In this episode of Sense Making in a Changing World, I speak with regenerative farmer and Bionutrient Food Association founder Dan Kittredge from the United States.

Together we explore what it really means to grow nutrient dense food and nourish the microbiome, in the soil and in our own bodies.

Dan shares decades of experience and research that reveal just how wide the gap is between food that truly nourishes and food that simply fills us up. We talk about the huge variation in nutrient levels between different samples of the same crop, why this happens and what it means for human health and climate.

We touch on:

• How two carrots from different farms can have four to ten times difference in key nutrients
• Why labels like organic or local only tell part of the story of food quality
• What happens when we take soil out of the equation and grow food in hydroponic systems
• Why Dan says we should be growing for the microbiome in the soil and in our own bodies
• Practical ways gardeners and farmers can start shifting their practice toward truly nutrient dense food

My hope is that this conversation helps you look at the food on your plate and the soil under your feet in a new way, and encourages you to keep experimenting in your own gardens, farms, kitchens and communities.

I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.

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This podcast is hosted by Morag Gamble, founder of the Permaculture Education Institute - the leading-edge international online school for integrated permaculture design, education, leadership and [pr]activism.⁠

• Save 50% on Morag Gamble's Permaculture Educators Complete Collection (available only 7-31 Jan, 2026)
• Talk with Morag here about this program.

Find more of Morag's conversations at the International Permaculture Festival of Wild Ideas.

This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage on Jinibara & Gubbi Gubbi country.

In this episode of Sense-Making in a Changing World, I sit down with Abel Pearson – permaculture educator, community food grower and co founder of Glasbren, an award winning community-supported agriculture project in rural Wales.

Glasbren began as a three acre permaculture designed market garden and has now moved to Lord’s Park Farm, a 134 acre National Trust property on the cliffs where the Taf and Tywi rivers meet the sea in Carmarthenshire.

Abel and his family are the first permaculture based tenants on a National Trust farm, creating a flagship project for nature friendly, community facing farming.

In our conversation we explore:

• Abel’s journey from woofing and natural building to discovering permaculture as “the origin” of everything he now does
• How Glasbren grew from a three acre CSA into a whole farm vision at Lord’s Park
• Designing a landscape and an organisation with permaculture ethics: earth care, people care, fair share
• Indigenous and historic food systems as deeply “permacultural” ways of living in reciprocity with land
• Beingof a place when you may not be from there – and how growing food together becomes daily practice in belonging
• Welsh language, culture and land
• Community supported agriculture, food security and the fragility of our current food system
• Wales’ shift toward agroecology, social value payments for farms, and support for small scale growers
• The practicalities of funding and holding a diversified social enterprise farm
• Volunteering at Glasbren as a pathway into community, wellbeing and climate action
• Family life in the middle of a farm that is also a community hub

Abel’s reflections weave beautifully with the core of permaculture education – that we are learning a way of seeing and relating, not just a collection of techniques. This episode is an invitation to slow down, listen to place, and see farms and gardens as sites of cultural and ecological repair.

Glasbren website: https://www.glasbren.org.uk

_________________________________

I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.

Support the show

_____________________________

Subscribe to this podcast, share widely, leave a comment and a 5 star review to help these stories myceliate far.

• Check out the Sense-Making in a Changing World podcast website & Youtube channel

This podcast is hosted by Morag Gamble, founder of the Permaculture Education Institute - the leading-edge international online school for integrated permaculture design, education, leadership and [pr]activism.⁠

• Save 50% on Morag Gamble's Permaculture Educators Complete Collection (available only 7-31 Jan, 2026)
• Talk with Morag here about this program.

Find more of Morag's conversations at the International Permaculture Festival of Wild Ideas.

This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage on Jinibara & Gubbi Gubbi country.

What if the forest you walk through is already a food garden, and the real work is remembering how to see it that way?

In this episode of Sense Making in a Changing World I am in conversation with writer and public radio host Elspeth Hay about her beautiful new book Feed Us with Trees: Nuts and the Future of Food. Elspeth calls in from her home on Cape Cod and shares how one simple realisation changed everything for her: acorns ARE food.

From that moment she began following nut trees back through time and across continents, uncovering oak, chestnut and hazel commons, stories of enclosure and colonisation, and the quiet resilience of people who never stopped tending tree foods. Together we explore how this different way of seeing opens a path toward food systems that feed people and whole ecosystems at the same time.

We talk about:

• How nut trees like oak, chestnut and hazel can sit at the centre of generous food systems
• Why perennial tree based polycultures can out produce industrial monocultures once we count the full costs
• Humans as potential keystone species rather than ecological mistakes
• Cultural burning, oak woodlands and remembering that our presence can be beneficial
• Commons, local economies and finding belonging by staying rooted in a place

Elspeth invites us to see ourselves as “radical regenerators” who are not just analysing the old story of agriculture, but actively weaving new ones in our own communities.

ABOUT ELSPETH HAY
Elspeth Hay is a writer and public radio host based on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. She created The Local Food Report, a weekly program on CAI, the Cape and Islands NPR station, and her work on food and ecology has appeared in places such as the Boston Globe, NPR and Heated with Mark Bittman. Her book Feed Us with Trees: Nuts and the Future of Food explores how nut trees and tree centred cultures can help us reimagine food, history and our ecological role as humans. You can learn more about Elspeth and her work at: elspethhay.com

I hope this episode encourages you to look again at the

I'd love to hear from you. Text me here.

Support the show

_____________________________

Subscribe to this podcast, share widely, leave a comment and a 5 star review to help these stories myceliate far.

• Check out the Sense-Making in a Changing World podcast website & Youtube channel

This podcast is hosted by Morag Gamble, founder of the Permaculture Education Institute - the leading-edge international online school for integrated permaculture design, education, leadership and [pr]activism.⁠

• Save 50% on Morag Gamble's Permaculture Educators Complete Collection (available only 7-31 Jan, 2026)
• Talk with Morag here about this program.

Find more of Morag's conversations at the International Permaculture Festival of Wild Ideas.

This podcast is broadcast from a solar powered studio in the midst of a permaculture ecovillage on Jinibara & Gubbi Gubbi country.