Farm To Performance: Avery Claire Wrigglesworth of Lily Hill Farm

Regenerative farming, nutrition, grass-fed beef, combat athlete performance, inflammation, and recovery all start with what you eat. As an orthopedic surgeon and jiu-jitsu athlete, I wanted to understand why food quality matters more than we think.

In this episode of the Dr. Jiu Jitsu Podcast, I visit Lily Hill Farm and sit down with Avery Claire Wrigglesworth to break down how regenerative farming works, why pasture-raised meat is different, and how sourcing your food directly impacts your health, inflammation, and performance.

We talk about the realities of modern food systems, the stress animals experience in traditional supply chains, and why reconnecting with your food source can change how you feel, train, and recover.

If you're serious about performance, longevity, and reducing inflammation, this conversation will change how you think about food.

Episode Highlights:

00:00 – Why Combat Athletes Should Care About Nutrition
01:42 – Why Farm-Raised Meat Tastes Different
02:41 – Stress, Transport, and Animal Health
03:41 – What These Cattle Actually Eat
04:46 – Why People Don’t Source Food This Way Anymore
05:48 – What Regenerative Farming Really Means
08:23 – Is Buying From Farms Too Expensive?
09:21 – The Reality of Farming Most People Don’t See
10:32 – How Nutrition Impacts Pain, Inflammation, and Performance

To learn more about Dr. Megan Jimenez, check out her website: doctorjiujitsu.com

Transcript

Narrator 1 [00:00:00] Do you train combat sports? Have you ever been injured? Dr. Megan Jimenez is an army orthopedic sports surgeon and jujitsu black belt. This is Dr. Jujitsu, your go-to podcast for combat sports, military performance, injury prevention and treatment. New episodes drop the first Friday of each month. 

Dr. Jimenez [00:00:22] All right, I'm Megan Jimenez. I'm an orthopedic surgeon and I'm here with my lovely friend. 

Avery [00:00:28] I'm Avery Claire Rigglesworth and I'm owner and operator of Lily Hill Farm. 

Dr. Jimenez [00:00:33] So tell me about how you got started here and what got you into this lovely farming business. 

Avery [00:00:38] So about three, a little over three years ago now, my husband and I moved back home from, we were actually overseas, working in international finance. We moved back to help save the farm out of foreclosure. So we ran it as a traditional cow-calf operation, which is essentially auctioning our young cattle off once a year to go into the traditional feedlot system. We ran it like that for a little over two years and then decided to transition into a direct to consumer business model. So we essentially, so all cattle are born, raised, and finished on our farm now. And we ship our beef all over the U.S. And we also sell locally. And what made you want to do this? So I think my main drive to do it was, you know, my dad was like, we're gonna lose the farm. And I really wanted to step up. I wanted to help him. And I don't think agriculture really was my calling per se then, but I always had a very special place in my heart for the farm. So I just didn't feel like it was quite ready for us to see the farm get sold off and developed. So I kind of then I think really grew to appreciate agriculture and the difficulties, but also how rewarding and beautiful it can be as well. And really just. Trying to make a change the best way. I know how. 

Dr. Jimenez [00:02:09] Now, I know most people get their meat from grocery stores, right? I used to get my meat from grocery store all the time until I found local farmers like you. There's so many local farmers in the area and I'm from New Jersey. So I didn't know anything about this, right. We lived more in the city, by the beach, always going to the grocery store, just got whatever meat. So what makes meat here different? You know, I can taste the difference and I won't go back to grocery stores much anymore unless I'm in a pinch. For the most part, my meat comes from... So I think. 

Avery [00:02:36] So the biggest difference you're gonna see is the cattle being raised in a pastoral environment. And I think that has a huge impact on not only the quality of the meat, but it really impacts the quality in their life as well. And I that that can portray into meat quality more than people originally would think. So, I think that it really just has to do with how they're raised and also... Being born, raised, and finished all on the same farm, you're really reducing stress that that cattle has to endure throughout its lifetime. When they're shipped off, if we were selling them through the traditional system, if they were being sold off the farm, they would be shipped off out west and they would have to endure a very long haul. That's very traumatic on them. And a lot of times when they get loaded off in the feedlots, they then have to be given antibiotics to help prevent any type of shipping fever. And there's a lot of other things that, you know, just that hauling aspect really escalates the stress that an animal has to go through throughout their life. Even if it is short term, it does impact other things within the quality of their life 

Dr. Jimenez [00:03:51] And what are they eating here versus what we get at the grocery store, and what's their life like here? 

Avery [00:03:56] So they're raised on pasture 24-7, and we also cut and bale all of our own hay. And we do supplement some groups with grain off the farm. And that really depends on the group and their nutritional needs. So we have some cattle that, you know, might need a little extra help. And the forage on our farm in Georgia, especially the natural forage, can be lacking in certain essential nutrients for. Some of our cattle that need a little bit more of a higher caloric intake and more energy out of their food. So we do supplement some groups with grain, but on a whole, the majority of our cattle are pasture-raised, 365. They're family. Yeah. 

Dr. Jimenez [00:04:41] Or a family. So what do you think is stopping the population from going kind of back? Like you keep saying traditional, but to me, this is traditional, right? This is where we came from. You know, I always talk about the ancestors and eating off the land and the cows and all the animals that we have eaten years and years ago, hundreds of years, were from the land. So the population boom, trying to feed more people, how do we bring it here. 

Avery [00:05:08] I think it's really a cultural thing, it's what we're used to, and I think also social media can be a really beautiful tool in showing people that, you know, there's other ways to source your food, you have options. I think that, in the U.S. We do have a very efficient, our beef production system is very efficient. Just because it's efficient doesn't mean it's necessarily better for our health. So I think we really need to step back and try to support local farms and direct consumer farms as much as we can because they're really driving more of the regenerative and sustainable agriculture movements. And, you know, they're not, you now, being kind of forced by larger corporations to run their farms certain ways or by, you have to. By large commodities in. So I think that the smaller farms are really at the forefront of the sustainable and regenerative agricultural movement. 

Dr. Jimenez [00:06:12] You were talking about regenerative, and regenerative farming is something brought up a lot. What does that mean? 

Avery [00:06:18] We like to look at it, it's a mindset. You really want to look at your land and you wanna put more in than take out. So you wanna look at improving it, you wanna to look at your soil health, you wanna look at planning for the future and you want to utilize your livestock to do that as much as possible. And more of a commercialized farm system, you might bring in commercial fertilizer, which is a synthetic version, put it on your pastures. And if you're more of regenerative farmer, you're gonna look at, well, how can I use my cattle who are already fertilizing the pasture? How can I graze them methodically to improve my soil health? How can I feed them in the winter to really build up? That soil again and so I think it's really a mindset and striving to do better.

Dr. Jimenez [00:07:17] We'd better feed us. 

Avery [00:07:18] Leave it better than you found it, essentially. 

Dr. Jimenez [00:07:22] How many cows do you have back here? 

Avery [00:07:24] So right now we have about 500 head, but we only have 250 breed cows and we're calving those out right now and the rest are going to be for our meat program. So we are going be selling a lot of meat next year. 

Dr. Jimenez [00:07:36] Awesome. And you have a bunch of dogs on the property. 

Avery [00:07:39] Yes, we do have a couple. Some are useless, some are useful. 

Dr. Jimenez [00:07:45] Those are emotional do- 

Avery [00:07:46] Emotional support, no, but yeah, so. 

Dr. Jimenez [00:07:50] And the other dogs are out and about, what are they doing? 

Avery [00:07:53] They are, they're with the herd and generally they're just surveying to see. Sometimes neighbors let their dogs run free, and right now we're calving, so they're gonna make sure those calves aren't getting messed with by any dogs or coyotes or anything like that. 

Dr. Jimenez [00:08:13] There's gonna be people that have no idea what this kind of farming even is, right? Because you talked about going to grocery stores and easier, what recommendations can you give to them? I know sometimes people say, oh, it's expensive to go to farmers. And how can we kind of change that mentality and that mindset surrounding it? 

Avery [00:08:30] I think even just buying from direct from farmers once or twice a year to begin with, you know, just really opening that up and figuring out. It is worth spending that extra dollars on. And, you know, it might mean that you have to be a little more conscientious about what food you're wasting in your household. We waste 40% of food in the traditional, you know American household. So it's, you it's significant. So maybe just be a bit more mindful about how you're eating. And I think there are ways that you can incorporate it and still have it be sustainable financially for you. So. 

Dr. Jimenez [00:09:11] Anything else you want to add about farming, about your life, about how it's been going? I know you've been in here almost four years, we were saying. What have you learned? 

Avery [00:09:20] Well, I've learned that I've been humbled many times. So I think everyone has become very far removed from agriculture that they don't understand what it takes to actually bring a steak to your table. That's nearly two years for us. And we'll see cattle die throughout that time. You're always gonna have a small percentage that aren't gonna make it, you know, due to. Mom having a hard labor. You're gonna have to deal with freak accidents. You're going to have to do with drought. You're to have deal with, you know, wet, rainy weather in the winter time. So I think, you now, a lot of us farmers, we really aren't making a huge profit off of farming and it really is a labor of love. What originally drove you to seek local, more regenerative types? 

Dr. Jimenez [00:10:22] Well, it wasn't until I got to Georgia and I've been here about three years now, I went to the Piggly Wiggly and I got some meat and it was, the color was very different and I saw it and it didn't taste great. It was very chewy, the meats that I got. Couldn't really eat it and enjoy it. I just felt like I was trying to shovel in nutrients and it probably wasn't very nutritious. And so I started getting really into nutrition. And as an orthopedic surgeon, One of the big things to talk about with my patients is nutrition, because a lot of people eat a lot of really processed, terrible junk, and then their joints are inflamed. And they come to me and saying, my knee hurts. They're obese, eating processed foods, eating really poor meat quality. And I started looking at all this and I was like, there's gotta be a better way to get this food. And we have to stop eating so much packaged food that has a shelf life of 20 years, right? That's terrible. And one of my patients actually was like, you should try a farm in Columbus. And so I was like all right, well that's, I go and train Jiu-Jitsu there, so let's go. And I met them and they took me on a tour of the farm and they're like out there hugging the pigs and they were just, it was just a very, it was an amazing experience to see how they took care of the animals. And I was, I don't think that these other grocery stores are doing this with their animals. Like it's family, right? And they had a great life with minimum stress. Like I saw how they move them and it's just so. It's like a flowing river, it's just very natural how they move the animals. And I tried that meat, and just looking at the color difference, and I just tried a little bit and then I started getting into organs and finding out all the nutrients of liver, heart. I tried kidney, that one was a little bit extra for me, it was just taking out the filtration system of the kidney. So I stick to heart and liver pretty much, but the nutrients in that are just insane when I started looking at benefits of it. So that was it, I was hooked. And then anytime I eat at a grocery store. From certain grocery stores, I'm like, I'm just gonna stick to like eggs, you know? I'll just, and I have my friend who has chickens, treats them like family. I go play with the chickens and they're like pets, but they eat well and that's where I get my chickens from. I don't wanna get chickens, or I might get my eggs from. I don't wanna get eggs from the store anymore. And so it was just a huge, I feel more energized. I feel so much better when I eat it. I don't feel like I wanna go take a nap after I eat. I feel like, I've eaten this great source of nutritious nutrition from. These beautiful places from all the love that you give the animals. And it just, that energy comes through. And then I can go kick some ass in Jiu-Jitsu. 

Avery [00:12:56] Do you think that sourcing your food locally and actually visiting these farms has helped you kind of reconnect to your food and find it almost more enjoyable to eat it and cook it more, be more conscientious about, you know, how you're eating and what you're wasting? 

Dr. Jimenez [00:13:10] 100% because I come here and I get all my meat and I have friends over and I have family over and it's so exciting for me to share it with them because I'm like this is from like Lily Hill farm my friend like took care of these cows like helped birth them and they had a great life and they were just they had free roaming of the land and did whatever they wanted for their lives and then they're giving us nutrition and because they had such a good life It's just like a beautiful circle of life. That I'm getting all that energy and nutrition versus cows that are probably in like a little pen, fed synthetics, pumped with antibiotics. I really don't know what is happening behind closed doors. I can only imagine what those animals go through. And that energy isn't what I want in my body. And so I love just sharing it with my family, sharing it my friends. And I get so excited to share the meat with them because I'm like, this is from the farm. And I think some of my friends are just like, you're insane. Not quite there yet. Taste it and they're like, That is the best one. Like filet I've ever had, that's the best flank steak I've every had, and it's just because of the whole process. 

Avery [00:14:15] It's, I do think that raising them out on pasture really makes a world of difference. And there's little things that I really pick up on, like they scratch up against trees, it's a way that they can take care of their skin. If they're in a feedlot, they don't necessarily have that, or they'll put those broom things up that are just a plastic to mimic that. And they, They go and they seek certain areas of the dirt. We do give them mineral, but they, you know, they just, they look up certain areas of the earth that have minerals in them that they can, you now, kind of help balance their systems. And I think it's just really important for them to be able to- The animals. Yeah, practice their normal behaviors and then also us, you, know, honor them and give them as stress-free life as possible. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you next time. 

Dr. Jimenez [00:15:05] That's how nature intended it. All right. So people that are looking to get into supporting local farmers and getting this great quality meat, how can they find you? How can they reach you? 

Avery [00:15:15] Well, we do sell all of our products online at lilyhillcattle.com. You can also follow us on Instagram to keep up to date with the farm. And I share a lot about even the family dynamics and also how we raise our livestock. And my Instagram handle is lilyhillcattle and yeah, so those are the best. 

Dr. Jimenez [00:15:38] Ways to get in contact with us. Cool. And she loves all the questions that you guys have. If you have any questions about how the cattle are being raised or even a question that she might not know off the top of her head, we go and look for it. So this is my friend Avery. Go check her out and start feeding your body, fueling yourself for success. Get that love. Get the cattle. Go out and meet your local farmers because they're all over the country and you can really find them if you do your research.