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The Homeschool How To
I don't claim to know anything about homeschooling, so I set out on a journey to ask the people who do! Join me as I chat with homeschoolers to discuss; "why are people homeschooling," "what are all the ways people are using to homeschool today," and ultimately, "should I homeschool my kids?"
The Homeschool How To
#151: Breaking Big Food: How Homeschooling Helps Families Take Back Kids’ Health with Film Producers, Patrick & Ashley
What if one of the biggest homeschooling wins isn’t curriculum… but protecting your kids from modern pressures and modern “food”?
In this episode of The Homeschool How To Podcast, Cheryl sits down with Patrick & Ashley—homeschool-connected entrepreneurs and the team behind Jigsaw Health—to talk about:
- Patrick’s experience being homeschooled in 7th–9th grade (and why it mattered)
- The myth of “socialization” vs. what homeschool kids actually gain
- Why food choices have become a parenting issue (and a homeschooling advantage)
- Their documentary Breaking Big Food: How the American Food System Went Rotten and How It’s Being Revived
- Practical, realistic “one step at a time” swaps (without turning your life upside down)
- Why “pay the farmer now or pharma later” keeps showing up in this conversation
You’ll also hear how families are building local alternatives—farmers markets, seed-oil-free restaurants, community markets—and how you can start making changes without getting overwhelmed.
🎥 Watch the documentary: BreakingBigFood.com
Ashley & Patrick's supplement brand: JigsawHealth.com and their organic coffee shop: FireflyScottsdale.com
If you’re homeschooling (or considering it) and you care about kids’ health, behavior, focus, food dyes, ultra-processed foods, and raising well-adjusted humans, this episode will give you both encouragement and next steps.
Follow/subscribe for weekly interviews with homeschooling families and experts—and share this episode with a friend who’s trying to “do better” but doesn’t know where to start.
Learn more about Green Ember: Helmer in the Dragon Tomb—the new prequel book from S. D. Smith—and explore the companion video game now available on Steam: sdsmith.com/helmer
Perfect for parents seeking meaningful, courage-building stories for kids ages 8–12.
📘 The Homeschool How To Complete Starter Guide
Thinking about homeschooling but don’t know where to start? Cheryl created this comprehensive guide, compiling insights from interviews with over 120 homeschooling families across the country. From navigating state laws to balancing work and home life — this eBook covers it all. Stop feeling overwhelmed and start feeling confident on your homeschooling journey.
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Welcome to this week's episode of the Homeschool How-To. I'm Cheryl and I invite you to join me on my quest to find out why are people homeschooling? How do you do it? How does it differ from region to region? And should I homeschool my kids? Stick with me as I interview homeschooling families across the country to unfold the answers to each of these questions week by week. Welcome. And with us today, I have Ashley and Patrick on the homeschool how-to. Welcome, guys.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for having us. We're thrilled to be here to chat with you today. And I know we've been really looking forward to this. So thanks for having us.
Speaker 2:I'm excited too because so I love bringing resources for the homeschool community, but resources that also homeschool their kids. So do you guys have that both of those aspects here?
Speaker 1:Well, Patrick has a background of being homeschooled as a kid. Uh you can speak to that a little bit.
Speaker 4:And I would say that we do homeschool our three dogs. Not that they are children, but they absolutely.
Speaker 1:And he loves it.
Speaker 4:So you're ABC's monk. Come on, you can do it this time.
Speaker 2:That's so close. So, Patrick, what ages were you homeschooled from?
Speaker 4:I was homeschooled seventh, eighth, and ninth grade, which as a teenage boy, I feel like kind of saved me from some stuff. My sisters, who I have three younger sisters, they were homeschooled for five years. So the book end years of mine, of me. And my mom actually went to college to be a teacher. All of us went to sort of, I guess, some of the early school, and this would have been let's see, mid-80s for me, late 80s, sort of for my sisters, and then I guess early 90s when I was homeschooled. So yeah, it was but something like that I look back on very fondly, and actually to this day, some of my best friends were who I met during homeschool.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's so cool. And so, what made your parents decide to homeschool you guys at the ages that they did? And we'll get into the coming out of the school system and going back in, but what was their initial reason?
Speaker 4:We were raised pretty religiously. We went to church, and I think that they were just not a fan of, I guess, what they saw happening in the school system. And as you can imagine, basically looking back 40 years ago, it was probably pretty tame compared to what things are looking like nowadays. If we did have children, I absolutely would want to homeschool. I have the benefit of having public school, private school, and homeschool background, as well as community college and state university. So it's like I've toured it all.
Speaker 1:He's been in school for a long time.
Speaker 4:Well, I did finish.
Speaker 1:Van Wilder.
Speaker 3:Like a couple weeks ago.
Speaker 2:There, yeah, there's the movie with Van Wilder. He just continues to go to school. But that's cool that you have the perspective of it all. What would you say were the biggest differences from everyone? Everyone says, oh, the homeschooled kids are weird, they're not socialized. And nowadays with the internet, that's like such a crazy even thing to ponder. But 40 years ago, you don't, you're like, you're not even 40, are you?
Speaker 4:I'm 48.
Speaker 2:Are you really? Yeah. Okay, you're gonna look a day over 15. But uh so what were the biggest differences back then? Were you the weird kid that was homeschooled for a few years? Were you secluded to your basement?
Speaker 4:I think there was a little bit of a stigma to it, but I remember having a conversation with my dad driving home from soccer practice. My sisters, the three younger sisters, had already been homeschooled for one year. And my dad's saying, What do you think about staying at home, doing school next year? And I remember like sixth grade, there were some pretty pressure-feeling moments. And of course, everybody at age 12, age 13, puberty is happening at different rates for everybody. And I feel like there was a lot, I remember feeling a lot of pressure about like, okay, seventh grade, I'm gonna have to like make out with a girl. Like, I'm gonna have to like do, I'm gonna have to grow up and do these things, and I don't think I was ready for that. So, so for me, I remember dad saying that and me kind of just being like, okay. And then we were a part of a group. We were in Grapevine, Texas, which is just outside of the in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, and we were part of Netcash, which I think is like Northeast Terrent County Association of Home Educators. I think I might have nailed it. Sounds like Christian home educators, and so we ran up like a group of and we would do a co-op, we would do field trips together, science museum. I don't know. In regular school, I did a field trip a year. And with homeschool, we did like a field trip a week. It was awesome, it was so much fun.
Speaker 1:I will speak to you as his wife, I am very grateful that he was homeschooled because his mom taught him how to do dishes really well and help out around the house really well. And also, he learned how to play guitar while he was being homeschooled because he had a little extra time, and I was a big fan of that when we met. So it's cool.
Speaker 4:It's not necessarily that I had extra time, it's just that I refused to learn algebra. So instead of algebra and also sentence diagramming, that I could not figure out. And I still remember like my mom, especially with algebra, she's it's so simple. Whatever you do to one side, you have to do to the other side. I was like, I don't know what you mean. I have no idea. So we I guess agreed to disagree on what homework should be done, and instead I learned a G C D chord.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but that's difficult to a lot of people, too, right? Where like algebra might come really easy to them and learning guitar doesn't. And it does give you the opportunity, it does give you free time because you don't have to learn just those crazy things that they want for test scores and all that. So how are and and I totally relate to the seventh grade, and they're making you like, okay, you guys go behind the lockers, and everything's so awkward and like it's not, it's just too young.
Speaker 1:The social pressures are so much more, I think, than they once were, especially with social media and everything. And I will just jump in. My I have two nieces who have been homeschooled pretty much their whole lives. One is 17, just finished high school early, one is 15, and they are two of the most well-adjusted young ladies that I have seen at their age, bar none. And it's a stark contrast between other kids that are just like buried in their iPads all the time and don't know how to have a conversation with an adult or engage. And that's something that they were able to really work with their parents on, spending so much time with them. And their parents were very deliberate to teach them these skills. But I mean, it really is night and day, and I think it's done them some big favors.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I know. Where my seven-year-old, I'm like, oh my God, be quiet, be quiet, be quiet. Why just go get an iPad? No, get it right. I think that in my head. I don't say it out loud, but yes, he like does not, and he's so comfortable with adults, like a little too comfortable to where when an adult says like the thing, it's sarcastic, but or like funny, but when he says it, he sounds like a smart. Oh yeah. I'm like, you're not old enough to say that yet. You're not like one of them, but it is funny. It's cute to see like how comfortable he is talking to adults where like my sister's kids all went to school and they it's like silence when you walk in. It's like, hi, can you tell how did your day go? And you're trying to pull anything out of them. Now, okay, so how was it going back to school? What was your reason for wanting to go back into the school system?
Speaker 4:So that would have been my sophomore year that I went back to school. I went to a Christian school in where was Shady Grove, Shady Grove in Texas. What was that? It was like it's not Irving exactly, but close enough to Irving, Texas. One was, I think, kind of for sports. I wanted to be able to and which is kind of funny because the net cash group, it's like we had some kind of sports stuff together where it was like we would play our house, would play a different house, though.
unknown:Kidding me.
Speaker 4:I think that was it. And I actually now that I think back on it, I don't really recollect that much of a conversation. Like I, as I already recounted, really remember the hey, we're thinking of homeschooling you and me being like, okay. But then all of a sudden I was, I think I might be figuring it out. It might be that they wanted to like have me stop playing guitar and learn algebra.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, maybe.
Speaker 4:Like, I I literally think because for sure, Ashley's correct. She's not just joking. I would vacuum, I would do laundry, I learned how to cook. Like, I learned some actual life skills in sixth, seventh, eighth, or I guess seventh, eighth, and ninth grade. I didn't learn algebra. I had to learn algebra in geometry. So, in like sophomore, the teachers going over stuff. I'm like, hey, A equals B times C or whatever. It's what do these things mean? She's like, didn't you learn all this? I was homeschooled. I was homeschooled. I was homeschooled.
Speaker 2:You were the one that gave us the bad rise. I think it was me, guys.
Speaker 4:We finally found him.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's see now, because everybody else says nope, they went right back to school and they didn't skip a beat.
Speaker 4:Well, I caught up. I did fine. I actually graduated high school with honors. It was just like, and then in junior, junior year, uh, so sophomore, junior, senior year, I went to private Christian school and I did catch up. Algebra algebra two was definitely harder for me because I was geometry, algebra 2. I was like, when did you guys learn all this stuff? They're like, when you were learning how to play guitar, which by the way, I ended up being a professional musician for about nine years with her. That's part of our story together. So it turns out, look, let your kids, yeah, let your kids learn guitar, let them practice, let them become musicians. It might actually earn them some good money.
Speaker 2:I was gonna ask you, like, when did you use the algebra in life? And when did you use the guitar?
Speaker 1:Well, probably algebra zero, guitar ten, yeah. Kind of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Funny.
Speaker 1:Well, that's a all right.
Speaker 2:So there's a test.
Speaker 1:Because before we were professional musicians, he used it to pick up chicks. So he considers that also quite beneficial. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's funny, I have a friend who her husband likes to play guitar, and that's like what lured her in. And now that they have three kids and he just walks around strumming the guitar, she's like, oh my god, will you put it down and pick up the kid?
Speaker 1:He needs a diaper change. The stir the pod. It doesn't quite have the allure it once had.
Speaker 4:You gotta get your foot in the door somehow, though.
unknown:It's true.
Speaker 2:So, okay, so you guys are musicians, and then I know you just worked on a movie. Can you tell us a little bit about all of it? Like, just come at me.
Speaker 1:Well, we just completed a documentary called Breaking Big Food. This is a big project we've been working on over the last year, something that's very near and dear to our hearts. We're very passionate about the subject. As owners of a nutritional supplement company, Jigsaw Health, we have always been passionate about helping people feel good. In fact, our tagline is it's fun to feel good. But something that became glaringly obvious is that there's only so much supplements can do for you. And the fact is, supplements are to do just that. They're supposed to supplement a healthy diet. And that brings us to the healthy diet part, which most people understand at this point, America has got a real issue. So the name of the documentary is Breaking Big Food. And the subtitle is How the American Food System Went Rotten and How It's Being Revived. We really wanted this to not just be a piece of like journalism or like a doom and gloom. We wanted it to be inspirational. So, yes, we have people like Callie Means and Alex Clark just going over chapter and verse how we got here as a country. And then we have some local Arizona purveyors from Arizona Grass-Raised Beef to Amelia's organic seed oil-free restaurant and Good Living Greens market, where they source from like different farmers from around the valley, where people can just go to one little market and get farm fresh vegetables and eggs and raw milk. So we wanted to highlight the people that are doing it right and let people know that these options are exist so that people can start voting with their wallet to make a difference.
Speaker 2:Parents, you know this. What our kids take in shapes who they become. But today, they're swimming in content. Some good, a lot confusing, and what they consume has never mattered more. Our kids need stories that build them up, not break them down. That's why so many families have fallen in love with the work of best-selling author S. D. Smith. His bold, hope-filled adventures in the Green Ember series have sold more than 1.5 million copies, not just because his stories entertain, but because they also give kids models of courage, mirrors that help them feel seen, and maps that help them make sense of choices, consequences, and calling. And now there's something new to share with both readers and gamers. S.D. Smith's latest book, Green Ember, Helmer and the Dragon Tomb, is the long-awaited prequel to the series' beloved character Helmer. And for the first time ever, the Green Ember world comes to life in a brand new video game available now on Steam. This is the kind of story our kids need right now. Learn more about Green Ember, Helmer, and the Dragon Tomb, the book and the game at sdssmith.com/slash Helmer. Or you can grab the link right in the show notes.
Speaker 1:And educating them to as to why they need to make different choices.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this topic is so huge. And I talk about this a lot on my podcast. Like if there were ever just one reason that you needed to homeschool, it would be that the you could send your kid to school with the most expensive, healthy, organic food that you can find. And they can throw that out and have the free breakfast, the free lunch. It's free in most well, free, it's tax dollars, but it is it's free to the children, and they can get the pancakes with all the syrup with the high fructose corn syrup in it, the red dye 40s, the blue ones, every all the artificial stuff. And then when they are and then sit them in a desk all day so that they can't move and get their energy out that they naturally have, anyways, and then we're medicating when I know that's not just all of it, but that's a lot of it. If we change the food, change the exercise routine, we might have a lot of people that would not need medications as children. And I know when I was growing up, there weren't many kids that were on drugs, and now it's it's a very high percentage. And yeah, so were you guys like backing or any part of the Maha movement going through? What are your thoughts about that? Because I know Bobby has done a little bit in the office and there's critiques of this, and he's not moving fast enough. This is all he can do. He's in a rock with what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 4:Well, I think kudos to RFK Jr. for at least pushing in the right direction. And I think it's actually starting to see a lot of good benefits. I would argue both sides. We're not moving fast enough, but at least we're moving in a very healthy direction. This film, Breaking Big Food, started really in the summer of 2024. We had seen Callie Means speak at a conference, and this is Callie Means and Casey Means, Casey, who's been nominated to be the Surgeon General, they had just published a book called Good Energy. We saw Callie speak at a conference, and it was like he just laid it out so cleanly about how things started going bad, really back in the 1980s when Big Tobacco started buying up a bunch of food processors. So I don't remember exactly who it is, but like Philip Morris bought an hibisco or whatever. And since the 1980s, over the last four decades, you tell me, have things gotten better or worse? You know, it's pretty clear that every marker of health has gotten worse in the past four decades, and you are what you eat. In fact, it's more probably accurate to say you are what you eat eats, right? So all the glyphosate-laden corn that's feed fed to cows on a gigantic feedlot that ends up as ground beef at the McDonald's, it's like, is that actually good for us?
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 4:So so for us, as Ashley mentioned, we wanted to point out how the American food system went rotten to educate to Americans. And then the second part, which is really these vignettes woven throughout, and I can say vignettes because I was homeschooled.
Speaker 2:How do you spell it though?
Speaker 4:V-I-N-I-G-E-T-T-E-S. Well done. Thank you very much. I was actually pretty good at spelling, and my mom would be proud of me for that. I don't know if it's a verb or a noun, but I know how to spell it. So with these vignettes woven throughout the story of breaking big food, including the creation of our coffee shop that we made called Firefly Organic Coffee and Market. And what we did to sort of go to these places to find, as I think Ash would say, these good healthy food purveyors in the valley. We we really wanted to show how it's being revived, because we believe that the more Americans are voting with their wallet to support local farmers, the more local farmers there will be. The market, I feel, is the best. It's sort of the best system that we have. It may be not perfect, but it is the best system that we have because I would say, even breaking big food, the title somewhat salacious. Nowhere in the field, nowhere in the film are we trying to say that Kellogg's should go out of business or Nabisco should go out of business or whatever. If anything, we would like to see changes happen. And one thing that is happening to tie it back to your question about Maha is that some of the early reports from mid, let's call it summer 2025 were big food meeting with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. saying things like, hey, you should outlaw food dyes, because if Kellogg's can use it and Nabisco can use it, if anyone can use it, they have this competitive pressure against each other to, well, hey, Kellogg's is still using it. So their food is brighter and it's cheaper, right? And Nabisco's, well, we'd rather use beet juice because it's safer, but it's not as bright and it's more expensive. So if from the top down we can sort of regulate, legislate some of these things that are known carcinogens, big shout out to To Die For, D Y E, to Die For, a documentary that came out earlier in 2025 about a family's struggles with food dyes with their kids and how their kids and many other kids like their family got so much better at better in behavioral, in cognition, after they cut out the food dye. And so, yeah, I think that we are like, I guess I mean I'm an optimist. I would like to believe that we're headed in the right direction. Lord knows we have so much to do in the next three years that you feel like, well, why are all these things still out there? But I guess I'm just very hopeful that at least we're moving in a positive direction.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also to your point, real change needs to start at the ground level, right here in our own communities with us. We have to choose differently. We have to educate our kids differently, let them know why they need to make certain choices so that they can do that as they grow up into adults too, and not just education, I think is the First step. And then because you can't count on government to solve your problems. I mean, yes, great. Please make some changes so that it makes it overall better and easier for people to make good choices. But realistically, it starts at the community level.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And it's definitely hard when you have children because it's like it's it's easier to control just what I eat, right? But then when you have these people that you're sending off into places, whether it's grandma's house, to a friend's house, a birthday party, Halloween, things like that's when it's all like way harder. And you really have to be intentional with what you do. For instance, the last two years for Halloween, we ended up just having a bunch of homeschool families over to our house and doing things like hay rides and glow in the dark tag, I guess manhunt. I don't know. We called it tag. We called it tag in the 80s, but I think it's manhunt now. And you know, swear, and it's funny because I was going to have like marshmallows and I looked and it it said like one artificial thing, probably vanilla, but it had no dyes. And one of the moms was like, Can we skip the marshmallows? And I'm like, Oh, we're already doing so much better than all of America, but sure. And another mom was like, I'll make them from scratch. And so it's but it is hard because it's like your kids see all this other stuff and they don't understand yet that you're not depriving them. You're you're just trying to make them feel better. And my sister like thinks I'm absolutely insane for we will now buy meat from a local farmer and we'll order like the half cow and the half pig a year, and I'll get 20 chickens at a time and stick it in the freezer from the other poultry farm. And so that seemed foreign to me. If you were to say that to me five years ago, I would be like, I'm not going to 80 different stores. No, I don't want all those cuts of a cow. I know how to make a strip steak, and that's what I know how to make, and that's what I'm going to spend my money on. But I think once you just take a baby step and maybe meet that guy that the butcher at the farm and you get a relationship with him, and you're like, oh, I really want to support him. He's getting my money. I like that feeling. And if there were an apocalypse, I know where I can find him. Exactly. Right? I can't get into Walmart's doors or whatever grocery store is near you. That's a really nice feeling. And the same thing with the chickens. It's well, I didn't know how to cut up a whole chicken before, but now I just do it every Sunday. We just make the whole chicken and then we've got chicken for the week. And it's you get a routine. So it seems so overwhelming. What would be your advice to the parents that were like me back in COVID era prior, who just not necessarily, I never took my kids to a fast food joint, but you know, we just do the grocery store thing, didn't read labels, did the best we could, but didn't know better.
Speaker 1:Well, I would say, first of all, one of the favorite, my favorite phrases that I've heard is pay the farmer now or pharma later. Um, it seems like a lot to even fathom. Oh my gosh, I'm not gonna spend over a thousand dollars buying like a half of a beef, and then I can buy like a chest cooler and put all this meat in there, and it just felt so ridiculous and extra, and I don't know, but you're actually paying a lot less money over the long term if you buy meat that way. Number one, I know it can feel overwhelming to have to spend that much at one time, but if you look at your yearly planning, I promise you're saving money by doing that. But also, I think if more families could maybe find a local farmer's market to go to once a week and make that like a family outing kind of thing where you're getting to meet these vendors and hear about their farm or just like kind of have that experience and maybe they get a little treat while they're there of some kind or just making it like a fun outing, uh I feel like is really cool. I know a few families that they do that, and it's like the kids look forward to it every single Sunday, and it's just it's a great way, I think, to just kind of introduce kids to the idea of supporting a local farmer or just caring about healthy food and where it comes from.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I love that pay the farmer now or farmer later. When we look at does your documentary get into the detriment that takes on your body to consume all of these dyes? And there's an immediate, I know you can see kids that are like, oh, I'm fiend. I need that next hit of the high fructose corn syrup or whatever it is, because it's addictive, the sugar. What are the short-term ailments that we might see and the long term?
Speaker 4:Yeah, the documentary I would say it goes into that a little bit, but it assumes a little bit of prior knowledge about our ultra-processed foods not being very healthy. It it's it's unfortunate how convenient they are. And I would say that is really a big part of the message of the documentary is that we're hopeful that markets like Good Living Greens, restaurants like Amelia's, coffee shops like Firefly Organic Coffee and Market will start to pop up all over the country to make it actually more convenient for parents who are trying to protect their kids. I mean, that's really what it all comes down to. You're trying to protect your kids. I think that the more, again, it's kind of a supply and demand thing, it is more expensive to feed your family good food. But as Ashley said, as the saying goes, you can pay the farmer now or pay pharma later. One of the uh vignettes in the documentary is of AJ and Brooke, who are the co-creators of FromTheFarm.org. And they're building essentially a kind of a community, an Airbnb of conveniently being able to buy vegetables, meats online directly from farmers, which could be in your area or could be further away. But it's a great resource. So I feel like up until the 80s, and maybe even maybe it was a little bit before that, but you know, we didn't have organic food because it was just food, right? But thanks to big food, getting really big tobacco taking over big food, and getting probably a little bit too greedy or loose with the facts, whatever you want to say, food went rotten in America. There's all there this is a bit of an aside, but we've probably all heard or anecdotally experienced going to a European country like Italy, where you are able to eat the pizza and drink the wine and you never have a hangover and you lose weight, and you're like, well, maybe it's just because I was walking around all the time. Or maybe because the wine didn't have sulfites and the wheat didn't have glyphosate and the pesticide. Maybe it's a little bit of both. I don't know. But I think like in America, we've kind of lost our passion for food. And I think that maybe one of the answers is for us to fall back in love with food again. I mean, there's not really much better than a good full belly after a great meal.
Speaker 1:Amen to that. And I will add to in the documentary, we have a number of personal transformation stories from Leah Hope, who lost over 200 pounds just by changing her diet, getting rid of the processed food, the fast food, and starting to make simple foods at home to Landon Flowers, who was almost on death's door and didn't know, but food was his answer. So there are some very touching stories in the documentary that I feel like, especially if you're gonna watch it with your kids, they are enjoying this film. They're able to like enjoy the stories in it, but also it's making an impact. It's making them go, well, I don't want to end up where they ended up. So maybe I should think about what I'm eating here. So we tried to make it really entertaining that way so that families could watch it together.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Oh, awesome. I'm definitely gonna watch it with my three-year-old, will probably annoy me the whole time, but my seven-year-old, I am a three-year-old. I'm gonna put cocoa melon on for her in the other room, but I'm gonna watch this with my seven-year-old because he is. I mean, he we were at my in-laws today and he goes, Oh, look, you have air organic syrup too. Because he's used to them having Aunt Jemima or whatever. And honey, it's just maple syrup. I mean, that's that yes, it is it's organic, I guess, but it's maple syrup. But yeah, because he saw us switch over the years and now he's kind of pointing it out to them, and he'll always be like, Well, is there red dye 40 in that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fantastic.
Speaker 2:But, you know, I was gonna mention too. I was earlier this year, I was at a conference with Del Bigtree, and um Max Kane was the one who put the conference on. I'm not sure if you're familiar with him, but he has a company called Farm Match, which sounds exactly like what you were just mentioning, where you can go on and you can order the vegetables, the meat from local farmers in your area. They might have to ship it to you still, maybe it's a few hours away, but you can find the local farms to you. So it's matching farms with the consumers, and it's the same idea. It's brilliant. And yeah, it was an awesome conference. I got to talk to Dell at it. He's been on my podcast, but also there were there was a member of the Kellogg's family there, and she was against the her brand.
Speaker 1:I think she was maybe the one that was on Food Babe on on her podcast as well. She basically kind of blew the whistle on her own family's operation. Is that right? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yes, she did. And is my memory serving me correctly? Was it is it Casey Means that was actually pretty sick before she changed her diet? Or was that?
Speaker 4:No, it was the Callie and Casey Means were really their transformation story, was their mother, uh, who I believe it was pancreatic cancer that was sort of diagnosed very quickly and then quickly passed in two weeks. And Casey, as a surgeon, I don't think that she has that kind of health transformation story.
Speaker 1:No, it was all based on the story of their mother and how they believe she was mistreated and mishandled within the system, and so it became their life's mission, so to speak, to educate and help help it to not happen to anyone else. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It must they were at a panel that I'm thinking of, and it must have been someone else there that completely changed everything from the eczema, the stomach issues with just diet.
Speaker 1:It might have been Vonnie. Oh, she'd have had a story that way. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay. Yes. I think you're right. Yeah, the food babe, it just there's so much coming out now, and it really, like I said before, it seems so overwhelming. But if you just take baby steps, because you can immediately be like, Well, I have to change every single thing in our house, and then I have to get rid of all the plastics that we're putting everything. I mean, me the other day, no, we get raw milk. It's illegal in New York, and we have to have it like bust bust in from an Amish farm and have this secretive pickup location. It's like the craziest thing.
Speaker 1:It is the craziest thing.
Speaker 2:But the milk comes in plastic and the yogurt in plastic. And so this week I was like, all right, I'm changing it all over and I'm putting it in glass containers once it gets to my house, right? And so I'm doing all this, and then I'm taking what did I take out like a brick of cheese out of the refrigerator, and I'm like, this stupid thing's in plastic too.
Speaker 1:I know, and it is overwhelming, absolutely, especially when you start to talk about like the plastic and then the the aluminum cans, and it's like nothing is safe anymore, right? But I really always encourage people to just pick one thing to change right now. When that no longer feels like a change and it's just normal, add something else, but just take baby steps because any improvement is a good improvement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree with that wholeheartedly. Don't overwhelm yourself because especially then you get into the lotions and the shampoos and the makeup and the laundry detergent and the linens. It's yeah, it just one thing at a time. And then maybe in six months you'll change something else. And then, and I think within the homeschooling community, it is so much easier to do this because that generally is just people that are more conscious of their health and their healthcare decisions. In New York, we have to get all of the vaccines on the schedule if you want to attend school. So you'll see a lot of homeschoolers that are not doing the vaccine thing or not doing all of them because they they are not allowed into school for that. And it really is easier to find your people when you are homeschooling. And that might seem overwhelming too. I'm sure it does if you're not if it's not on your radar already. Oh, I have a job and my kids annoy the crap out of me and all this stuff. But it's also, well, your kids might annoy you because you're not the one with them most of the day. So somebody else is raising them. I don't know, bring them home and don't make them a-holes.
Speaker 1:Raise your kids to be people you like.
Speaker 2:Yes, that and that is so true. So, what would be I'm definitely going to sit down because it's I was it's not that I didn't have the desire to watch this because it was like on my phone as I was making dinner every night to watch this documentary, and then a child would run through, and then the dog would go to the bathroom in the house, and then there's a lot going on. But I'm excited that you said I can watch this with my son because what a perfect health lesson and something to put on the homeschool report that, you know, for them, just entertainment, but also part of your homeschooling health class. They're not learning this stuff in school. What do you see happening with the school lunches, the school breakfasts?
Speaker 4:Gosh, I think that there is somewhat of a movement of having the lunch ladies actually like make the lunch again instead of just heating stuff up from frozen cardboard boxes. I feel like there was a the documentary is escaping my mind, but maybe West Virginia or something like that, where they saw a huge improvement in academics by switching the food, throwing away the USDA cardboard crap that was being sent to them, and using like food. Oh, maybe it was like a Jamie Oliver kind of a thing.
Speaker 1:He definitely did a series where he was revolutionizing the cafeteria food, essentially. And yeah, it's been a few years since we've seen that one, but it was really good.
Speaker 4:I guess I would like to believe that the scales are coming off of our eyes. Food is hot again, to use a bit of a pun. And to like people are it's like it's cool to care about your food again, I think. And hopefully our documentary can help with that. We want to, you know, preach uh the good news to the choir and have the choir shout it. I think that there are some minds that are being changed, but I think if anything, this provides a lot of ammunition and a lot of hallelujahs for people that are gonna be like, yes, I've been saying this. We need more like this.
Speaker 2:Thinking about homeschooling but don't know where to start. Well, I've interviewed a few people on the topic. Actually, 120 interviews at this point with homeschooling families from across the country and the world. And what I've done is I've packed everything I've learned into an e-book called The Homeschool How to Complete Starter Guide. From navigating your state's laws to finding your homeschooling style, from working while homeschooling to supporting kids with special needs. This guide covers it all with real stories from real families who've walked this path. I've taken the best insights, the best resources, and put them all into this guide. Stop feeling overwhelmed and start feeling confident. Get your copy of the Homeschool How-To complete starter guide today and discover that homeschooling isn't just about education. It's about getting what you want out of each day, not what somebody else wants out of you. You can grab the link to this ebook in the show's description or head on over to the homeschoolhowto.com.
Speaker 4:And the good news is some of the comments that we're getting back is I need to build a firefly in my community. And if that's what starts to happen in America, I think we can, in fact, revive the food and revive the comp the country and the culture.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I think when you just think about like your child's behavior, the not being able to focus all the way to things like eczema, rashes that are on their bodies or your own body. And even going to things like cancers. I mean, it this is a huge strong link, but it's not always genetics. If maybe it's not, never, I don't know. But you know, even curing cancer through like autophagy and fasting, I mean, that's stuff they never teach you about in school. I mean, not that it, I don't know that much about it, but there is enough research to show that there is some truth that your body, once you kind of fast over a certain amount of hours, you're getting rid of the damaged cells. And all of that has to play into what you are putting in your body and you know, how your body can repair. And I would imagine your body doesn't get rid of those damaged cells quickly if it's trying to fight all of the crap that you've, the red diforties and the blues and the artificial things and the high fructose corn syrup that you're putting in. I would imagine that's keeping your body busy so that it can't say, hey, that is a cancer cell multiplying. We should get rid of that. It's too busy.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, not to mention the environmental factors that we really don't have a lot of control over. We can do our best, but there are a number of them that is just, hey, we're not getting away from cell phones, we're not, unless you're going to off the grid kind of thing. But so if we have a certain amount of those environmental toxins and factors that we can't really do much about, we can make better food choices. So let's just do what we can where we can. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. There's so much to learn. But you know what? Your documentary helps us get there, right? As like parents, it's one thing when it's just us, it's oh, okay, it's just me. But then when I had kids, it was like, oh man, I'm in charge of two people and how if they get sick, if they don't get sick, how if they catch a cold, how quickly they can get over it, that sort of stuff. And it's a big responsibility. And sure, it's easy to say, just send them to school, they'll feed them, they'll educate them, but is that really what you want? Right? Like, good question. We might have to step up. So, where can we find your documentary?
Speaker 4:Breakingbigfood.com is the best place to go right now. Uh, depending on when people watch this, we actually leaked it to YouTube. So, our distributor, uh, it's actually gonna be coming out on Amazon Prime Video and Apple TV, I think right around the first of beginning of January. So, we don't know the exact date. And our we were kind of like, hey, that's too long for us to wait. We want to put it out there. Are you okay with that? And they're like, Well, this is unconventional. And I was like, hey, so is homeschooling. And I went through it, so this is what we're gonna do. It's our film. And they're like, No, actually, it kind of makes sense. Like, release it for free. So far, about 75,000 people have watched Breaking Big Food on YouTube. And uh, like I said, the comments that we're getting, the reactions are really, really good. Uh, I would say the most common word we hear is inspiring, and that is really touching to us. So watch it for free on YouTube for the next few weeks, uh, depending on when this podcast comes out. And then uh after that, it'll be available for rent on Apple TV and Amazon Prime Video.
Speaker 1:But you can just go to breakingbigfood.com and I'll take you directly to the YouTube link. Correct.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm gonna link that in the show's description too, so that people can just easily click there and I will get this out ASAP so that they could still watch it for free. But hopefully they will watch it regardless and donate to the cause, share with their friends, and really think about kind of living life with intention. And I just want to kind of say something too, it all goes hand in hand. You had mentioned before in other countries, in Italy, they don't have all of the dyes, and you're totally right. And I remember a book I read years ago about an American. That went to Paris and she was raising her baby there. It was called Bringing Up Baby. And she like the she talks about this whole meeting that they had with the chefs at the daycare. And they planned out like what the children would be eating for the whole year. And there was like three course meals. Of course, they weren't big meals, but it was like a cheese, and then everything had a vegetable. And the chefs made the food every single day fresh. And I remember reading that. I was pregnant for my son and I was like, this is so foreign. This is insane. And then you look at what our taxes are for school taxes. And it's what are these kids getting? In a lot of cases, they're getting like leftovers from fast food places or the equivalent of. And we just you can think about it as back to when we got like the women into the workforce in the 60s or whatnot. And ever and it was kind of this push when I was going to school. I'm 41. It was you got to go to college, you gotta go to college, you gotta go to college, because you'll never amount to anything otherwise. And so it was like, well, I don't know what I want to go to college for, but I'm going. And you come out with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. So it's like near impossible for anybody to buy a house or even be a stay-at-home mom once you decide, once you have kids and you're like, oh, I think I'd like to stay home. Well, I can't because we want to buy a house and we have all this college debt. And they give you car loans and credit cards. So you're swimming in even that debt. And it's it makes it just so hard to be like, I just want to cook good meals for my family. And even maybe that's the guy. I mean, I homeschool, so I see many dads that are the stay-at-home dad, and the wife actually is the one that works. But you know, for that one person to stay home and not that you have to stay home. You can definitely meal prep on Sundays and have fresh food as well. There are ways around it. But it's just so funny how not funny, but sad how in our country it really kind of we were just scooted along, pushed behind us. Here, this is what you're gonna do now. And we've put a McDonald's on every corner to make sure it happens. It's that what you're doing.
Speaker 1:The system does not seem to be rigged for us, we'll just put it that way. Yeah, so yeah, into our own hands and making different choices.
Speaker 3:I think I just thought of our next documentary. Oh no, breaking college.
Speaker 1:It's too soon. I need a nap first, and then maybe. How long did it take you to make this? About a year for filming, and then it's okay. The project is done. Now someone needs to promote this so that someone can watch it. Oh, that's when the real work starts. Yeah. So it's good though. It's work that we're passionate about and we love talking about it. I'm sure you can tell as we we've been on this call today, but naps are fun too.
Speaker 2:Oh, guys. Patrick and Ashley, thank you so much for coming on the Homeschool How-To today and talking to us about this. I will put the link to your documentary in the show's description. I am going to watch it myself with my son Colin. We are going to see what else we can change because I know there's some plastic or some artificial. There's a marshmallow in our pantry just waiting to get thrown out.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, it might be time to switch to some mold-free coffee.
Speaker 2:So wait, are you guys the coffee makers?
Speaker 4:We work with a roaster, yes. And we taught, we kind of a spoiler alert, but in the documentary, that is part of what we were literally doing for that year was trying to find a registered organic coffee that we really like the taste of and that actually passed our test. So we sent our coffee beans into a lab that basically tests for heavy metals and pesticides and glyphosate and mold and mycotoxins and four pages of nasty things, and it came back squeaky clean. But that is a spoiler alert.
Speaker 2:So, all right. So just because I get whole beans organic doesn't mean it doesn't have mold in it.
Speaker 4:Well, it's gonna be helpful, it's organic certainly helps. Especially with the glyphosate side of things and pesticides, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's mold free unless it tests for it. So if your audience goes to Google Firefly Coffee Beans, you'll find on our website, Jigsaw Health, that we sell the beans and we also have the reports of each batch that we test because Ashley was like, I don't want to drink mold coffee. I'm dealing with enough stuff already. So yeah, that was part of the search that we kind of go through in breaking big food.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's amazing. Yeah, I thought I was doing it all right, but I didn't know that mold could be on the coffee beans.
Speaker 1:Yeah, actually, it's one of the bigger offenders of mold, the mycotoxins, it just happens through the process. I mean, they'll wash the beans and then maybe not dry them completely, or they don't dry them all the way. I think they said because it helps to add weight, because coffee is sold by the by weight. So if they wet the beans down, then it can make them heavier. But I all I know is coffee is one of the bigger offenders of mold. So it is important to find some a brand that is doing either third-party testing or that's probably the only way.
Speaker 4:Yeah, especially if it comes from or is goes through a humid climate, so like a Costa Rica, Indonesia, stuff like that. It's not to say that they're all bad, it's just higher risk. So the beans that we source are from Honduras, which are grown at high elevation and in the shade, shade grown. It's it starts to get into some a little nerdy on the coffee side, but it tastes great.
Speaker 2:Oh, I will have to try that. So see, yes, you're in my language now. Oh, awesome. And side note, I have a long-lost sister that I never knew I had that lives in Hawaii that does make coffee. So not as like a business, but just as like a fun thing for because I guess that's what people in Hawaii do. And uh Kona has some great coffee. She sent me some one time and I was like, oh, this is can I make this? And she's no, you can like only make it in Hawaii. I don't know.
Speaker 1:That seems kind of stupid. You can't make everything yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I is coffee like only made in places like Hawaii?
Speaker 4:Where is it or Honduras? It's grown in a lot of different places, it's really originally from Ethiopia, is what they say, and Ethiopia still produces some of the best coffees, but it's mostly grown close to the equator, so like almost no coffee grows in the United States. Basically, just Hawaii. Okay, I think for Hawaii, yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah. I mean, she only sent it to me the one time because she was like, Yeah, this is really expensive. I'm not just gonna say coffee is very expensive. It is, but she did also send me a coffee maker because she sent me whole beans and she's like, Do you have do you have a grinder? And I'm like, No, I mean, I don't know, can I put it in a blender? So she sent me a coffee maker with a grinder on it, which is amazing. However, now I'm looking at the thing and I'm like, the whole thing's plastic. The whole thing's plastic. So, all right, so lastly, and I promise I'm gonna let you go because my kids are probably gonna end up killing each other upstairs because they're alone. But what do you how do you prepare the coffee? Because mine, so I have the grinder, but like it sits in the container of plastic, and I'm just looking at that. Whoa, that can't be good for heating up, and then you're drinking it every day.
Speaker 1:There is a great grinder that I highly recommend on Amazon, and it just is small, it sits on your counter, it has a stainless steel bucket, so you put the beans in and you just grind it fresh for the next day or the day of. I'm trying to remember what the brand is, and you could link it here. Oh, the Krupps brand. Spell that K-R-U-P-S.
Speaker 4:Okay, and what model is that?
Speaker 1:It's just a three-ounce coffee grinder. You'll see it has the stainless steel bucket in there. So but then how do you prepare it? I just use a drip coffee maker myself. So yours is in plastic into a stainless steel carafe.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:But you could do French press, you could do pour over, but I just do uh my drip coffee.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'll have to look up.
Speaker 1:Do you use a drip coffee machine?
Speaker 2:No, I use whatever she sent me from Hawaii. I don't know what it is, but it's plastic. It's like a Keurig, but with a grinder on it. So you don't need to use a cu a K cup. You can use what you've grinded.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah. I mean, I would probably just find a drip coffee maker with Quisin Art makes a nice one and it has a stainless steel carafe option or a glass. They don't use plastic. I mean, there the components of it inside, there are some plastic that it's made with, but unless you would just want to do a straight pour over situation, which you could avoid all plastic in that case. And then you're just kind of doing it by the cup and you basically boil the water or get it really hot, put the grounds into the pour-over thing, and you just kind of have to be patient and you just pour it over the grinds and it drips into the cups.
Speaker 2:Okay, I don't see my husband doing that at 4:30 in the morning.
Speaker 1:But yeah, if I will look into more than one cup, it's probably not the best.
Speaker 2:I will look into the drip, stainless steel one. And so that can be everyone's number one step, right? Get mold-free coffee that isn't boiling in plastic. All right, here we go. We have a mission. Thank you guys so much for joining me today. This has been so fun. Thank you. And happy holidays. Yes, you too. Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of the Homeschool How-To. If you've enjoyed what you heard and you'd like to contribute to the show, please consider leaving a small tip using the link in my show's description. Or if you'd rather, please use the link in the description to share this podcast with a friend or on your favorite homeschool group Facebook page. Any effort to help us keep the podcast going is greatly appreciated. Thank you for tuning in and for your love of the next generation.