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Episodes
It’s a fact! 100% of men, women and children eat food, and 97.5% of must buy their food from others who bring it from an average of 2,000 miles away. And so the hungry ask: ”What’s in this tomato? Who planted that broccoli? Is it safe to eat genetically engineered corn? Why are they irradiating meat? Are we running short of water? Why is China growing our apples? What will happen to us if we can no longer farm? How safe is our food chain?” The Food Chain is an audience-interactive syndicated newstalk radio program and podcast broadcasting weekly on radio stations and streaming on demand on the internet. The Food Chain, which has been named the Ag/News Show of the Year by California’s legislature, is hosted by Michael Olson, author of the Ben Franklin Book of the Year award-winning MetroFarm, a 576-page guide to metropolitan agriculture. The Food Chain is available live via GCN Starguide GE 8 and delayed via MP3/FTP. For clearance and/or technical information, please call Michael Olson at 831-566-4209 or email michaelo@metrofarm.com
Episodes
Wednesday Mar 12, 2025
Wednesday Mar 12, 2025
Michael Olson host Nutritionist / Author Jill Troderman
Some facts: One in five children are obese. Two in five adults are obese. The rate at which we are becoming obese has doubled since 1990. A question:
What should we feed the family?
The Food Chain Radio Show - Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Jill Troderman, award-winning nutritionist and author of The Food Tree, for a conversation about how best to feed one’s family.
Topics include why so many are so overweight; the health dangers of eating too much of the wrong foods; and how best to feed the family for a healthy future.
Friday Mar 07, 2025
Friday Mar 07, 2025
Michael Olson with Executive Chef Avram Samuels, Director of Culinary and Food & Beverage Operations, Chaminade Resort and Spa, Santa Cruz, CA
In 1963, California native and World War II veteran Julia Child showed up on Boston’s PBS television to tout her book on French cuisine. It took her over a decade to get off that station! During that time, Child’s “The French Chef” changed America’s taste in food. And so we ask:
What makes French cuisine so French?
The Food Chain Radio Show - Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Executive Chef Avram Samuels for a conversation about being a classically-trained chef of French cuisine.
Topics include the essential difference between French and Italian cuisines; the difference between classical and modern French cuisine; and how a classically-trained French chef combines his artistry with the business of feeding Silicon Valley techies business banquets.
Tuesday Feb 18, 2025
Tuesday Feb 18, 2025
A FOOD CHAIN RELEASE FROM MICHAEL OLSON
Yogi Berra once gave this piece of sage advise: “When you get to a fork in the road, take it!” And so we ask:
Which way should we grow our food: our way or nature’s way?
The Food Chain Radio Show - Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Dr. Felix Zu Lowenstein, farmer & author of Food Crash: Why Organic is the Only Way Forward, for a conversation about his insistence that growing food organically is the only way forward.
Topics include why human civilization is facing a major food crash in its immediate future; how this crash is consequent to the industrial technologies used to grow food; and why organic agriculture presents the only way to ensure a future of plentiful, healthy food.
Show Recording: “Food Crash: A Farmer on Offense” (#1384)
Radio: www.santacruzvoice.com
Host: www.metrofarm.com
Sponsor: TimeShare Media
Tuesday Feb 11, 2025
Tuesday Feb 11, 2025
According to a University of Minnesota survey, 75% of people trust farmers, but only 24% trust food. That leads us to ask:
Why do so many people trust farmers, but so few trust food?
The Food Chain Radio Show - Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Dennis Bulani, 4rth Generation Saskatchewan farmer, CEO of The Rack Petroleum & Author About Food: What a Farmer Wants you to Know, for a conversation about the efficacy and safety of industrial agriculture’s food.
Topics include: why so many people trust farmers, but so few trust food; what the farmer would like people to know about the efficacy and safety of his food; and whether people can be made to trust food that comes from so far away.
Tuesday Jan 28, 2025
Tuesday Jan 28, 2025
Food Chain Radio Podcast with Michael Olson
Infertility on the Menu
They say men today have 60% less sperm than their grandfathers, and if the decline is not reversed, the sperm count in American males will drop to zero by 2045. That thought leads us to ask:
Can eating the wrong food cause our population to collapse?
The Food Chain Radio Show - Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Samantha LeJune, Researcher, Population Research Institute, for a conversation about the possibility that we are eating ourselves to infertility.
Topics include the real life consequences of Paul Erhlich’s 1968 book, The Population Bomb; why America’s young adults are have trouble conceiving and carrying to term their offspring; and which foods might be causing this deadly infertility.
Radio: www.santacruzvoice.com
Host: www.metrofarm.com
Sponsor: TimeShare Media
Thursday Jan 23, 2025
Thursday Jan 23, 2025
Food now travels a long way from where it was grown to where it is eaten. Sometimes bad things happen to good food along the way. This leads us to ask:
What happens when bad food gets eaten by good people?
The Food Chain Radio Show - Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Wiggs Civitillo, Founder & CEO | Starfish-Network, for a conversation about the tracking food as it travels the food miles from farm to fork.
Topics include why the U.S. has three to five hundred food recalls every year; how all food that travels food miles will soon be tracked from farm to fork; and the technology that will– hopefully – make it possible to track food and keep people safe.
Wednesday Jan 15, 2025
Wednesday Jan 15, 2025
Hippocrates is said to have said, “Let food be thy medicine, and let medicine be thy food.” What Hippocrates said so long ago leads us to ask:
Which food makes the best medicine?
The Food Chain Radio Show - Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Carin Fortin & Delmar McComb, Owners and Farmers, Blossom’s Biodynamic Farm, for a conversation about the biodynamic growing of food that that is medicine.
Topics include why Fortin and Delmar employ biodynamic technologies to grow a hundred varieties of medicinal herbs; how their medicinal herbs are converted into lotions and potions; and how notions are used to sell their medicinal preparations directly to customers at farmers markets.
Radio Affiliation: The one-hour “Biodynamic Lotions, Potions & Notions” (#1380) is available as a market exclusive at www.foodchainradio.com.
Friday Jan 10, 2025
Friday Jan 10, 2025
Kaysea Clark, Owner & Farmer, Flowers by the Sea
They say “The eyes are first to feast!” If such is indeed the case, we wonder,
Which flower is best to feast on?
The Food Chain Radio Show - Podcast with Michael Olson hosts Kaysea Clark, Owner & Farmer, Flowers by the Sea, for a conversation about growing and selling flowers to enjoy with food.
Topics include Clark’s transition from gardener to farmer; why the technology of her biologically-intensive farming are important to the character of her flowers; and how Clark sells flowers at farmers’ markets.
Show Recording: “Food with Flowers Farmer” (#1378)
Radio: www.santacruzvoice.com
Host: www.metrofarm.com
Sponsor: TimeShare Media