
armed to the teeth. And when they say there's only
(21:18):
we're only nine meals away from anarchy. I realized it
in that moment that night, and for years afterward, I
had night sweats and panic attacks, and I had too
small what do you do?
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Because you think we have a food security issue?
Speaker 3 (21:34):
We have a ginormous food security issue. And I realized then,
you know, I had been focusing on making wealth right
and making money, and I realized, you know, there's a
lot of people who know how to make money, and
I had definitely demonstrated then I knew how to make money.
There's hardly anybody who knows how to grow food, and
there are definitely scenarios where no amount of money is
(21:56):
going to buy you food for your kids. I said,
I just I've got to learn how to grow food,
and I've got to teach other people how to grow food,
and we have to completely rebuild the entire food supply
from the ground up. So, you know, bless his heart,
Willie Nelson, with all the small farm made concerts, it
(22:16):
didn't it didn't work. You know, most of those small
farms all have all gone out of business. Now we've
since then.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
You're giving me chills because this is something that we've
talked about in the state of Michigan. And I think
that one of the things that you probably don't even
see is the amount of overreach that has happened from
these bureaucracies that come in and try to shut down
the small family farm. You know, you've got you've got
these big food companies that have lobbyists and they have
(22:45):
a way to get We have no local slaughterhouses. We
have family farms shutting down. I've been saying this for years,
like when are we going to pay attention to what
is happening there is not. I mean, we are selling
off farmland to create solar And it's not to say
that renewable energy isn't important. It's to say, wait a minute,
(23:07):
this is not These are two things that are not
mutually exclusive. You can't have one and say, well, food's
not that important. We have to still have the family farm.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
Yeah, they shut off water to five hundred thousand acres
of potatoes last year in Idaho because they want to
build a data center and they needed that water. Now,
there was enough of an uproar that after a week
or two, you know, the water got back turned on.
But do you think that's not going to stop. You
know that's not going to stop.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
You talked about the seventies before we got on, and honestly,
a few weeks ago, we have a factory that is
coming into the state of Michigan, going right on the watershed.
This is planning to take seven hundred thousand gallons of
water a day there and they'll be running forever chemicals
through this factory. And I'm like, where do the seven
(23:57):
hundred thousand gallons go once they're processed?
Speaker 2 (24:00):
Every day? And I immediately.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Thought about my childhood and I'm like, I feel like
I've become one of those people that's going to go,
you know, tie myself to.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
The tree, you know, and say what are we doing?
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Stop?
Speaker 1 (24:12):
And when I was a kid, I was like, what
are these people doing?
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Why do they why do they think they can fight this?
And now I'm like, I get it. It was because
it's the future.
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Well here's here's the thing that is the saving grace
for this. So yes, I had a horrific time. And
by the way, this was the early two thousands, and
everybody thought I was crazy, you know. And after a
while I was talking about it to people and we
were like, no longer. I'm married into a big Texas family.
And after a while we were like not being invited
(24:45):
to events, and I mean there was a shunning, right,
But I just said, I know what I know, and
I'm going to do this. But here is a saving
grace is when you first of all, it doesn't it
doesn't take that much space. Really, in a backyard sized space,
you can grow a huge amount of food. And I
have a very simple system that I've developed where somebody
(25:06):
who doesn't know anything, maybe they're older, or they're out
of shape. They can be producing a lot of food
in their backyard at least half and it's very simple.
It's easy to do. I've cherry picked of the hundreds
of ways to grow food. I've cherry picked the three
easiest and fastest that anybody can do. The other thing
(25:27):
is is by doing this for myself, I have been
healed on every single level that you can imagine physically,
no more allergies. You know, my energy levels are amazing,
My body is extremely healthy. I train in jiu jitsu
and everybody can't believe, like, oh my god, you're sixty
two and you just submitted that guy over there who's
(25:49):
thirty and muscle bound. I'm like yeah, yeah. Emotionally, you know,
I was not concerned during the twenty ten era or
even in the twenty twenty when all the grocery stores
were closed, like I know how to provide my own
basic needs for myself and my family. Again, mentally, you
(26:12):
are smarter when you eatigh quality food. As Again, there's
reams and realms of studies that demonstrate that that when
you're eating really nutrient dense food, you are more intelligent.
They just have tons of intelligence and then spiritually, you know,
you're working with your hands with forces of creation, and
(26:32):
regardless of what religious or spiritual tradition you're from, you
will start to have magical things happen. It's unbelievable how
wonderful it gets to be, so really every level that
I can imagine that you can imagine all the Maslow's
hierarchy of needs. By simply growing, you know, some of
your food in your backyard will heal you on so
(26:56):
many ways. It's incredible. And the other really saving grace
in this is and I hear you about the whole thing.
I know, I never wanted to be one of those
that chained myself to a tree, but I really like,
so what can I do? I can teach people how
to grow food in their backyard is my activism. But
the saving grace in all of this is, in order
(27:17):
to provide your basic needs for yourself, you do not
need a military, industrial and governmental complex to feed you.
Speaker 1 (27:24):
Yeah, that's what we're missing. I mean we really for
so long we've believed that we need that.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
Exactly, And you say, when will people do it? And
I've been asking that myself for years, for decades, because
I know this is my magging mission. I want to
get people to grow more food. And it's the solution
to so many things, you know, like what, And it's
really the most pleasurable half an hour a day that
you'll spend or hour a day that you'll spend in
your backyard with your plants and your chickens and doing
(27:55):
your thing.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
I mean, really, let's take a quick commercial break. We'll
continue next on the Tutor Dixon pot cast. I'm a
visual learner and I know you have a book and
I want to talk about the book too, but you
have a DVD also and the DVD. I'm like, oh,
you have a DVD series about growing here, and there's
the book The Grossest.
Speaker 3 (28:16):
My publisher like, like, they would kill me if I
didn't get on and push them.
Speaker 2 (28:18):
We'll put that.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Well, we'll connect that too so people can see where
it is. So you have the book, you have the
DVD series.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
What tell us a.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
Little bit about that so people, because it does sound overwhelming.
I mean over the summer, I was like, Okay, I'm
going to try to start this. And we put out
some tomatoes, and we put out some strawberries and the
girls were planting some cucumbers and pumpkins and things like that,
and we were we're working. So even getting the girls.
I have four girls, so even getting them involved, I've
(28:47):
been trying to push them and you know, we start
with flowers and then we moved onto vegetables and fruits.
Speaker 2 (28:54):
And and we've and we have I have one.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
That loves plants. She's like the plant kit. She takes
care of all the plants in the house. And she
seems to have figured that out. But it is I
mean I think that that's it seems overwhelming. But even
starting small was really fun.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
With the kids.
Speaker 3 (29:11):
Yeah, well, yes I did. I actually was. In two
thousand and nine, I created this whole video series on
you know, food production systems for a backyard or small farm,
a total engineering title which has absolutely no sex in
the marketing at all. But it went viral. I mean
this is early internet days, and like almost a million
(29:34):
downloads on that thing, and I was just giving it
away for free. Missed a huge marketing and business opportunity.
But that's another conversation since then. And the feedback I
got from that was it was like overwhelming, for it
was too much. I wish there's any rainwater collection systems
and you know, some all kinds of things that it
was too much, and so since then I've simplified it,
(29:56):
and anybody who wants to watch it, it's a free
webinar at back Yardfood Production dot com. That's Backyardfood Production
dot com and it's a free webinar and again it'll
show you how to grow you know, lots of food
at least half of your own food in a backyard
sized space in less than an hour day. And this
is assuming that you have no experience and that you're
(30:16):
older or out of shape. It's a very simple three
part system. And actually you could even do it in
the size of three parking spots if you didn't have
a lot of room, and you can do that. I mean,
if you think about this, it's in your blood, it's
in your genetics throughout all of your lineage. Other than
say the last century, this is what everybody did. Everybody
(30:38):
had a kitchen, garden, everybody had some chickens, you know,
it was that was the part of life. By the way,
with your girls. Traditionally, taking care of the chickens is
children's work, So collecting the eggs and then taking care
of the hens and feeding them and make sure they
got water, and there's these wonderful, wonderful bonds that build
(30:59):
with the chickens and the b and then you know,
giving kids meaningful work these days is a really important thing.
And having them bringing the eggs in that then you
teach them how to cook palm lists, you know, uh,
you know, it's hugely significant that they're contributing to the
family in this way, and it's it's really important to
(31:21):
do that with them as you know.
Speaker 1 (31:22):
As possible, I say before, and that's what we've found
with the girls.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
It's like there's a there's a real pride.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
I mean, I always say anytime you're making something, because
I come from a manufacturing background, anytime you're making something,
there's a real pride in ownership of what you've made.
Speaker 2 (31:39):
You know, like I did that, I contributed.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
And I think that's the same even when it's the
family meal, when the kids, whenever I'm in the kitchen,
the girls are like, what's my job?
Speaker 2 (31:48):
What's my job?
Speaker 1 (31:49):
There's never a time when they are like, Okay, Mom's
making dinner, I'm out of here, which I find fascinating me.
Even in their preteen and teenage years. They're like, what's
my job? What can I do you? And that is
I do think that gives them ownership over the household,
ownership over what they're putting in their bodies, and it
just makes them more conscious of like how food is
(32:11):
made and how what we put inside of ourselves to
fuel ourselves. And it has been fascinating to watch how
they when we did plant the garden last summer, how
they wanted to always say.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
They were like, I'm harvesting.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
I got to go look, mom, the tomatoes are red.
I gotta go harvest them. And there was a joy
in that.
Speaker 3 (32:31):
There is there, really is. I did a serious so
I've been trying to get people to grow food forever
and that was the train that thought that I lost.
But one of the things I did was I found
a bunch of the perception is people the only people
who grow food are people that are absolutely desperate, or
their migrant workers, or it's some horrible thing. And we
get a lot of that quite frankly from the programming. Yeah,
(32:53):
I mean, we're all becoming more and more aware of
what Hollywood and what the music industry actually is. And
if you look every movie you can think of the
farmer's portrade as an idiot or the only people who
are doing this are starving, but nothing actually can be
further from the truth. And so I did a whole
series of podcasts with people who were extremely either wealthy
(33:15):
or well positioned. So like one guy was an executive
for a healthcare company with a division of two thousand people.
Another was a CEO of a high tech company with
twenty five million in a you know, a seed funding,
and you know those kind of people. And the characteristic
that they had in common was they were producing some
part of their own food in their backyard. And I'd
(33:38):
ask them, you know why, you know what? And the
first thing is, these are extremely productive people, and they
have more than enough money to buy anything they want.
They were not doing this for any kind of economic reason.
And most of them said, well, first of all, electronics
and the yard don't mix, so it was great to
get away from my phone and my computer for that
(34:01):
half hour, forty five minutes hour or whatever time it was.
The other thing is they are extremely productive people, so
they still want to be producing something even when they're
in more of a downtime. And growing your own food
fits that bill, you know, And they were so proud.
And of course, when you're at that higher level in something,
(34:21):
you're not producing anything tangible, right, You're right, you know,
there's nothing tangible. So when they had jars of their
own salsa, or you know, three dozen eggs that were
all the different multicolored eggs, or you know, the different
things that they had produced, they were so happy and
proud and they were eating it and they were giving
(34:42):
it to their friends when they came over and it
was you could tell it was you know, they were like, really,
you know, I know, I'm mister big so and so,
but this is the most enjoyable thing than I do
every day, and I wouldn't give it up. So we
have a lot of programming to undo.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah, absolutely, and at the very least do it because
you will be smarter and you'll feel better.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
I mean, honestly, the feeling better.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
I don't think that people even understand how bad they feel.
I always say, it's like when I was pregnant, I
had twins, and right at the end of my pregnancy,
people were like, oh my gosh, how isn't it so hard?
But you gain weight slowly, even though it's quickly in
the amount of time that you're pregnant, you gain weight slowly.
So I thought the whole time, yeah, I'm doing really well.
(35:30):
You know, I've never been on bed rest. I'm going
grocery shopping. I'm totally fine. And then you lose that
weight overnight because you have the babies. And then I
will never forget that first grocery store trip after having babies,
after they were out, because I was.
Speaker 2 (35:44):
Like, I can do everything so fast, and I.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Don't think like when you're unhealthy, and not that I
was unhealthy, it's just really heavy. But if I had
been just generally that overweight, I had no idea how
much it was weighing on every part of my body,
you know, And I just think about that that has
stuck with me for all these years because I'm like,
(36:07):
it was such a quick difference, and I could my
ankles felt different, my body moved differently. I mean, obviously
I was like, you know, all off balance with two
people inside me, but it's just like that amount of
weight just being gone, and I just think, when you
look at the stuff, you can be so healthy and
it doesn't have to be something that you're popping a
(36:30):
pill every day. It's something that you feel good about
that you've created and it's from nature. Really quick, before
I let you go, tell us about again where they
can watch that webinar and the book.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Yes, it's a free webinar and it's a Backyard Food
Production dot Com. And I'll show you that very simple
three part system for producing a lot of your own
food in your backyard, even if you have no experience,
you're older, you're out of shape. And of course at
the end of the webinar, I'm going to give you
a pinch. You know, I do as much as I
(37:02):
can for free, and I'm running. You know, it's basically
a nonprofit because we don't ever make any money. But
then I'll make you an offer with the book just
published by a Penguin Random Mass, which is quite a
big coup, and it's called The Growth System, The Essential
Guide to Modern self Sufficiency from growing your own food
to making your own medicine, and includes I have like
(37:22):
twelve common home ailments that you can easily take care of,
just with probably the weeds that are going to grow
up in your gardens. So yeah, Backyard Food Production dot Com.
If nothing else, it'll really inspire you and you go like, oh,
I could do this, I really could. That's the biggest
response I get from a lot of people, like, oh,
(37:45):
you know what, this is not nearly as hard as
I imagined it would be, you know.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
And well you have inspired me. And I think this
is the perfect time for people. It's almost spring. It's
that time when we're starting about rebirth and new things,
and this is the time for everybody to sit down,
read the book and get ready to start their garden
as soon as I mean, it's going to be a
little earlier for some.
Speaker 2 (38:07):
People here in Michigan.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
We don't know when we'll see grass again, but after
all these winter storms are gone, we will.
Speaker 3 (38:13):
Oh if I might from Your Girls chapter nine, I
knew that girls and smaller children. In fact, I used
to give that chapter away as a book, and it's
about how I got bit by a copperhead snake and
we treated it at home, and my daughter Kimber at
the time, was pretty primary in helping giving the care.
And kids love that chapter. So if you read a
(38:36):
chapter to them, it will really inspire them. And part
of the reason I was so felt so confident of
treating a snake bite at home, which you know, it's
a potentially fatal bite is because I knew I had
been eating healthy food, and I knew the strength of
my immune system, and I had practiced with these home
medicine techniques. But the kids love that story. In fact,
(38:56):
I used to give that out just a different school
teacher and fourth grade teachers. After a couple of years
they came back and they said, can we get some
more copies because this book is everybody reads this book
every year and it's tattered and we need a new one.
So if I can recommend that, if you to read.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
To your girls, that is amazing. That would I will
do that.
Speaker 1 (39:18):
Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure talking to you.
Everybody check her out. It is Marjorie Wildcraft. We appreciate
you so much.
Speaker 3 (39:25):
Thank you, Tutor, appreciate me, let me on absolutely.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
Thank you all for joining the Tutor Dixon Podcast. For
this podcast and others, go to Tutor dixonpodcast dot com,
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Podcasts and join us. Next time. Have a blessing.
Host
Tudor Dixon
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