September 3, 2025 • 54 mins
Discover the powerful connection between the health of our soil and our own well-being as Merry and Cathy sit down with Louis De Jaeger, a visionary soil preservationist and environmental designer. Inspired by his grandmothers, Louis has dedicated his life to regenerative agriculture and designing systems that heal the planet. From how our food choices impact our health to the critical role trees play in fighting climate change, this conversation will inspire you to see the ground beneath your feet in a whole new way. Thank you and have a terrific holiday!
Louis De Jaeger's Bio:
Louis De Jaeger is a visionary on a mission to impact our world profoundly. Three primary objectives guide his life's purpose: regenerate, inspire, and celebrate. He endeavors to rejuvenate vast expanses of land, ignite inspiration in countless individuals, and infuse every endeavor with a joyful spirit and gratefulness. He firmly believes that transitions should be as enjoyable as they are meaningful. A prolific author, Louis has penned two enlightening books that explore the future of agriculture & food and the wonders of food forests. He is a driving force behind various impactful campaigns, exemplifying his commitment to creating positive change. He founded and is CEO of Commensalist, a distinguished landscape architecture firm. Through Commensalist, Louis and his team embark on awe-inspiring journeys, transforming ambitious projects spanning an impressive 1.500 hectares across diverse global locations. Beyond the written word and architectural innovations, Louis is an award-winning filmmaker dedicated to raising awareness about sustainability and our planet's future. His latest documentary, "Eat More Trees," introduces the world to the enchanting realm of the food tree. Louis De Jaeger is resolute and unwavering in all his endeavors. He is driven by a passion for advocating for sustainability and bringing its magic to life. Through his diverse talents and indomitable spirit, he invites us all to join him on this extraordinary journey of regeneration, inspiration, and pure enjoyment as an international keynote speaker.
Connect with Louis:
Book: SOS: Save Our Soils - https://www.amazon.com/SOS-regenerative-farming-health-planet/dp/B0FF3R1NKK
Website: www.louisdj.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@commensalistfutureprooflan1860
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/foodforestinstitute
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/louis.de.jaeger
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@louis.dejaeger
X: https://x.com/LouCommensalist
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/louisdejaeger/
Threads: https://www.threads.com/@louis.de.jaeger
Thank you for listening. Please check out @lateboomers on Instagram and our website lateboomers.us. If you enjoyed this podcast and would like to watch it or listen to more of our episodes, you will find Late Boomers on your favorite podcast platform and on our new YouTube Late Boomers Podcast Channel. We hope we have inspired you and we look forward to your becoming a member of our Late Boomers family of subscribers.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Merry (00:01):
This is the EWN Podcast Network.
Cathy (00:14):
Welcome to late boomers, our podcast guide to creating
your third act with style,power, and impact. Hi. I'm Cathy
Worthington.
Merry (00:24):
And I'm Merry Elkins. Join us as we bring you
conversations withentrepreneurs, entertainers, and
people with vision who aremaking a difference in the
world.
Cathy (00:34):
Everyone has a story, and we'll take you along for the
ride on each interview,recounting the journey our
guests have taken to get wherethey are, inspiring you to
create your own path to success.Let's get started.
Welcome back to another episode of late boomers. I'm
(00:55):
Cathy Worthington.
Merry (00:56):
And I'm Merry Elkins. Today, we're diving into a topic
that's crucial, not just for us,but for our planet and future
generations.
Cathy (01:05):
We'll be speaking with Louis de Jager, a renowned soil
preservationist andenvironmental designer. He
brings invaluable insights onhow health impacts everything
from our food systems soilhealth I'm sorry. Soil health
impacts everything from our foodsystems to climate change.
Merry (01:26):
That's right. And this is our chance, boomers and
everyone, to understand how ourchoices affect our environment.
Sustainable practices can leadto a healthier planet for your
kids, your grandkids, and reallyfor the future.
Cathy (01:41):
And it's not just about awareness, it's about action.
Louie will share practical stepswe can all take to contribute to
soil preservation.
Merry (01:50):
So tune in and let's explore how we can make a real
difference together. You don'twant to miss this one.
Cathy (01:57):
And stay with us for an enlightening discussion that
could change the way you thinkabout the ground beneath your
feet. And be sure to subscribeto our Late Boomers podcast on
YouTube.
Merry (02:08):
So welcome to Late Boomers' Louis de Jager.
Louis De Jaeger (02:13):
Hey. Super happy to be here in LA with you
guys.
Cathy (02:16):
So great. Even though you're in Belgium.
Merry (02:19):
Exactly. And it's a different time zone.
Cathy (02:24):
Yeah. How did your interest in saving our soil and
regenerating more than a billionacres of land come about?
Louis De Jaeger (02:32):
Well, I think I I was inspired a lot about my
two grandmothers who weredaughters of farmers who grew up
on the land, who worked theland, and they always told me
stories about the farm, how niceit was, but also how they had to
fled to the city because therewas no future in farming. There
was this thing going on in thefarming world where they said
(02:54):
you have to get big or get out.What happened in America as
well, also happened in Belgium.And for some reason it always
stuck with me, like one of mygrandmothers, she's like a
really bon vivant person wholikes to eat well and she
doesn't really care about theenvironment too much, and my
other grandmother is really theopposite. She like only buys
(03:14):
organic, she's very strict aboutit, we often call her the
organic dictator just to lovewith her, we love her, of
course.
And yeah. So so those two worldsreally interested me. And and
also maybe a bit selfish reason,I was standing in a supermarket,
and I had these two two tomatoesin my hand. And I was, like,
(03:37):
wondering, yeah. Well, this oneis organic and costs, like, half
a dollar more, and this one isnot organic.
So why would I need to buy theorganic one? They look exactly
the same. What's the difference,and why should I care? And
instinctively, we all heard thestory of Snow White that you
shouldn't get, an apple that'sbeen poisoned and eat it. We
know that.
We tell our children that story.Don't eat the poisonous apple.
(04:01):
But we're every doing day. Likeapples, for example, they have
up to 25 different residues ofpesticides on them. And these
cocktail effects, they're reallynot good for your body.
And so what defines healthy andgood food? It's a good soil, and
it's something that's whetheryou're a billionaire or living
in a trailer, we all have toeat, and we all depend on that
(04:26):
same soil. So it's somethingthat unites us all.
Merry (04:29):
So it was really just your grandmother's that got you
into it. Did you did you plan togo into that?
Louis De Jaeger (04:37):
Well, my mother taught me how to garden and I
really loved that. And when Iwas like fifteen-sixteen years
old, I really wanted to quitschool. I hated it, I felt that
I was trapped, I feltimprisoned. And I said, look, I
don't want to work because whygo to work if you plant your
(04:59):
food, then you don't have to goto work to make money to buy
food. Let's just skip the go towork part and get money part to
buy food part and just grow yourown foods.
So that was one of my firstexperiments, and I I I made this
huge vegetable garden. But then,of course, you have to wait. And
then my mother, she was like,she's a good trickster, and she
(05:20):
was like, okay, Louis, you can,like, quit school, but you have
to do something, likeconstructive. And I like didn't
really know what to do, so Iwent to school anyway and
finished it. But but but thisway I really started to to grow
my my vegetable garden.
And and so when I was 18 yearsold, I I really never wanted
back to go back to school again.I I I wanted to be free. I I
(05:42):
came to you guys, to UnitedStates, traveled for nine
months, bought a a thirty thirtyfive year old motor home, did
half of the states. And and thenI realized that by looking at
yeah. Of course, I know theEuropean landscapes, but also
looking at the Americanlandscapes that we are really
ruling our planet.
You see this square miles ofonly one crop. It's so
(06:04):
depressing. There are no treesleft. All the trees have been
cut down. It's so depressingyou'd want to drive yourself
against a tree, but there are notrees.
So it's it's
Cathy (06:14):
Oh, dear.
Louis De Jaeger (06:16):
Of course, it's only a few parts in The United
States. Look. I I I seen a lotof parts with a lot of trees, I
I really grew fond of The UnitedStates. I love the country. I I
love the landscapes.
I love the people. But but I didrealize that we're we're doing
we're not learning from historylessons. I talked to people
about about the dust bowl, aboutwhat happened so many years ago,
and I also talked with people,like, only a couple of weeks
(06:38):
ago, and they said, well, thedust ball is happening again.
And so by yeah. By by Scary.
Cathy (06:43):
But what about the idea of regenerating a billion acres?
Where did you get that formula?What made you think of that?
Louis De Jaeger (06:53):
Well, like like like I was telling you, I
traveled I traveled a lot. I'vealso been to the desert in
Morocco, and and there, I I justsaw that we like, wherever we
did agriculture, even, like,before nonorganic even existed,
like, two thousand years ago,everything was organic. We were
already ruining the planet, andwe we are turning everything
(07:14):
into a desert. And and andglobal warming also, is is
spreading this desert. And oneof the coolest things, pun
intended, that I found out isthat trees cool the planet, and
you only need a billion hectaresof, a billion acres of land to
to cool down the planet with twodegrees Celsius.
(07:36):
So that's basically doublingdoubling the Amazon Rainforest.
And and because of trees, theysweat. And if you sweat, it's
your your sweat evaporates, andthat takes warmth from the air,
and it's projected super highinto the atmosphere. So you're
basically literally cooling downthe planet, and and that's only
one part of it, and there aremuch more layers to it.
Merry (08:00):
Well, yeah. I mean, your new book, SOS Save Our Soils,
addresses how regenerative foodand farming will save our health
and the planet. So talk abouthow our health and the health of
our soil is connected to thehealth of our gut and our immune
system and even our longevity asthe human Yeah,
Louis De Jaeger (08:25):
that's such an important part. So, quit school,
went traveling, then I startedstudying again, I went to school
back anyway, and eventuallystarted a landscape architecture
firm, and now we're designingproperties ranging from small
gardens to private islands andeverything in between. And
(08:46):
there, the nice thing is we wesee a very broad demographic
view. We have, like,billionaires as clients, but we
also have regular Janes and Joesand everything in between. Left
people, right people, veryreligious people, atheist
people, and they all have thisone thing in common, and that's
they all want their children tobe happy and healthy.
(09:09):
Like, there's nobody's gonnadiscuss about that. Everybody
wants it. During keynotes, I I Isometimes ask, who of you wants
to poison their children? Mostof the time, nobody puts on
their puts on their hand.
Cathy (09:20):
Oh, you you mean people did?
Merry (09:22):
They raised their hands.
Louis De Jaeger (09:24):
If they really hate their kids, maybe they're
too.
Cathy (09:28):
Oh, dear.
Louis De Jaeger (09:29):
But most of the time, people have that in
common. And and that's that'sthe nice thing because during
any change in history, we wantto find the things that
everybody agrees on, and that'sthat's happy and health. And and
there, the nice thing is, likethe question you just asked,
Mary, is that soil and healthare, like, super connected. And
(09:53):
most people don't realize that.Maybe the first part of that
story is that Mary, Kathy, youtwo, you are no humans.
Me too. I'm not a human. We arewe exist of more nonhuman cells
than human cells. So Oh. If youthink of our bodies, like, than
(10:14):
half of our cells are not evenhuman.
They're from bacteria, they'refrom fungi, and these are the
ones that actually keep ushealthy. So if you look at our
gut system, like every inchthere is an entire colony
living, like a different cityliving, of all different kind of
(10:35):
species that have a specialfunction. So our ancestors for
for hundreds of thousands ofyears, they have kept putting
things in their mouths, andthere were a lot of hitchhikers
that came on the berries or theworms that they ate or whatever.
And those hitchhikers, bacteria,for example, they they they they
kind of did a trade with you.They said, okay, Mary.
(10:58):
Let's pretend you're an ancient,like, a cave person. They said,
oh, Mary, can I stay in yourguts, live there for free, get
some food from you, and inexchange, I will get, like, all
the b 12 from the food you eat?What do you say to that
bacteria?
Merry (11:19):
Welcome.
Louis De Jaeger (11:21):
Welcome. Well, that's exactly what's going on.
It's a bit scary.
Merry (11:26):
How about give me sugar and plastic and and all of that?
No. So yeah.
Louis De Jaeger (11:33):
That's exactly how it went. So so they you
constantly had these tradesgoing on, these negotiations and
say, okay. You can live here.Exchange, you will take all the
iron out of the broccoli you'regonna eat. And and before you
knew it, hundreds of thousandsof years have passed and entire
colonies have formed.
And so these are the oneskeeping us healthy. And, also,
(11:54):
these are the ones protecting usagainst disease. As we might or
might not know, our gut is fullof little holes and it is with a
liner of bacteria and this linerprevents anything from going
from in our gut inside our body.So any harmful substances like
(12:17):
stopped by guards, thesebacteria, and they say, no, you
can't come in or I'll kick youout. That's what's happening in
a healthy gut.
But because we're like putting alot of poison on our food,
pesticides, for example, butalso like the stuff we put on
our non sticking pans, the PFAS,all those stupid stuff, it like
(12:38):
is killing all thesemicroorganisms. And so then you
get this liner that goes away,and if you, for example, remove
the liner of your ponds, thepond will leak, and the same
happens in your gut, you'll geta leaky gut for example. And
that's just one of the chronicdiseases. In the Western world,
up to one in every three personshas a chronic disease right now,
(13:00):
and most of the time it'sbecause of gut dysbiosis, an
imbalance in our gut system, andthat is caused by eating poison,
eating toxic stuff. And youmight say I'm eating an apple
every day to keep the doctoraway, but if you if it's full of
pesticides, then you'reactually, like, inviting the
(13:20):
doctor right over.
Cathy (13:23):
Oh, dear.
Louis De Jaeger (13:24):
So Yeah. And and I I'm talking about apples,
but it's every food. Every foodthat's not organic. And and so
so so that's the basic thing.And and this way then yeah.
We we get a lot of chronicdisease. The good news is we can
turn that around. Well,
Merry (13:41):
about that. Would you talk about regenerative farming
and how it's different fromorganic and traditional
agriculture and how the food isdifferent?
Louis De Jaeger (13:51):
Yeah, 100%. Because that's where we want to
go. And of course, it's verydoomy and gloomy if you know
that all our microorganisms inour gut are going away, which is
terrible, because these are theones that are keeping us
healthy. A lot of doctors whoare like very much into the new
(14:13):
studies that are coming out,they know that most of the
diseases in the future willtreat via the gut. And that's so
that's the one of the mostimportant things in a human's
life where everybody's agreedagreeing on health.
But the second thing ishappiness. A lot of people pay a
lot of money for happiness to goto Disneyland, to go to the
movies, to to to to eat fastfoods, to take drugs, the
(14:37):
illegal kind or the legal kind.But 90% of our happiness
hormone, serotonin, is actuallycreated in our guts. So our guts
are the reason we are happy andthere's something called the
brain gut connection. And thatconnection makes sure that we're
(14:57):
actually happy.
So if you eat shitty food,you're gonna feel shitty. If you
eat good food, you're gonna feelgood. So that's why we need to
go into regenerativeagriculture.
Cathy (15:08):
Excellent. That's a really good explanation. And you
really have traveled the world.So what is the most surprising
thing you discovered about theglobal food system? And does any
country have it right right now?
Louis De Jaeger (15:26):
Yeah, there are some countries who are
culturally they have it built inthat they're eating a more
healthy diet. But like fast foodis spreading all across the
world. And one of the mostimportant things that I found
out of course is the connectionbetween a healthy soil and
(15:49):
healthy gut. So that's onething. But another thing and
that's that's something I reallydon't like, what I found out is
that they're out there to getus.
It sounds a bit I know it soundsa bit, nutty
Cathy (16:09):
if you say that a little bit elaborate a little bit on
what you mean. Yeah.
Louis De Jaeger (16:13):
Yeah. But the the best scientists in, on this
planet are paid by companies.They're like, if you Google the
12 companies that control allthe food in the world. The best
scientists are paid to make usaddicted to their food. For
example, soda drinks, they thesugar level, they really test it
(16:40):
to like the milligram, you know,if you have too little sugar,
then it won't be addictiveenough.
If you have too much sugar,you'll have the sugar dip and
you won't take another drink.But if you have just the sweet
spot of that sugar, then you'regonna keep on drinking that
beverage. So they oh, yeah.
Cathy (17:02):
Definitely. Diet drinks are very addictive.
Louis De Jaeger (17:04):
Definitely. The the diet sugar. Yeah. And and
it's not only the the beverages,but it's even with yogurts. You
know?
They're they're they're doing itwith everything. They they
really are looking for the sweetspot on how to make it addictive
as possible. And, also, they useingredients that humans are
really not supposed to eat. Sofirst of all, the basic
(17:25):
ingredients, they're most of thetime not organic, so it's full
of pesticides. And then they addall these other ingredients that
humans really should not beeating.
It's really bad for us. And thething is, yeah, there's there's
this huge hoax that said, okay.People should, like, stop eating
butter, or or stop eating, like,healthy vegetable oils and and
(17:47):
and and start to eat all thissynthetic stuff because it
should be healthier. But thesimple is still the best, with
with a lot of food. And and themoment you need, like a chemical
degree to be able to readingredient list, and then you
know it's something is notright.
And a very handy tool, a verypractical tool is called the
(18:08):
YUKA app. It's y u k a. If youscan a product with it, then
then it gives you, like, a scorefrom zero to 100, and then it
immediately flags, like, all thethe ingredients that that you
you're not supposed to eat. Oh,you take your cell phone, you
take your smartphone, you, like,take a picture of the barcode,
(18:30):
and it, like, instantly givesyou a score from zero to 100.
Cathy (18:34):
Interesting. I'm gonna get that today.
Merry (18:36):
Yeah. I'm gonna get that too.
Cathy (18:38):
Why not?
Merry (18:38):
On this note, I mean, if you could change one or two
things about the global foodsystem immediately, what would
it be? And how would you fix it?
Louis De Jaeger (18:51):
Yeah, well, it's so you have two parts of
the food system, you have thegrowers, the farmers who are
growing it, and you have theprocessing industry. Those are
like two important factors. Theprocessing industry, they really
are the boss, you know, theycontrol everything. And they are
(19:16):
like cowboys, know, they theythey do whatever they want. You
only have a few products thatare prohibited in Europe.
It's much more. So so if you'reliving in The United States, you
have more chance of beingpoisoned by all stuff you
shouldn't be eating. So that'sone part. The other part is is
(19:40):
is the farms. The farms, theyuse a lot of stuff that's like
Snow White, you shouldn't eat apoisonous apple.
They use a lot of pesticidesthat you shouldn't eat. And a
first instinctive reaction wouldbe it's the fault of the farmer.
But it was never the farmer'schoice to start using pesticides
or start using GMOs. Was thelobbyists that started to push
(20:04):
certain things via thegovernments. And the strange or
funny thing, maybe it's allsounds a bit like conspiracies,
but there are no conspiracies,like all these things are just
public documents, you can seeit, there are books written
about it, there's a lot ofscientific evidence about it.
(20:28):
So yeah, farmers have beenpushed in a certain direction.
So what are the most importantthings that need to be fixed is
one, if you have a healthy soil,then you'll have healthy plants.
It's as simple as that. And Icompare it with having a leak in
your roof. What do you do whenyou have a leak in your roof?
Cathy (20:52):
Fix the roof or replace it. And
Louis De Jaeger (20:55):
then fix the roof or replace it. But the
problem here is first you take abucket to like not ruin your
floor because you have to waituntil somebody comes to fix the
roof. But what happens now withsoils is we just get a bigger
bucket and then there's likeanother guy saying oh I have a
better bucket, oh this bucket iseven bigger, that's an aluminium
(21:17):
bucket, and that's one in thecolor pink And then oh, now I
have this self driving bucketthat will empty itself. I was
like, Oh my God, and likeeverybody's like raving about
how cool this bucket is. Butnobody's talking about fixing
the roof.
GMOs, for example. It's crazyinvention. I love the invention.
It's ingenious. But they're likesaying oh my god, now I have
(21:38):
this crop that can grow on ahorrible soil.
Like fix the damn soil. Come on.It's like, fix the true problem.
A healthy soil produces healthyplants. And there's nothing you
can sell to a farmer who has ahealthy soil and healthy plants.
And it's the same with a humanbody. Like, I have a grandmother
(21:59):
that I told about and 85 yearsold and she's been healthy for
all her life. She's been eatingorganic. It's not that she never
had the flu, but that's also anatural thing. It's not bad to
have the flu.
It's just like a system upgradeyou're getting. Like the
pharmaceutical industry, theyhate my grandmother because she
doesn't buy anything from them,you know? And if everybody would
(22:23):
be like my grandmother, thenyeah, the pharmaceutical
industry would collapse. Andthat's the way it should be.
Everybody should be healthy.
And I'm not saying we don't needmedicine for very special
occasions, or if you're likehaving a terrible situation. I
love what the medical professionis able to do nowadays and
(22:47):
replace hearts and patch upthings and broken. It's
incredible. I'm all for that.But you have to know where you
have to draw the line like youdon't need like a painkiller if
you drunk too much the nightbefore you just have to like,
don't drink too much the nightbefore.
Or if you have a sore throat,you don't have to go to the
(23:09):
pharmacy and buy like some pillfor it, just eat some raw
ginger, for example. You know,there's there's there's various
degrees in what you really need,like a lot
Cathy (23:20):
of things can be solved by having good tea, for example,
a herbal infusion. Have aquestion about farming. Can
farming really help stop climatechange?
Louis De Jaeger (23:33):
Or is that just wishful thinking? Well, if we
plant 1,000,000,000 acres oftrees, and those can be for
tree, then you cool down theplant with two degrees Celsius.
So the question is, yes, it willhelp a lot. But I like to
(23:57):
compare it with something EricThunsmaier said. He says that
imagine that your floor is fullof water, not because of a
leaking roof this time, butbecause the faucet is on.
Instead of like trying to wipeit clean, first you have to
close the faucet, you know. Andthat's the thing with the
(24:21):
greenhouse effect. If we keep onputting greenhouse gases into
the atmosphere, then of course,things will get worse. So we can
use the trees to cool down theplanet, but we also have to
close the faucets, we also haveto massively change from fossil
fuels to renewable energy, forexample. And also to stop
(24:43):
plowing the fields becausefossil fuels is not the only
thing that's warming up theclimate.
Every time you plow your fields,the carbon that's in the soil,
it's C, like pairs with O2,oxygen. So oxygen and carbon
they form CO2. So they havethese beautiful images of NASA
(25:04):
that show that every time, everyplowing season, you have this
massive amount of co2 that goesinto the air. So it's tackling
all this stuff. And it's reallyabout fixing the roof for our
human body and for the farmingworld.
And the question you're asking,I think, Mary, you asked it
(25:26):
like, how would you fix it? Sofirst of all, like fix the soil
and grow food in a regenerativeorganic poison free way. If you
want more details, I'm happy toelaborate, but then it will get
pretty nerdy. And the secondthing is with the food
processing industry. First ofall, I love food processing,
know, I love to eat good peanutbutter or chocolate paste or
(25:51):
even a pizza I get from thefreezer.
It's super handy and convenient.I love it. So it's not about
that pizza that you buy in thefreezer, the instant pizza, you
can have a very shitty pizzawith like a lot of artificial
stuff and a lot of things thatyou're not supposed to eat. But
(26:12):
you can also have like anorganic one with the best
ingredients of the world allcoming from regenerative farms.
Those are two pizzas, they usethe same machines to make those
pizzas, they just use betteringredients.
So I'm not against buying cakes,I'm not even against buying
donuts. I love donuts, but youcan make a donut that's gonna
ruin your health, but you canalso make a donut that's going
(26:33):
to be super tasty, but that'swith a whole flour, that's going
to be with whole sugars. So it'swith everything you can make,
you can make a shitty versionand you can make it like a
regenerative version.
Merry (26:48):
You know, you ought to come up this is so far out
there, but with a cookbook onexactly how to cook things and
what ingredients, I think itwould be really popular.
Cathy (27:00):
He's he's he's probably overloaded with stuff already.
My god. But
Louis De Jaeger (27:05):
it's a good idea. I love the idea. I'm gonna
find somebody who who canpartner up with me to do that
because that would be cool. LikeYeah. Like, how how how to how
to keep your shitty diet but butbut become healthy of it?
Like How to make
Merry (27:19):
a healthy doughnut? Yeah.
Louis De Jaeger (27:22):
Like like like doughnuts, pizzas, fries,
whatever, but, the healthyversion of it. That's, like,
incredible. Yeah. You couldcreate a food brand out of it.
Merry (27:32):
Go for it.
Louis De Jaeger (27:33):
The donut that will make you lose weight.
Merry (27:38):
So we were talking about the agribusiness, and we know
it's so huge globally. So whatrole can we as people,
individuals, take intransforming our planet and our
guts?
Louis De Jaeger (27:53):
Yeah. So you have two options. Option one is
you become an activist. And I'mnot talking about chaining
yourself to a building. I'mtalking about talking to your
neighbors, about creating alocal action group, about being
a citizen lobbyist, We need toraise our voice against the paid
lobbyists for the industry,because the lobbyists are
(28:16):
against our interests, we arefor our own interests, and start
writing letters to politicians,start meeting them, start to
create groups, and just be partof democracy because
politicians, they are ouremployees.
They're paid by us, we pay themto defend our rights. That's how
it was supposed to work. So wejust have to remind our
(28:38):
politicians that that's thecase. You know, like we are
becoming lazy and bad employees.We're like, oh, we're just gonna
watch Netflix and drink somecola and and and lay on our lazy
sofa and just let our employeesdo whatever they want.
That's that's happening rightnow. So we also have this
responsibility. We can't be 100%angry on what's happening in the
(28:59):
political world because we'renot, like, including ourselves
in it, we're like, Oh, we'rejust gonna like ignore it and
just complain about it. No, wehave to take part in it in a
very peaceful way and just like,talk with them and say, Okay, it
can be as simple as going to thelocal mayor and saying, Oh,
nice, I see that we have likefive acres of land here. I know
(29:21):
some people who want to start afarm, an organic farm, could
they like use the land for in avery cheap way?
Stuff like that can be veryeasy. So that's the difficult
way to make a change. But it'slike the most impactful way. I
think that anybody can do isvote three times a day. It's
super cliche.
But we all vote three times aday with everything that we eat
(29:44):
for breakfast, for lunch, fordinner. And it can be as simple
as I know that it's difficult tochange people's diets. So the
funny thing with my organicdictator grandmother, she
produced my father, raised himlike organically and with all
strange diets, and now my fatheris like against all this organic
(30:04):
stuff. So he's like, even thoughhe read my books and like knows
how bad it is, he's like, keepon doing it, like he's still
rebelling. It's very funny,actually, but also tragic.
Cathy (30:15):
It's terrible. You have role models. He has role models
all over. What should people eatif they want to see the world
become a healthier place in thefuture?
Louis De Jaeger (30:27):
Yeah. So it's hard to change people's habits.
So I tried it with my father.
Cathy (30:33):
Yeah.
Louis De Jaeger (30:33):
It's hard. So we have to start very easy. And
it can it can actually be veryeasy. I remember the time when I
was in America or times when Iwas in America because I'm there
from time to time. If I walk inWalmart, for example, you have
like 12 different peanut buttersor even more item.
I don't know exactly how many. Acouple of them are organic. Even
(30:54):
in Walmart, you have this thisglass jar of very delicious
organic peanut butter. MostAmericans buy peanut butter. So
instead of buying the nonorganic ones, buy the organic
one, it's like only one step.
It's a super simple step. And ifeverybody would only just buy
one organic peanut butterinstead of the other one, then
(31:18):
nobody would be producing nonorganic peanut butter anymore
because nobody would be buyingthem. So it's all demand, you
know, it's all demand. So if wehave, for example, like one big
action, and it's like, whocannot afford organic peanut
butter? It's like maybe half adollar or $1 more or maybe $2 I
don't know, but it will it willnot break your bank.
(31:40):
So let's say if all Americansagree, okay, from tomorrow on,
we're only gonna buy organicpeanut butter, the organic
peanut butter revolution, thensomething strange is gonna
happen, and and the entirepeanut butter world will
collapse and say, oh my god,what's happening? Blah, blah,
blah, blah, Now we can onlyproduce organic peanut butter
anymore. But that's like asimple action that will make an
(32:01):
amazing impact. And now I'm onlytalking about peanut butter, but
then you can start by apples,like only buy organic apples
anymore. And so little bylittle, can like, like I said,
keep on eating exactly the samelike you would do otherwise, but
by the organic version, instead.
And you don't even have to go toanother supermarket because most
(32:21):
supermarkets carry organic food.
Cathy (32:24):
I know it is amazing. It is amazing how many have
converted to that. It used to bethey were really hard to find,
and now they're in every market.
Louis De Jaeger (32:37):
Oh, yeah. And it's because of the demand as
well. Because people realizefood is making that good to
poisonous. Yeah.
Merry (32:44):
Yeah. So tell us the seven truths about the food we
eat. Well,
Louis De Jaeger (32:56):
the first truth is that most most of the food is
poisoning us because ofpesticides and of all the faulty
chemical ingredients that are init. The second truth is that if
you treat food as medicine, youwon't have to have medicine as
(33:19):
food. Because that's the way itshould be. Like, I always say
farmers are the pharmacists ofthe future. That for me is
really the gist of it.
I know people that spend 300 to$500 per month on medication. I
don't know. Do you know peoplelike that? It's common in
(33:41):
America, right?
Cathy (33:42):
Yeah, it is.
Louis De Jaeger (33:44):
That's crazy. 300%.
Cathy (33:48):
The weight loss drugs now that people
Louis De Jaeger (33:49):
are
Cathy (33:50):
spending, like upwards of a thousand dollars a month. A
thousand?
Louis De Jaeger (33:55):
That's just insanity. All that money you can
spend on like, incrediblerestaurants that serve you
amazing food. And people say,well, like organic food is more
expensive, or like healthy foodis more expensive. Well, if
you're there spending $1,000 permonth on weight loss
(34:17):
supplements, that's reallyexpensive. And then another
truth about the food that we eatis like performance, we want to
sleep well, a lot of people arestruggling with sleep.
(34:40):
A lot of people are alsostruggling about like staying
mentally awake, they want tolike focus and then they think
they need to drink an energydrink to focus. But if you eat
good foods, top athletes knowthat They eat the best food out
there and their performance ismuch higher. And it's the same
(35:02):
with humans, our performance ismuch higher, it's all
performances are much higher,but also our sleep it's much
better and you get much moreclarity. I think you probably
have noticed that, I've noticedthat if you eat too much junk
(35:22):
food, you feel dumber, you know,you feel just like little daze
in your head. Lurky.
A little foggy. Yeah. So so weif we buy an expensive car, we
buy like a few additives to putinto it to make sure it drives
(35:45):
well, the motor gets treatedwell. But we are Ferraris, we're
even crazier than Ferraris. Wedeserve the best fuel there is.
So that's that's another veryimportant part.
Cathy (35:58):
Yeah. So you have designed private islands for
billionaires. How did that comeabout?
Louis De Jaeger (36:09):
Yeah. So we started out with designing very
small gardens actually. Iremember like when I just
started out, was like with asuitcase full of gardening
books, I went to clients andjust like consulted a little
bit. And then little by little,just did bigger and bigger
(36:32):
projects, started making filmsabout it, writing books about
it, giving keynotes about it,also did a lot of actions, a lot
of campaigns as well. And yeah,the more the more noise you
make, the more people noticeyou.
And also, the more you shareyour vision, people can like
(36:53):
relate to that vision. So forexample, with a larger property
like an island, a lot of thetime these people have read my
book and they say, Oh my god,this vision is exactly what I
believe in, I want you to like,make this vision a reality. So
it's like a very slow process ofdoing 1,000 square feet and then
(37:19):
one acre and 10 acres and 100acres and then a thousand acres.
And yeah, it's it's an organicprocess and it's building
building trust.
Cathy (37:30):
So when you're designing an island, you're putting in all
the apparatus that they need tofarm the food there. Right?
Yeah,
Louis De Jaeger (37:41):
don't work alone. I have a fantastic team I
work together with, for acompany I founded about eight
years ago. And it's always thesame process. First of all, we
get to know the client verywell. Because if I'm going to
design your garden, Mary, oryour garden, Kathy, it's going
(38:02):
to be an entire different gardenbecause you probably both have
different personalities.
Everybody has a differentpersonality. And so we really
need to get to know who you are,what are your strengths, what
are your weaknesses, what arethe things you like to do, you
don't like to do, What do youthink is ugly? What do you
(38:23):
really think is beautiful? Whatare your financial means? How
handy are you?
Are you gonna do stuff yourself?Or are you gonna delegate a lot
of stuff? Do you want everythingto be like very neat and rows?
Or don't you mind like a littlebit of chaos? And so we really
need to get a bit inside of theheads of our clients, which is
(38:45):
very nice.
And it's psychology and alsolike dream together, really do
some dreaming exercises to thinkokay, well, like, imagine there
are like, limits, what would youdo with your gardener, with your
place or with any place in theworld. Then little by little we
form a vision and then that'sthe psychological part of it.
(39:07):
But then of course you have thebiological part of it and the
climatological part of itbecause then you go to the site
and we're gonna design adifferent system in LA than in
Colorado, for example. If you'rehigh up in the mountains or in
New York or in Florida, whichwhere you have a yes. Poultry is
growing with amazing coconutsand hurricanes as well.
Merry (39:29):
And lots of humidity.
Louis De Jaeger (39:32):
Yeah. So then you have to like what you do
with the persons, you have to dothe same with the land, like
what kind of soil do you have?What kind of climate do you
have? What kind of influences doyou have of maybe pollutants or
winds or maybe noisy neighbors?Like how can we make sure that
(39:53):
there is less view on the uglyhouse next door, to give you an
example.
And then it's like putting thesepuzzle pieces together and make
sure they're very much inharmony with each other. And
it's the same process if you'relike doing a small garden or if
you're doing an entire islandwith landing strip for an
(40:14):
airplane or boats that need todock and roads you have to make.
Merry (40:19):
Must have been a real learning process for you. What
did you learn from thesebillionaires?
Louis De Jaeger (40:27):
Well, the most important thing actually that I
learned from any client, whetherthey're no matter what bank they
can have is that everybody wantsto make a difference in this
world. And everybody wants to dosomething good. And that gives
me a lot of hope. People thatcome to us, and I personally I
(40:51):
really don't care if you want todo a small garden or an entire
island because every square inchhelps. And of course, it's cool
to do something very big.
I'm not gonna deny that. Butwe've done garden simple like
residential gardens that havereally made a big impact. For
(41:11):
example, one of our clients, shehas a lot of friends and they
come over to the garden, put afood forest in my garden, and
then they go and do somethingsimilar. Just the willingness of
all these people to just like bepart of that change in their own
means, like their own startingsituation. That's just so
(41:35):
inspiring to see.
It's really a privilege to bearound people who also try to
move things in a big way or in asmall way. It's always
inspiring, you always learnsomething from whether it's a
school teacher or whether it'ssomebody who owns a couple of
(41:55):
offices. I learned so much, it'sreally a nice exchange and most
of the clients also reallybecame people you're close to
because you're like on anadventure together. You share
laughs, you cry together. If atree dies, for example, which is
(42:16):
very normal, like if you plantstuff, there's always a
percentage that's going to die.
So yeah, it's it's a
Cathy (42:24):
Oh, I really love the journey. How do you usually
recommend that people contactyou if they want to be part of
your mission? Or how can theyhelp? Or what can they do? And
also with the name of yourcompany that you founded.
Louis De Jaeger (42:39):
Yeah. Yeah. So the company is called
Comensalist.
Cathy (42:44):
Oh, yeah.
Louis De Jaeger (42:45):
C d o m m e n s a l I s t. And they can contact
me via that website or vialouisdj.com, my website. What
would I recommend people to dois, of course, they can call me
and my team to come overanywhere in the world, we're
working globally. But beforedoing that, I always say, well,
(43:09):
you can do everything yourself.It's only a matter of do you
have the time and energy andwillingness to experiment or
learn or are not afraid to fail.
Because I always try to empowerpeople to do a lot of things
themselves. Of course, they cancall us and they don't even have
(43:32):
to go to the place and we can doeverything and coordinate to
where it's get to make the plansand invite all the contractors
and make sure everybody doeswhat they need to do, manage
budgets, coordinate everything.We can do it so you can just
like, keep on doing your life.That's a possibility. But I
always try to empower people andsay, why do you call us?
(43:52):
Why can't you do it yourself?And I really try to empower them
and say, well, this is not thatdifficult. This is not that
difficult. But it's always amatter of priorities, you can
change the oil in your car, it'snot hard to do, but I'm not
doing it. I'm giving it to agarage, you know, that's a bit
of thing.
Cathy (44:13):
It's it's priorities and time and all of that. But it's
it's very interesting because ifpeople maybe will hear this,
they maybe wanna join yourmission. And the word that comes
to mind for me when you talkabout the things you've
accomplished is entrepreneurialbecause you somehow innately had
(44:35):
that entrepreneurial spirit thatyou started with a little garden
and you got bigger and youstarted traveling and you
started talking and you have aTED Talk. And it's really
interesting. Where do you thinkyou got this entrepreneurial
streak like this?
Louis De Jaeger (44:52):
Yeah, I think it's something that that is
somehow in my DNA. I always likeas a kids Did some little
enterprises from, like, sellingjam on the street or baking
pancakes and selling them or oror, like, making drawings and
selling them or playingharmonica. And and and and and
(45:15):
so that's something that Ialways, like, love, like like
like giving something valuableand get something back. I think
maybe because I haveentrepreneurs in my family. One
of my grandmothers had a hotelin Bruges.
My grandfather that I never metbecause he died before I was
born also had a couple ofcompanies. My dad is an
(45:37):
architect, so that's somethingthat's he's taking me because he
built schools, he's taking me onto this building sites from like
when I was really a little kid,really must have like come over
on me because he was anarchitect of buildings, now I
have an architecture firm forlandscapes. So that's very
(45:58):
obvious. Yeah, I think it's likean amalgamation of all these
influences that just like havingthe spirit of like, I can't
watch too much documentariesbecause I want to fix
everything. It's just likewanting to fix everything on
(46:20):
steroids.
Like every person has thisinside of them. Everybody wants
to fix stuff. But I think forme, it's just like a bit higher.
I want to fix everything, whichis sometimes unhealthy.
Cathy (46:33):
Well I see.
Merry (46:34):
So so I have a question regarding Los Angeles because
Kathy and I live in Los Angeles.And as the world knows, there
were terrible fires here thatdevastated huge parts of this
city, and it filled the soilwith lead and other
contaminants. And last week, theLA Times, our newspaper,
(46:55):
actually reported on thissituation. So what would you
advise us in this city to do toregenerate our soil? And how
long do you think it'll take?
Louis De Jaeger (47:09):
Yeah, it's a major thing, soil pollution, and
it's everywhere. And the more westart to measure the more severe
we know it is. PFAS for example,it's a component that's been
used in non sticking pans, sowe're eating it every day. It's
one of the biggest carcinogensout there. It's also going into
the soil.
(47:30):
Of course you have the leadproblem which in LA is a big
problem. The good news is youcan solve this with phyto
remediation, difficult name forplants that actually are
designed or it's just thoseplants do this automatically and
you design the right plant mixesto go in the fields and then
(47:51):
they will suck out all the heavymetals and then you remove the
plants. Even with PFAs, foreverchemical, you can plant hemp for
example and this hemp will getout of the PFAS and then you can
even process the hemp to takethe PFAS, a forever chemical, in
(48:12):
its original fluor form, so it'snot forever anymore. So you can
do a lot with plants. Most ofthe contaminations you can
remove with plants, but we haveto and that's a very difficult
thing to grasp as humans.
Some situations you can solve itin a couple of years, but some
situations are maybe gonna takesixty years to fix to like, get
(48:35):
all the pollutants out of thecell or even longer. And that's
difficult for humans. Of course,can like take the earth, remove
it and like dump it into place.Yeah. Like, just remove
Cathy (48:45):
the problem. That's what that's what they do do here.
They take six feet. I know. Theyshake six feet off the top, but
but apparently, that leaveslike, if they just take the part
where the house burned and allthe metal from the house went
into the ground, but it leavesthe the yard where the
pollutants came.
(49:05):
It leaves all that vulnerable,and people are wondering, can I
plant an avocado tree here, oris are the avocados gonna poison
everybody? Yeah. Yeah. Well, assoon as soil is the original
soil, we've got all the battery,when the fire came all the
batteries melted, all the carsburned up, everything.
Louis De Jaeger (49:25):
Yeah, and that's something that we as
designers, we always do like avery due diligence check that as
soon as we have the slightest,people that there's some soil
pollutants, we always test forit. That's like before you you
you start a food forest or anedible garden, that's like one
of the first things you youalways do is you you you test it
(49:47):
for heavy metals or if it's PFASor PFAS inside of it, you test
it for it. And I know thesethese tests, they cost some
money, especially PFAS, a coupleof €100 or dollars. But then you
know that you feel safe.Otherwise, it's always like, oh,
now I'm eating my own apple.
(50:07):
And is it, like, safe? You don'tfeel like 100% comfortable
eating it.
Cathy (50:12):
But Even though you've grown it.
Louis De Jaeger (50:14):
Yeah, so test it, you need to test it and when
you test, you have a negativeresult and there are pollutants
and then you have to devise aplan or with phyto remediation,
with having plants or worst caseremove the land but then there's
a question okay, then you'regonna remove the problem. And
(50:36):
another thing is growingcontainers just because once you
cover the soil and you cover itwith plants, then pollution is
like a little bit contained, youjust cannot eat what there is.
And then you for example, incontainers above the ground and
then you use healthy soil, ofcourse, that you buy. So there
(51:01):
is always a solution. But yeah,we humans are pretty good at
screwing things up.
So again, we should fix theroof. And in this case,
literally, like just don't usepollutants to build. Yeah, it's
not hard.
Cathy (51:18):
Yeah. Well, that's easier said than done. But
Louis De Jaeger (51:20):
yeah, of course, it's it's difficult.
Cathy (51:24):
Louis, what would you like our audience to have as a
takeaway today?
Louis De Jaeger (51:29):
That we have more power than we think we
have. I always like to repeatthe quote of Margaret Mead that
says never doubt that a smallgroup of committed citizens can
change the world because it'sthe only thing that ever has.
And every time I hear or evensay this quote, get goosebumps
because it's just so powerful.Like, history has only been
(51:53):
changed by just tiny group. Ifyou look at the Clean Air Act in
USA, it's just because a smallgroup of people were like
saying, I don't like that mykids have to breathe in this
poisonous air of factories.
Let's do something about it.That's what happened. And then
they of course, it took decadesto really lobby and make sure it
(52:13):
happened, but it happened. Andso that's one thing we have the
power. The second thing is,yeah, be voracious in it.
But be patient at the same time.Like, it took decades or even
sometimes centuries to like,stop things, for example,
slavery, it took so long. Buteven if you know it's gonna take
(52:34):
a long time, you have to do itanyway. And I like the quote of
Wes Jackson that said that ifyou're solving a problem that
you can solve in your lifetime,you're not thinking big enough.
Merry (52:49):
Right. That's food for thought. Pardon the pun.
Cathy (52:54):
Yeah.
Merry (52:56):
Thank you, Louis. Our guest today on Late Boomers has
been Louis de Jager, renownedsoil preservationist and
environmental designer. He'she's also the author of SOS Save
Our Soils and a documentaryfilmmaker. You can learn more
about Louie on his website,louisdj.com. That's l0uisdj.com.
(53:23):
And you can buy his book too.Thank you so much, Louis.
Louis De Jaeger (53:28):
Thank you. Really nice to meet you, Kathy
and Murray.
Cathy (53:31):
Me too. We wanna thank our listeners for listening to
our late boomers podcast, andwe're on a drive to increase our
subscribers. So please subscribeto the late boomers podcast
channel on YouTube. Listen innext week when you'll meet
another exciting guest, authorAmy Bernstein. You can listen to
Late Boomers on any podcastplatform and check us out on
(53:53):
social media.
And thanks again to LouisDeager.
Thank you for joining us on late boomers, the podcast
that is your guide to creating athird act with style, power, and
(54:15):
impact. Please visit our websiteand get in touch with us at
lateboomers.us. If you wouldlike to listen to or download
other episodes of late boomers,go to ewnpodcastnetwork.com.
Merry (54:31):
This podcast is also available on Spotify, Apple
Podcast, and most other majorpodcast sites. We hope you make
use of the wisdom you've gainedhere and that you enjoy a
successful third act with yourown style, power, and impact.
This is the EWN Podcast Network.
Cathy (00:14):
Welcome to late boomers, our podcast guide to creating
your third act with style,power, and impact. Hi. I'm Cathy
Worthington.
Merry (00:24):
And I'm Merry Elkins. Join us as we bring you
conversations withentrepreneurs, entertainers, and
people with vision who aremaking a difference in the
world.
Cathy (00:34):
Everyone has a story, and we'll take you along for the
ride on each interview,recounting the journey our
guests have taken to get wherethey are, inspiring you to
create your own path to success.Let's get started.
Welcome back to another episode of late boomers. I'm
(00:55):
Cathy Worthington.
Merry (00:56):
And I'm Merry Elkins. Today, we're diving into a topic
that's crucial, not just for us,but for our planet and future
generations.
Cathy (01:05):
We'll be speaking with Louis de Jager, a renowned soil
preservationist andenvironmental designer. He
brings invaluable insights onhow health impacts everything
from our food systems soilhealth I'm sorry. Soil health
impacts everything from our foodsystems to climate change.
Merry (01:26):
That's right. And this is our chance, boomers and
everyone, to understand how ourchoices affect our environment.
Sustainable practices can leadto a healthier planet for your
kids, your grandkids, and reallyfor the future.
Cathy (01:41):
And it's not just about awareness, it's about action.
Louie will share practical stepswe can all take to contribute to
soil preservation.
Merry (01:50):
So tune in and let's explore how we can make a real
difference together. You don'twant to miss this one.
Cathy (01:57):
And stay with us for an enlightening discussion that
could change the way you thinkabout the ground beneath your
feet. And be sure to subscribeto our Late Boomers podcast on
YouTube.
Merry (02:08):
So welcome to Late Boomers' Louis de Jager.
Louis De Jaeger (02:13):
Hey. Super happy to be here in LA with you
guys.
Cathy (02:16):
So great. Even though you're in Belgium.
Merry (02:19):
Exactly. And it's a different time zone.
Cathy (02:24):
Yeah. How did your interest in saving our soil and
regenerating more than a billionacres of land come about?
Louis De Jaeger (02:32):
Well, I think I I was inspired a lot about my
two grandmothers who weredaughters of farmers who grew up
on the land, who worked theland, and they always told me
stories about the farm, how niceit was, but also how they had to
fled to the city because therewas no future in farming. There
was this thing going on in thefarming world where they said
(02:54):
you have to get big or get out.What happened in America as
well, also happened in Belgium.And for some reason it always
stuck with me, like one of mygrandmothers, she's like a
really bon vivant person wholikes to eat well and she
doesn't really care about theenvironment too much, and my
other grandmother is really theopposite. She like only buys
(03:14):
organic, she's very strict aboutit, we often call her the
organic dictator just to lovewith her, we love her, of
course.
And yeah. So so those two worldsreally interested me. And and
also maybe a bit selfish reason,I was standing in a supermarket,
and I had these two two tomatoesin my hand. And I was, like,
(03:37):
wondering, yeah. Well, this oneis organic and costs, like, half
a dollar more, and this one isnot organic.
So why would I need to buy theorganic one? They look exactly
the same. What's the difference,and why should I care? And
instinctively, we all heard thestory of Snow White that you
shouldn't get, an apple that'sbeen poisoned and eat it. We
know that.
We tell our children that story.Don't eat the poisonous apple.
(04:01):
But we're every doing day. Likeapples, for example, they have
up to 25 different residues ofpesticides on them. And these
cocktail effects, they're reallynot good for your body.
And so what defines healthy andgood food? It's a good soil, and
it's something that's whetheryou're a billionaire or living
in a trailer, we all have toeat, and we all depend on that
(04:26):
same soil. So it's somethingthat unites us all.
Merry (04:29):
So it was really just your grandmother's that got you
into it. Did you did you plan togo into that?
Louis De Jaeger (04:37):
Well, my mother taught me how to garden and I
really loved that. And when Iwas like fifteen-sixteen years
old, I really wanted to quitschool. I hated it, I felt that
I was trapped, I feltimprisoned. And I said, look, I
don't want to work because whygo to work if you plant your
(04:59):
food, then you don't have to goto work to make money to buy
food. Let's just skip the go towork part and get money part to
buy food part and just grow yourown foods.
So that was one of my firstexperiments, and I I I made this
huge vegetable garden. But then,of course, you have to wait. And
then my mother, she was like,she's a good trickster, and she
(05:20):
was like, okay, Louis, you can,like, quit school, but you have
to do something, likeconstructive. And I like didn't
really know what to do, so Iwent to school anyway and
finished it. But but but thisway I really started to to grow
my my vegetable garden.
And and so when I was 18 yearsold, I I really never wanted
back to go back to school again.I I I wanted to be free. I I
(05:42):
came to you guys, to UnitedStates, traveled for nine
months, bought a a thirty thirtyfive year old motor home, did
half of the states. And and thenI realized that by looking at
yeah. Of course, I know theEuropean landscapes, but also
looking at the Americanlandscapes that we are really
ruling our planet.
You see this square miles ofonly one crop. It's so
(06:04):
depressing. There are no treesleft. All the trees have been
cut down. It's so depressingyou'd want to drive yourself
against a tree, but there are notrees.
So it's it's
Cathy (06:14):
Oh, dear.
Louis De Jaeger (06:16):
Of course, it's only a few parts in The United
States. Look. I I I seen a lotof parts with a lot of trees, I
I really grew fond of The UnitedStates. I love the country. I I
love the landscapes.
I love the people. But but I didrealize that we're we're doing
we're not learning from historylessons. I talked to people
about about the dust bowl, aboutwhat happened so many years ago,
and I also talked with people,like, only a couple of weeks
(06:38):
ago, and they said, well, thedust ball is happening again.
And so by yeah. By by Scary.
Cathy (06:43):
But what about the idea of regenerating a billion acres?
Where did you get that formula?What made you think of that?
Louis De Jaeger (06:53):
Well, like like like I was telling you, I
traveled I traveled a lot. I'vealso been to the desert in
Morocco, and and there, I I justsaw that we like, wherever we
did agriculture, even, like,before nonorganic even existed,
like, two thousand years ago,everything was organic. We were
already ruining the planet, andwe we are turning everything
(07:14):
into a desert. And and andglobal warming also, is is
spreading this desert. And oneof the coolest things, pun
intended, that I found out isthat trees cool the planet, and
you only need a billion hectaresof, a billion acres of land to
to cool down the planet with twodegrees Celsius.
(07:36):
So that's basically doublingdoubling the Amazon Rainforest.
And and because of trees, theysweat. And if you sweat, it's
your your sweat evaporates, andthat takes warmth from the air,
and it's projected super highinto the atmosphere. So you're
basically literally cooling downthe planet, and and that's only
one part of it, and there aremuch more layers to it.
Merry (08:00):
Well, yeah. I mean, your new book, SOS Save Our Soils,
addresses how regenerative foodand farming will save our health
and the planet. So talk abouthow our health and the health of
our soil is connected to thehealth of our gut and our immune
system and even our longevity asthe human Yeah,
Louis De Jaeger (08:25):
that's such an important part. So, quit school,
went traveling, then I startedstudying again, I went to school
back anyway, and eventuallystarted a landscape architecture
firm, and now we're designingproperties ranging from small
gardens to private islands andeverything in between. And
(08:46):
there, the nice thing is we wesee a very broad demographic
view. We have, like,billionaires as clients, but we
also have regular Janes and Joesand everything in between. Left
people, right people, veryreligious people, atheist
people, and they all have thisone thing in common, and that's
they all want their children tobe happy and healthy.
(09:09):
Like, there's nobody's gonnadiscuss about that. Everybody
wants it. During keynotes, I I Isometimes ask, who of you wants
to poison their children? Mostof the time, nobody puts on
their puts on their hand.
Cathy (09:20):
Oh, you you mean people did?
Merry (09:22):
They raised their hands.
Louis De Jaeger (09:24):
If they really hate their kids, maybe they're
too.
Cathy (09:28):
Oh, dear.
Louis De Jaeger (09:29):
But most of the time, people have that in
common. And and that's that'sthe nice thing because during
any change in history, we wantto find the things that
everybody agrees on, and that'sthat's happy and health. And and
there, the nice thing is, likethe question you just asked,
Mary, is that soil and healthare, like, super connected. And
(09:53):
most people don't realize that.Maybe the first part of that
story is that Mary, Kathy, youtwo, you are no humans.
Me too. I'm not a human. We arewe exist of more nonhuman cells
than human cells. So Oh. If youthink of our bodies, like, than
(10:14):
half of our cells are not evenhuman.
They're from bacteria, they'refrom fungi, and these are the
ones that actually keep ushealthy. So if you look at our
gut system, like every inchthere is an entire colony
living, like a different cityliving, of all different kind of
(10:35):
species that have a specialfunction. So our ancestors for
for hundreds of thousands ofyears, they have kept putting
things in their mouths, andthere were a lot of hitchhikers
that came on the berries or theworms that they ate or whatever.
And those hitchhikers, bacteria,for example, they they they they
kind of did a trade with you.They said, okay, Mary.
(10:58):
Let's pretend you're an ancient,like, a cave person. They said,
oh, Mary, can I stay in yourguts, live there for free, get
some food from you, and inexchange, I will get, like, all
the b 12 from the food you eat?What do you say to that
bacteria?
Merry (11:19):
Welcome.
Louis De Jaeger (11:21):
Welcome. Well, that's exactly what's going on.
It's a bit scary.
Merry (11:26):
How about give me sugar and plastic and and all of that?
No. So yeah.
Louis De Jaeger (11:33):
That's exactly how it went. So so they you
constantly had these tradesgoing on, these negotiations and
say, okay. You can live here.Exchange, you will take all the
iron out of the broccoli you'regonna eat. And and before you
knew it, hundreds of thousandsof years have passed and entire
colonies have formed.
And so these are the oneskeeping us healthy. And, also,
(11:54):
these are the ones protecting usagainst disease. As we might or
might not know, our gut is fullof little holes and it is with a
liner of bacteria and this linerprevents anything from going
from in our gut inside our body.So any harmful substances like
(12:17):
stopped by guards, thesebacteria, and they say, no, you
can't come in or I'll kick youout. That's what's happening in
a healthy gut.
But because we're like putting alot of poison on our food,
pesticides, for example, butalso like the stuff we put on
our non sticking pans, the PFAS,all those stupid stuff, it like
(12:38):
is killing all thesemicroorganisms. And so then you
get this liner that goes away,and if you, for example, remove
the liner of your ponds, thepond will leak, and the same
happens in your gut, you'll geta leaky gut for example. And
that's just one of the chronicdiseases. In the Western world,
up to one in every three personshas a chronic disease right now,
(13:00):
and most of the time it'sbecause of gut dysbiosis, an
imbalance in our gut system, andthat is caused by eating poison,
eating toxic stuff. And youmight say I'm eating an apple
every day to keep the doctoraway, but if you if it's full of
pesticides, then you'reactually, like, inviting the
(13:20):
doctor right over.
Cathy (13:23):
Oh, dear.
Louis De Jaeger (13:24):
So Yeah. And and I I'm talking about apples,
but it's every food. Every foodthat's not organic. And and so
so so that's the basic thing.And and this way then yeah.
We we get a lot of chronicdisease. The good news is we can
turn that around. Well,
Merry (13:41):
about that. Would you talk about regenerative farming
and how it's different fromorganic and traditional
agriculture and how the food isdifferent?
Louis De Jaeger (13:51):
Yeah, 100%. Because that's where we want to
go. And of course, it's verydoomy and gloomy if you know
that all our microorganisms inour gut are going away, which is
terrible, because these are theones that are keeping us
healthy. A lot of doctors whoare like very much into the new
(14:13):
studies that are coming out,they know that most of the
diseases in the future willtreat via the gut. And that's so
that's the one of the mostimportant things in a human's
life where everybody's agreedagreeing on health.
But the second thing ishappiness. A lot of people pay a
lot of money for happiness to goto Disneyland, to go to the
movies, to to to to eat fastfoods, to take drugs, the
(14:37):
illegal kind or the legal kind.But 90% of our happiness
hormone, serotonin, is actuallycreated in our guts. So our guts
are the reason we are happy andthere's something called the
brain gut connection. And thatconnection makes sure that we're
(14:57):
actually happy.
So if you eat shitty food,you're gonna feel shitty. If you
eat good food, you're gonna feelgood. So that's why we need to
go into regenerativeagriculture.
Cathy (15:08):
Excellent. That's a really good explanation. And you
really have traveled the world.So what is the most surprising
thing you discovered about theglobal food system? And does any
country have it right right now?
Louis De Jaeger (15:26):
Yeah, there are some countries who are
culturally they have it built inthat they're eating a more
healthy diet. But like fast foodis spreading all across the
world. And one of the mostimportant things that I found
out of course is the connectionbetween a healthy soil and
(15:49):
healthy gut. So that's onething. But another thing and
that's that's something I reallydon't like, what I found out is
that they're out there to getus.
It sounds a bit I know it soundsa bit, nutty
Cathy (16:09):
if you say that a little bit elaborate a little bit on
what you mean. Yeah.
Louis De Jaeger (16:13):
Yeah. But the the best scientists in, on this
planet are paid by companies.They're like, if you Google the
12 companies that control allthe food in the world. The best
scientists are paid to make usaddicted to their food. For
example, soda drinks, they thesugar level, they really test it
(16:40):
to like the milligram, you know,if you have too little sugar,
then it won't be addictiveenough.
If you have too much sugar,you'll have the sugar dip and
you won't take another drink.But if you have just the sweet
spot of that sugar, then you'regonna keep on drinking that
beverage. So they oh, yeah.
Cathy (17:02):
Definitely. Diet drinks are very addictive.
Louis De Jaeger (17:04):
Definitely. The the diet sugar. Yeah. And and
it's not only the the beverages,but it's even with yogurts. You
know?
They're they're they're doing itwith everything. They they
really are looking for the sweetspot on how to make it addictive
as possible. And, also, they useingredients that humans are
really not supposed to eat. Sofirst of all, the basic
(17:25):
ingredients, they're most of thetime not organic, so it's full
of pesticides. And then they addall these other ingredients that
humans really should not beeating.
It's really bad for us. And thething is, yeah, there's there's
this huge hoax that said, okay.People should, like, stop eating
butter, or or stop eating, like,healthy vegetable oils and and
(17:47):
and and start to eat all thissynthetic stuff because it
should be healthier. But thesimple is still the best, with
with a lot of food. And and themoment you need, like a chemical
degree to be able to readingredient list, and then you
know it's something is notright.
And a very handy tool, a verypractical tool is called the
(18:08):
YUKA app. It's y u k a. If youscan a product with it, then
then it gives you, like, a scorefrom zero to 100, and then it
immediately flags, like, all thethe ingredients that that you
you're not supposed to eat. Oh,you take your cell phone, you
take your smartphone, you, like,take a picture of the barcode,
(18:30):
and it, like, instantly givesyou a score from zero to 100.
Cathy (18:34):
Interesting. I'm gonna get that today.
Merry (18:36):
Yeah. I'm gonna get that too.
Cathy (18:38):
Why not?
Merry (18:38):
On this note, I mean, if you could change one or two
things about the global foodsystem immediately, what would
it be? And how would you fix it?
Louis De Jaeger (18:51):
Yeah, well, it's so you have two parts of
the food system, you have thegrowers, the farmers who are
growing it, and you have theprocessing industry. Those are
like two important factors. Theprocessing industry, they really
are the boss, you know, theycontrol everything. And they are
(19:16):
like cowboys, know, they theythey do whatever they want. You
only have a few products thatare prohibited in Europe.
It's much more. So so if you'reliving in The United States, you
have more chance of beingpoisoned by all stuff you
shouldn't be eating. So that'sone part. The other part is is
(19:40):
is the farms. The farms, theyuse a lot of stuff that's like
Snow White, you shouldn't eat apoisonous apple.
They use a lot of pesticidesthat you shouldn't eat. And a
first instinctive reaction wouldbe it's the fault of the farmer.
But it was never the farmer'schoice to start using pesticides
or start using GMOs. Was thelobbyists that started to push
(20:04):
certain things via thegovernments. And the strange or
funny thing, maybe it's allsounds a bit like conspiracies,
but there are no conspiracies,like all these things are just
public documents, you can seeit, there are books written
about it, there's a lot ofscientific evidence about it.
(20:28):
So yeah, farmers have beenpushed in a certain direction.
So what are the most importantthings that need to be fixed is
one, if you have a healthy soil,then you'll have healthy plants.
It's as simple as that. And Icompare it with having a leak in
your roof. What do you do whenyou have a leak in your roof?
Cathy (20:52):
Fix the roof or replace it. And
Louis De Jaeger (20:55):
then fix the roof or replace it. But the
problem here is first you take abucket to like not ruin your
floor because you have to waituntil somebody comes to fix the
roof. But what happens now withsoils is we just get a bigger
bucket and then there's likeanother guy saying oh I have a
better bucket, oh this bucket iseven bigger, that's an aluminium
(21:17):
bucket, and that's one in thecolor pink And then oh, now I
have this self driving bucketthat will empty itself. I was
like, Oh my God, and likeeverybody's like raving about
how cool this bucket is. Butnobody's talking about fixing
the roof.
GMOs, for example. It's crazyinvention. I love the invention.
It's ingenious. But they're likesaying oh my god, now I have
(21:38):
this crop that can grow on ahorrible soil.
Like fix the damn soil. Come on.It's like, fix the true problem.
A healthy soil produces healthyplants. And there's nothing you
can sell to a farmer who has ahealthy soil and healthy plants.
And it's the same with a humanbody. Like, I have a grandmother
(21:59):
that I told about and 85 yearsold and she's been healthy for
all her life. She's been eatingorganic. It's not that she never
had the flu, but that's also anatural thing. It's not bad to
have the flu.
It's just like a system upgradeyou're getting. Like the
pharmaceutical industry, theyhate my grandmother because she
doesn't buy anything from them,you know? And if everybody would
(22:23):
be like my grandmother, thenyeah, the pharmaceutical
industry would collapse. Andthat's the way it should be.
Everybody should be healthy.
And I'm not saying we don't needmedicine for very special
occasions, or if you're likehaving a terrible situation. I
love what the medical professionis able to do nowadays and
(22:47):
replace hearts and patch upthings and broken. It's
incredible. I'm all for that.But you have to know where you
have to draw the line like youdon't need like a painkiller if
you drunk too much the nightbefore you just have to like,
don't drink too much the nightbefore.
Or if you have a sore throat,you don't have to go to the
(23:09):
pharmacy and buy like some pillfor it, just eat some raw
ginger, for example. You know,there's there's there's various
degrees in what you really need,like a lot
Cathy (23:20):
of things can be solved by having good tea, for example,
a herbal infusion. Have aquestion about farming. Can
farming really help stop climatechange?
Louis De Jaeger (23:33):
Or is that just wishful thinking? Well, if we
plant 1,000,000,000 acres oftrees, and those can be for
tree, then you cool down theplant with two degrees Celsius.
So the question is, yes, it willhelp a lot. But I like to
(23:57):
compare it with something EricThunsmaier said. He says that
imagine that your floor is fullof water, not because of a
leaking roof this time, butbecause the faucet is on.
Instead of like trying to wipeit clean, first you have to
close the faucet, you know. Andthat's the thing with the
(24:21):
greenhouse effect. If we keep onputting greenhouse gases into
the atmosphere, then of course,things will get worse. So we can
use the trees to cool down theplanet, but we also have to
close the faucets, we also haveto massively change from fossil
fuels to renewable energy, forexample. And also to stop
(24:43):
plowing the fields becausefossil fuels is not the only
thing that's warming up theclimate.
Every time you plow your fields,the carbon that's in the soil,
it's C, like pairs with O2,oxygen. So oxygen and carbon
they form CO2. So they havethese beautiful images of NASA
(25:04):
that show that every time, everyplowing season, you have this
massive amount of co2 that goesinto the air. So it's tackling
all this stuff. And it's reallyabout fixing the roof for our
human body and for the farmingworld.
And the question you're asking,I think, Mary, you asked it
(25:26):
like, how would you fix it? Sofirst of all, like fix the soil
and grow food in a regenerativeorganic poison free way. If you
want more details, I'm happy toelaborate, but then it will get
pretty nerdy. And the secondthing is with the food
processing industry. First ofall, I love food processing,
know, I love to eat good peanutbutter or chocolate paste or
(25:51):
even a pizza I get from thefreezer.
It's super handy and convenient.I love it. So it's not about
that pizza that you buy in thefreezer, the instant pizza, you
can have a very shitty pizzawith like a lot of artificial
stuff and a lot of things thatyou're not supposed to eat. But
(26:12):
you can also have like anorganic one with the best
ingredients of the world allcoming from regenerative farms.
Those are two pizzas, they usethe same machines to make those
pizzas, they just use betteringredients.
So I'm not against buying cakes,I'm not even against buying
donuts. I love donuts, but youcan make a donut that's gonna
ruin your health, but you canalso make a donut that's going
(26:33):
to be super tasty, but that'swith a whole flour, that's going
to be with whole sugars. So it'swith everything you can make,
you can make a shitty versionand you can make it like a
regenerative version.
Merry (26:48):
You know, you ought to come up this is so far out
there, but with a cookbook onexactly how to cook things and
what ingredients, I think itwould be really popular.
Cathy (27:00):
He's he's he's probably overloaded with stuff already.
My god. But
Louis De Jaeger (27:05):
it's a good idea. I love the idea. I'm gonna
find somebody who who canpartner up with me to do that
because that would be cool. LikeYeah. Like, how how how to how
to keep your shitty diet but butbut become healthy of it?
Like How to make
Merry (27:19):
a healthy doughnut? Yeah.
Louis De Jaeger (27:22):
Like like like doughnuts, pizzas, fries,
whatever, but, the healthyversion of it. That's, like,
incredible. Yeah. You couldcreate a food brand out of it.
Merry (27:32):
Go for it.
Louis De Jaeger (27:33):
The donut that will make you lose weight.
Merry (27:38):
So we were talking about the agribusiness, and we know
it's so huge globally. So whatrole can we as people,
individuals, take intransforming our planet and our
guts?
Louis De Jaeger (27:53):
Yeah. So you have two options. Option one is
you become an activist. And I'mnot talking about chaining
yourself to a building. I'mtalking about talking to your
neighbors, about creating alocal action group, about being
a citizen lobbyist, We need toraise our voice against the paid
lobbyists for the industry,because the lobbyists are
(28:16):
against our interests, we arefor our own interests, and start
writing letters to politicians,start meeting them, start to
create groups, and just be partof democracy because
politicians, they are ouremployees.
They're paid by us, we pay themto defend our rights. That's how
it was supposed to work. So wejust have to remind our
(28:38):
politicians that that's thecase. You know, like we are
becoming lazy and bad employees.We're like, oh, we're just gonna
watch Netflix and drink somecola and and and lay on our lazy
sofa and just let our employeesdo whatever they want.
That's that's happening rightnow. So we also have this
responsibility. We can't be 100%angry on what's happening in the
(28:59):
political world because we'renot, like, including ourselves
in it, we're like, Oh, we'rejust gonna like ignore it and
just complain about it. No, wehave to take part in it in a
very peaceful way and just like,talk with them and say, Okay, it
can be as simple as going to thelocal mayor and saying, Oh,
nice, I see that we have likefive acres of land here. I know
(29:21):
some people who want to start afarm, an organic farm, could
they like use the land for in avery cheap way?
Stuff like that can be veryeasy. So that's the difficult
way to make a change. But it'slike the most impactful way. I
think that anybody can do isvote three times a day. It's
super cliche.
But we all vote three times aday with everything that we eat
(29:44):
for breakfast, for lunch, fordinner. And it can be as simple
as I know that it's difficult tochange people's diets. So the
funny thing with my organicdictator grandmother, she
produced my father, raised himlike organically and with all
strange diets, and now my fatheris like against all this organic
(30:04):
stuff. So he's like, even thoughhe read my books and like knows
how bad it is, he's like, keepon doing it, like he's still
rebelling. It's very funny,actually, but also tragic.
Cathy (30:15):
It's terrible. You have role models. He has role models
all over. What should people eatif they want to see the world
become a healthier place in thefuture?
Louis De Jaeger (30:27):
Yeah. So it's hard to change people's habits.
So I tried it with my father.
Cathy (30:33):
Yeah.
Louis De Jaeger (30:33):
It's hard. So we have to start very easy. And
it can it can actually be veryeasy. I remember the time when I
was in America or times when Iwas in America because I'm there
from time to time. If I walk inWalmart, for example, you have
like 12 different peanut buttersor even more item.
I don't know exactly how many. Acouple of them are organic. Even
(30:54):
in Walmart, you have this thisglass jar of very delicious
organic peanut butter. MostAmericans buy peanut butter. So
instead of buying the nonorganic ones, buy the organic
one, it's like only one step.
It's a super simple step. And ifeverybody would only just buy
one organic peanut butterinstead of the other one, then
(31:18):
nobody would be producing nonorganic peanut butter anymore
because nobody would be buyingthem. So it's all demand, you
know, it's all demand. So if wehave, for example, like one big
action, and it's like, whocannot afford organic peanut
butter? It's like maybe half adollar or $1 more or maybe $2 I
don't know, but it will it willnot break your bank.
(31:40):
So let's say if all Americansagree, okay, from tomorrow on,
we're only gonna buy organicpeanut butter, the organic
peanut butter revolution, thensomething strange is gonna
happen, and and the entirepeanut butter world will
collapse and say, oh my god,what's happening? Blah, blah,
blah, blah, Now we can onlyproduce organic peanut butter
anymore. But that's like asimple action that will make an
(32:01):
amazing impact. And now I'm onlytalking about peanut butter, but
then you can start by apples,like only buy organic apples
anymore. And so little bylittle, can like, like I said,
keep on eating exactly the samelike you would do otherwise, but
by the organic version, instead.
And you don't even have to go toanother supermarket because most
(32:21):
supermarkets carry organic food.
Cathy (32:24):
I know it is amazing. It is amazing how many have
converted to that. It used to bethey were really hard to find,
and now they're in every market.
Louis De Jaeger (32:37):
Oh, yeah. And it's because of the demand as
well. Because people realizefood is making that good to
poisonous. Yeah.
Merry (32:44):
Yeah. So tell us the seven truths about the food we
eat. Well,
Louis De Jaeger (32:56):
the first truth is that most most of the food is
poisoning us because ofpesticides and of all the faulty
chemical ingredients that are init. The second truth is that if
you treat food as medicine, youwon't have to have medicine as
(33:19):
food. Because that's the way itshould be. Like, I always say
farmers are the pharmacists ofthe future. That for me is
really the gist of it.
I know people that spend 300 to$500 per month on medication. I
don't know. Do you know peoplelike that? It's common in
(33:41):
America, right?
Cathy (33:42):
Yeah, it is.
Louis De Jaeger (33:44):
That's crazy. 300%.
Cathy (33:48):
The weight loss drugs now that people
Louis De Jaeger (33:49):
are
Cathy (33:50):
spending, like upwards of a thousand dollars a month. A
thousand?
Louis De Jaeger (33:55):
That's just insanity. All that money you can
spend on like, incrediblerestaurants that serve you
amazing food. And people say,well, like organic food is more
expensive, or like healthy foodis more expensive. Well, if
you're there spending $1,000 permonth on weight loss
(34:17):
supplements, that's reallyexpensive. And then another
truth about the food that we eatis like performance, we want to
sleep well, a lot of people arestruggling with sleep.
(34:40):
A lot of people are alsostruggling about like staying
mentally awake, they want tolike focus and then they think
they need to drink an energydrink to focus. But if you eat
good foods, top athletes knowthat They eat the best food out
there and their performance ismuch higher. And it's the same
(35:02):
with humans, our performance ismuch higher, it's all
performances are much higher,but also our sleep it's much
better and you get much moreclarity. I think you probably
have noticed that, I've noticedthat if you eat too much junk
(35:22):
food, you feel dumber, you know,you feel just like little daze
in your head. Lurky.
A little foggy. Yeah. So so weif we buy an expensive car, we
buy like a few additives to putinto it to make sure it drives
(35:45):
well, the motor gets treatedwell. But we are Ferraris, we're
even crazier than Ferraris. Wedeserve the best fuel there is.
So that's that's another veryimportant part.
Cathy (35:58):
Yeah. So you have designed private islands for
billionaires. How did that comeabout?
Louis De Jaeger (36:09):
Yeah. So we started out with designing very
small gardens actually. Iremember like when I just
started out, was like with asuitcase full of gardening
books, I went to clients andjust like consulted a little
bit. And then little by little,just did bigger and bigger
(36:32):
projects, started making filmsabout it, writing books about
it, giving keynotes about it,also did a lot of actions, a lot
of campaigns as well. And yeah,the more the more noise you
make, the more people noticeyou.
And also, the more you shareyour vision, people can like
(36:53):
relate to that vision. So forexample, with a larger property
like an island, a lot of thetime these people have read my
book and they say, Oh my god,this vision is exactly what I
believe in, I want you to like,make this vision a reality. So
it's like a very slow process ofdoing 1,000 square feet and then
(37:19):
one acre and 10 acres and 100acres and then a thousand acres.
And yeah, it's it's an organicprocess and it's building
building trust.
Cathy (37:30):
So when you're designing an island, you're putting in all
the apparatus that they need tofarm the food there. Right?
Yeah,
Louis De Jaeger (37:41):
don't work alone. I have a fantastic team I
work together with, for acompany I founded about eight
years ago. And it's always thesame process. First of all, we
get to know the client verywell. Because if I'm going to
design your garden, Mary, oryour garden, Kathy, it's going
(38:02):
to be an entire different gardenbecause you probably both have
different personalities.
Everybody has a differentpersonality. And so we really
need to get to know who you are,what are your strengths, what
are your weaknesses, what arethe things you like to do, you
don't like to do, What do youthink is ugly? What do you
(38:23):
really think is beautiful? Whatare your financial means? How
handy are you?
Are you gonna do stuff yourself?Or are you gonna delegate a lot
of stuff? Do you want everythingto be like very neat and rows?
Or don't you mind like a littlebit of chaos? And so we really
need to get a bit inside of theheads of our clients, which is
(38:45):
very nice.
And it's psychology and alsolike dream together, really do
some dreaming exercises to thinkokay, well, like, imagine there
are like, limits, what would youdo with your gardener, with your
place or with any place in theworld. Then little by little we
form a vision and then that'sthe psychological part of it.
(39:07):
But then of course you have thebiological part of it and the
climatological part of itbecause then you go to the site
and we're gonna design adifferent system in LA than in
Colorado, for example. If you'rehigh up in the mountains or in
New York or in Florida, whichwhere you have a yes. Poultry is
growing with amazing coconutsand hurricanes as well.
Merry (39:29):
And lots of humidity.
Louis De Jaeger (39:32):
Yeah. So then you have to like what you do
with the persons, you have to dothe same with the land, like
what kind of soil do you have?What kind of climate do you
have? What kind of influences doyou have of maybe pollutants or
winds or maybe noisy neighbors?Like how can we make sure that
(39:53):
there is less view on the uglyhouse next door, to give you an
example.
And then it's like putting thesepuzzle pieces together and make
sure they're very much inharmony with each other. And
it's the same process if you'relike doing a small garden or if
you're doing an entire islandwith landing strip for an
(40:14):
airplane or boats that need todock and roads you have to make.
Merry (40:19):
Must have been a real learning process for you. What
did you learn from thesebillionaires?
Louis De Jaeger (40:27):
Well, the most important thing actually that I
learned from any client, whetherthey're no matter what bank they
can have is that everybody wantsto make a difference in this
world. And everybody wants to dosomething good. And that gives
me a lot of hope. People thatcome to us, and I personally I
(40:51):
really don't care if you want todo a small garden or an entire
island because every square inchhelps. And of course, it's cool
to do something very big.
I'm not gonna deny that. Butwe've done garden simple like
residential gardens that havereally made a big impact. For
(41:11):
example, one of our clients, shehas a lot of friends and they
come over to the garden, put afood forest in my garden, and
then they go and do somethingsimilar. Just the willingness of
all these people to just like bepart of that change in their own
means, like their own startingsituation. That's just so
(41:35):
inspiring to see.
It's really a privilege to bearound people who also try to
move things in a big way or in asmall way. It's always
inspiring, you always learnsomething from whether it's a
school teacher or whether it'ssomebody who owns a couple of
(41:55):
offices. I learned so much, it'sreally a nice exchange and most
of the clients also reallybecame people you're close to
because you're like on anadventure together. You share
laughs, you cry together. If atree dies, for example, which is
(42:16):
very normal, like if you plantstuff, there's always a
percentage that's going to die.
So yeah, it's it's a
Cathy (42:24):
Oh, I really love the journey. How do you usually
recommend that people contactyou if they want to be part of
your mission? Or how can theyhelp? Or what can they do? And
also with the name of yourcompany that you founded.
Louis De Jaeger (42:39):
Yeah. Yeah. So the company is called
Comensalist.
Cathy (42:44):
Oh, yeah.
Louis De Jaeger (42:45):
C d o m m e n s a l I s t. And they can contact
me via that website or vialouisdj.com, my website. What
would I recommend people to dois, of course, they can call me
and my team to come overanywhere in the world, we're
working globally. But beforedoing that, I always say, well,
(43:09):
you can do everything yourself.It's only a matter of do you
have the time and energy andwillingness to experiment or
learn or are not afraid to fail.
Because I always try to empowerpeople to do a lot of things
themselves. Of course, they cancall us and they don't even have
(43:32):
to go to the place and we can doeverything and coordinate to
where it's get to make the plansand invite all the contractors
and make sure everybody doeswhat they need to do, manage
budgets, coordinate everything.We can do it so you can just
like, keep on doing your life.That's a possibility. But I
always try to empower people andsay, why do you call us?
(43:52):
Why can't you do it yourself?And I really try to empower them
and say, well, this is not thatdifficult. This is not that
difficult. But it's always amatter of priorities, you can
change the oil in your car, it'snot hard to do, but I'm not
doing it. I'm giving it to agarage, you know, that's a bit
of thing.
Cathy (44:13):
It's it's priorities and time and all of that. But it's
it's very interesting because ifpeople maybe will hear this,
they maybe wanna join yourmission. And the word that comes
to mind for me when you talkabout the things you've
accomplished is entrepreneurialbecause you somehow innately had
(44:35):
that entrepreneurial spirit thatyou started with a little garden
and you got bigger and youstarted traveling and you
started talking and you have aTED Talk. And it's really
interesting. Where do you thinkyou got this entrepreneurial
streak like this?
Louis De Jaeger (44:52):
Yeah, I think it's something that that is
somehow in my DNA. I always likeas a kids Did some little
enterprises from, like, sellingjam on the street or baking
pancakes and selling them or oror, like, making drawings and
selling them or playingharmonica. And and and and and
(45:15):
so that's something that Ialways, like, love, like like
like giving something valuableand get something back. I think
maybe because I haveentrepreneurs in my family. One
of my grandmothers had a hotelin Bruges.
My grandfather that I never metbecause he died before I was
born also had a couple ofcompanies. My dad is an
(45:37):
architect, so that's somethingthat's he's taking me because he
built schools, he's taking me onto this building sites from like
when I was really a little kid,really must have like come over
on me because he was anarchitect of buildings, now I
have an architecture firm forlandscapes. So that's very
(45:58):
obvious. Yeah, I think it's likean amalgamation of all these
influences that just like havingthe spirit of like, I can't
watch too much documentariesbecause I want to fix
everything. It's just likewanting to fix everything on
(46:20):
steroids.
Like every person has thisinside of them. Everybody wants
to fix stuff. But I think forme, it's just like a bit higher.
I want to fix everything, whichis sometimes unhealthy.
Cathy (46:33):
Well I see.
Merry (46:34):
So so I have a question regarding Los Angeles because
Kathy and I live in Los Angeles.And as the world knows, there
were terrible fires here thatdevastated huge parts of this
city, and it filled the soilwith lead and other
contaminants. And last week, theLA Times, our newspaper,
(46:55):
actually reported on thissituation. So what would you
advise us in this city to do toregenerate our soil? And how
long do you think it'll take?
Louis De Jaeger (47:09):
Yeah, it's a major thing, soil pollution, and
it's everywhere. And the more westart to measure the more severe
we know it is. PFAS for example,it's a component that's been
used in non sticking pans, sowe're eating it every day. It's
one of the biggest carcinogensout there. It's also going into
the soil.
(47:30):
Of course you have the leadproblem which in LA is a big
problem. The good news is youcan solve this with phyto
remediation, difficult name forplants that actually are
designed or it's just thoseplants do this automatically and
you design the right plant mixesto go in the fields and then
(47:51):
they will suck out all the heavymetals and then you remove the
plants. Even with PFAs, foreverchemical, you can plant hemp for
example and this hemp will getout of the PFAS and then you can
even process the hemp to takethe PFAS, a forever chemical, in
(48:12):
its original fluor form, so it'snot forever anymore. So you can
do a lot with plants. Most ofthe contaminations you can
remove with plants, but we haveto and that's a very difficult
thing to grasp as humans.
Some situations you can solve itin a couple of years, but some
situations are maybe gonna takesixty years to fix to like, get
(48:35):
all the pollutants out of thecell or even longer. And that's
difficult for humans. Of course,can like take the earth, remove
it and like dump it into place.Yeah. Like, just remove
Cathy (48:45):
the problem. That's what that's what they do do here.
They take six feet. I know. Theyshake six feet off the top, but
but apparently, that leaveslike, if they just take the part
where the house burned and allthe metal from the house went
into the ground, but it leavesthe the yard where the
pollutants came.
(49:05):
It leaves all that vulnerable,and people are wondering, can I
plant an avocado tree here, oris are the avocados gonna poison
everybody? Yeah. Yeah. Well, assoon as soil is the original
soil, we've got all the battery,when the fire came all the
batteries melted, all the carsburned up, everything.
Louis De Jaeger (49:25):
Yeah, and that's something that we as
designers, we always do like avery due diligence check that as
soon as we have the slightest,people that there's some soil
pollutants, we always test forit. That's like before you you
you start a food forest or anedible garden, that's like one
of the first things you youalways do is you you you test it
(49:47):
for heavy metals or if it's PFASor PFAS inside of it, you test
it for it. And I know thesethese tests, they cost some
money, especially PFAS, a coupleof €100 or dollars. But then you
know that you feel safe.Otherwise, it's always like, oh,
now I'm eating my own apple.
(50:07):
And is it, like, safe? You don'tfeel like 100% comfortable
eating it.
Cathy (50:12):
But Even though you've grown it.
Louis De Jaeger (50:14):
Yeah, so test it, you need to test it and when
you test, you have a negativeresult and there are pollutants
and then you have to devise aplan or with phyto remediation,
with having plants or worst caseremove the land but then there's
a question okay, then you'regonna remove the problem. And
(50:36):
another thing is growingcontainers just because once you
cover the soil and you cover itwith plants, then pollution is
like a little bit contained, youjust cannot eat what there is.
And then you for example, incontainers above the ground and
then you use healthy soil, ofcourse, that you buy. So there
(51:01):
is always a solution. But yeah,we humans are pretty good at
screwing things up.
So again, we should fix theroof. And in this case,
literally, like just don't usepollutants to build. Yeah, it's
not hard.
Cathy (51:18):
Yeah. Well, that's easier said than done. But
Louis De Jaeger (51:20):
yeah, of course, it's it's difficult.
Cathy (51:24):
Louis, what would you like our audience to have as a
takeaway today?
Louis De Jaeger (51:29):
That we have more power than we think we
have. I always like to repeatthe quote of Margaret Mead that
says never doubt that a smallgroup of committed citizens can
change the world because it'sthe only thing that ever has.
And every time I hear or evensay this quote, get goosebumps
because it's just so powerful.Like, history has only been
(51:53):
changed by just tiny group. Ifyou look at the Clean Air Act in
USA, it's just because a smallgroup of people were like
saying, I don't like that mykids have to breathe in this
poisonous air of factories.
Let's do something about it.That's what happened. And then
they of course, it took decadesto really lobby and make sure it
(52:13):
happened, but it happened. Andso that's one thing we have the
power. The second thing is,yeah, be voracious in it.
But be patient at the same time.Like, it took decades or even
sometimes centuries to like,stop things, for example,
slavery, it took so long. Buteven if you know it's gonna take
(52:34):
a long time, you have to do itanyway. And I like the quote of
Wes Jackson that said that ifyou're solving a problem that
you can solve in your lifetime,you're not thinking big enough.
Merry (52:49):
Right. That's food for thought. Pardon the pun.
Cathy (52:54):
Yeah.
Merry (52:56):
Thank you, Louis. Our guest today on Late Boomers has
been Louis de Jager, renownedsoil preservationist and
environmental designer. He'she's also the author of SOS Save
Our Soils and a documentaryfilmmaker. You can learn more
about Louie on his website,louisdj.com. That's l0uisdj.com.
(53:23):
And you can buy his book too.Thank you so much, Louis.
Louis De Jaeger (53:28):
Thank you. Really nice to meet you, Kathy
and Murray.
Cathy (53:31):
Me too. We wanna thank our listeners for listening to
our late boomers podcast, andwe're on a drive to increase our
subscribers. So please subscribeto the late boomers podcast
channel on YouTube. Listen innext week when you'll meet
another exciting guest, authorAmy Bernstein. You can listen to
Late Boomers on any podcastplatform and check us out on
(53:53):
social media.
And thanks again to LouisDeager.
Thank you for joining us on late boomers, the podcast
that is your guide to creating athird act with style, power, and
(54:15):
impact. Please visit our websiteand get in touch with us at
lateboomers.us. If you wouldlike to listen to or download
other episodes of late boomers,go to ewnpodcastnetwork.com.
Merry (54:31):
This podcast is also available on Spotify, Apple
Podcast, and most other majorpodcast sites. We hope you make
use of the wisdom you've gainedhere and that you enjoy a
successful third act with yourown style, power, and impact.
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