Episodes

Show Notes What does it actually take to become a farmer today if you didn’t grow up on a farm, inherit land, or have a roadmap? In this episode of One Bite is Everything, Dana sits down with first-generation goat farmer Emma Smalley to talk about the reality of building a farm from scratch in modern America. Emma’s path into farming started with a Craigslist ad and an aging goat farmer named Roger who needed help caring for his herd. What followed was mentorship, loss, land searches, commutin...

Inside the hidden systems, rules, economics, and realities shaping America’s farmers markets. Most people think they understand farmers markets. You show up. You buy produce, eggs, cheese, meat, flowers, or honey from a farmer. You support local food. Done. But behind every stand is an entire system most consumers never see. In this episode, Dana sits down with Catt Fields White for a fascinating conversation about what’s really happening behind the scenes at farmers markets across Amer...

What does “best available” actually mean when it comes to food? In this conversation, Dana sits down with Sam Sifton of The New York Times to unpack how we got here. Not just what we eat, but why we eat the way we do, and how much of that is shaped by systems most of us never see. Sam has spent more than two decades helping shape how Americans cook, think about ingredients, and make decisions in their kitchens. Through his work at The New York Times and his role building New York Times Coo...

In honor of Earth Day, this episode takes a closer look at something often missing from the environmental conversation: the role farmers actually play. We tend to hear about agriculture in broad strokes—greenhouse gas emissions, water use, soil erosion. And those concerns are real. But agriculture is not one thing. It varies widely depending on how it’s done, and that difference matters more than most people realize. Drawing from nearly 300 farm projects funded through the For Farmers Movement...

There are about 2 million farms in the United States. Every year, a significant number of the farmers running them are approaching retirement age with no clear plan for what happens to their land when they're done. Farmland doesn't just disappear when a farmer retires. It gets sold, subdivided, converted, or absorbed into larger operations. And in a lot of cases, that means the end of a working farm, a community food source, and sometimes four generations of family work. In this episode, Dana s...

What would American food look like if the story had not been interrupted? That's the question at the center of this conversation with Chef Sean Sherman — an Ogala Lakota chef who grew up on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota and has spent his career restoring the indigenous food knowledge that colonization, displacement, and forced assimilation nearly erased. Sean is the founder of the Indigenous Food Lab and the award-winning restaurant Owamni in Minneapolis. His latest book, Turtle Isla...

How do we produce meat in a way that works for farmers, animals, the land, and the people who eat it? Right now, that conversation happens in extremes. On one side: a highly industrialized system designed for efficiency and low prices. On the other: a growing movement toward regenerative agriculture and animal welfare. Somewhere in the middle is a complicated reality that rarely makes it into the headlines. Robby Sansom lives in that middle. He's the co-founder of Force of Nature, a company bui...

What does it actually take to make local food work — not just in theory, but in real life? In this episode of One Bite is Everything, host Dana DiPrima speaks with Jeanne Blasberg, a former Boston-based author who made a dramatic life pivot: purchasing a 500-acre farm outside Madison, Wisconsin and working to build a regenerative agricultural system connected directly to a fast-casual restaurant chain, Forage Kitchen. What began as a personal search for purpose quickly evolved into a hands-on ...

What if the most important laboratory in agriculture isn’t a university… but a farmer’s field? In this episode of One Bite is Everything, Dana DiPrima talks with farmer and writer Adam Kuznia about the experiments happening quietly across American farmland. Adam manages a farm in northern Minnesota and writes the newsletter Farming Full-Time, where he explores the realities of modern agriculture from the inside. His work focuses on soil health, fertilizer economics, farmer mental health, and t...

On Martha’s Vineyard, farmer Jo Douglas is quietly building one of the most creative small-scale food systems in the country. Her farm, Fork to Pork, begins with a problem that defines the modern food system: nearly 40 percent of food produced is never eaten. Instead of letting that food become waste (and greenhouse gas emissions), Jo collects hundreds of gallons of surplus ingredients each day from restaurants, bakeries, hospitals, and dining halls across the island. Those scraps become feed f...

What happens when a family farm grows far beyond its backyard beginnings? In this episode of One Bite is Everything, host Dana DiPrima speaks with Brittney Miller, second-generation owner of Manchester Farms in South Carolina, a farm that began more than 55 years ago on a picnic table and now raises millions of quail each year. Scaling agriculture often means losing the intimacy that once defined it. Systems replace instincts, automation replaces people, and efficiency overtakes care. Manches...

Let’s start with what’s simple: food is health. In this episode of One Bite is Everything, Dana DiPrima speaks with Carter Williams, systems engineer turned agricultural investor and contributor to the Food Is Health Substack. Carter introduces a framework that reframes the conversation: System A — biologically aligned, nutrient-dense food rooted in nature. System B — industrial agriculture built for scale and yield, but not for healthy outcomes. System C — a possible next chapter that keep...

What does American farming feel like right now? Not from a policy brief or an out of touch news headline. But from inside the daily lives of small farmers. After reviewing nearly 400 grant applications and more than one hundred farmer wish lists, a clear pattern emerges: the strain on small farms is rarely dramatic. It is steady. And personal. And it is often invisible until it’s too late. In this episode of One Bite is Everything, host Dana DiPrima explores the emotional temperature of Americ...

What if the future of food isn’t about fixing the industrial system—but building a parallel one? In this episode of One Bite is Everything, host Dana DiPrima is joined by David Fisher, a botanist, former USDA-funded potato breeder, and environmental scientist who has spent decades studying plants, sustainability, and food systems. David challenges some of the most common assumptions about agriculture, climate change, and food security. Rather than focusing on reforming industrial agriculture, ...

This week, let’s back it up for a minute. It’s easy to get left behind in conversations about food and farming. Easy to feel like you don’t belong. But food is yours. It’s essential. And you should have more power, more knowledge, and more levers to pull to make sure your food is good. At the center of this podcast is a simple truth: Food is not JUST food. If you care about health, community, the environment, or the economy, this episode is for you. This episode breaks down how food function...

In this second part of my conversation with Dave Fischer of Fischer Farms, we move beyond headlines and into the systems shaping what ends up on our plates. If you haven’t listened to the first part of the convo yet, I recommend you go back and listen at some point. That episode lays the groundwork with a deep dive into beef supply chains, methane narratives, soil biology, and the pressure small farmers face inside a highly consolidated food system. In this episode, we go further. Dave and I ...

What’s really happening with beef right now? Why do prices feel volatile, headlines feel confusing, and farmers feel squeezed, even as demand stays strong? In this episode of One Bite is Everything, I’m joined by Dave Fischer, founder of Fischer Farms, for a wide-ranging and deeply honest conversation about the modern beef system and the quiet forces shaping what ends up on our plates. Dave brings a rare perspective. He’s a lifelong farmer and a former industrial engineer who spent years worki...

The new Dietary Guidelines for Americans are being framed as more than nutrition advice. This time, the language goes further—talking about realigning the food system, supporting American farmers and ranchers, and ensuring real food is affordable for families. That framing matters. In this episode of One Bite Is Everything, host Dana DiPrima steps back from the loud reactions about food groups and asks a different set of questions—ones that have largely been missing from the conversation since...

2026 doesn’t feel like a trend year. It feels like a decision year. In this solo episode of One Bite is Everything, Dana DiPrima reflects on what she’s heard over the past year from farmers, eaters, and innovators across the food system and why small farms can’t keep fighting the same battles the same way. This conversation isn’t about predictions or hot takes. It’s about pressure points. The quiet, accumulating strain that asks small farms to absorb rising costs, explain themselves endlessly...

What if the future of food follows the same path as clean beauty? In this episode of One Bite is Everything, host Dana DiPrima continues a broader conversation about innovation, transparency, and consumer power—this time through the lens of food. After exploring how climate and systems innovation can spark change across industries, this conversation asks a parallel question: What happens when everyday shoppers are finally given clarity about what they’re buying? Dana is joined by Sam Citro Alex...

This Christmas Day episode of One Bite is Everything is a little different. Instead of a conversation about policy, food systems, or what’s broken, Dana takes listeners back to the farm—and to the donkey who quietly anchored it all. Murphy arrived in the summer of 2015. He was small, gentle, and lonely. He came with a long life expectancy and, unknowingly, a long list of lessons. Over time, Murphy became the reason an accidental farm stopped being a side project and became a commitment. Chicke...

In this episode of One Bite is Everything, host Dana DiPrima sits down with climate entrepreneur and Supercool CEO Josh Dorfman for a wide-ranging conversation about how innovation in the climate space is quietly rewriting the rules for how change actually happens. Rather than focusing on individual sacrifice or guilt, this conversation explores systems — and why the most effective climate solutions succeed not because people try harder, but because better choices are designed to be easier, che...

This week on One Bite is Everything, we’re taking a look back over all the conversations we’ve had in 2025 with farmers, chefs, historians, entrepreneurs, policy thinkers, and food system insiders. Here, a quiet thread emerges: the future of food. Not as an abstract concept, but as something that’s already shaping our grocery carts, our communities, and the lives of the hardworking farmers at the center of it all. In this episode, Dana breaks down the biggest forces that will shape what we eat ...

Each December I bring back this listener favorite because it captures the magic, the work, and the heart behind one of the season’s most beloved traditions. Today, we visit Ashley at Tuckaway Trees, a family-run Christmas tree farm in Pennsylvania that has become an evergreen part of this show. We talk about how long a Christmas tree takes to grow, what the holiday rush looks like behind the scenes, the varieties customers love most, and how small specialty farms like this anchor local economie...