[music] Alright!
This is John Kohler with growingyourgreens.com, today we have another exciting episode for
you, and not only is there one John Kohler on this show, there’s actually another John
Kohler on the show, this is my dad, he’s visiting the garden today, and I wanted to
just interview him about GMOs, all the food that his son is growing, and his thoughts
on some of the topics.
Because I know some of you guys might be curious.
So dad, what do you think about my massive garden here and all the food that I grow?
I think that the heritage that you got two generations ago, it skipped me, came from
the Fisher family in Indiana who’s my grandfather, grew corn, alfalfa, and hay for some dairy
cows that he had, and his influence influenced my mom, which is your grandma.
Wow, I want to say, [inaudible] my great, great, great grandfather, he grew non-GMO,
and you guys should too, alright.
They didn’t have GMOs then.
Alright dad so tell me about, if you learned how to garden, and if you taught me these
skills, or not?
Well, I was born just before World War II started.
My dad joined the Navy and received a commission, and we moved to an area outside of Washington,
DC, which had sort of a large lot, and in those days, World War II, people grew victory
gardens.
That was they grew their own tomatoes, they grew their own cucumbers and other items,
some corn because of the war effort, and most of the food needed to go to the soldiers then
in the Far East and in Europe.
So we had a victory garden but I haven’t got a real good memory of what it was.
But the fact that my mom was a farmer’s daughter probably had something to do with
that, and I don’t know maybe she passed some genetics onto you through me.
It skipped my generation.
[laughter] Yeah I mean now more than ever, I think we’re still at war with a lot of
different things, whether that’s a real war or just an internal war with corporations
and all this stuff.
I think it’s very important in this day and age that you grow your own food.
Dad, why do you think it’s important for people to grow their own food today?
Well, we have, if anybody wants to see it, something about factory farms, called Food
Inc, and it has been demonstrated how the individual farmer, like my grandfather, your
great-grandfather, don’t grow food for the country anymore.
It’s large corporations, and they have hundreds, maybe thousands of acres of plants that they’re
treating with genetically changed seeds that will not react to weed pesticides, and we’re
eating the products.
We tried in California, later in Washington, later in Oregon, to just get that food labeled,
and massive amounts of money were spent to defeat the propositions in all three of those
states.
So not only is the food being changed in a way most of us don’t know, but it is being
kept very quiet, and I think that’s really important, what you’re doing is really important
to let everybody know that growing your own food will keep you away from those changes
that aren’t the same as what Luther Burbank did here in Santa Rosa.
He would put the stem of a white rose next to the stem of a red rose and make a pink
rose.
Genetic modification is way different than that, and I’m sure you covered it in a video
or two.
Absolutely, so if you guys didn’t see my videos on the GMOs, I’ll post links right
down below this video in the description, so click on the description, you’ll have
to read part of it then you’ll click “more” and then you’ll see the links down there
so you can learn more about the GMOs.
So dad, what do you do in your life to avoid GMOs because you haven’t yet let me put
in a garden in your yard for you?
I try to buy organic wherever I can whenever I can, and I’m still trying to promote labeling
of genetically modified organisms, but it’s a big battle.
Absolutely yeah, and all of you guys can play a part and be part of the change you want
to see in the world.
Buy organic to avoid GMOs, grow your own food, that’s even better, and of course look up
and purchase only the food products that don’t have the GMO ingredients.
Things out of canola, soy, sugar beets, corn, those are the major ones, in the produce section
it would be papayas from Hawaii or China, and also the corn, got to watch out for those
and of course the soy, if you are eating sprouts or edamame soy beans.
Alright dad so, why don’t we talk next about something you’re really passionate about
having to do with the whole food culture, because you know because I got into this,
you’ve kind of gotten into this, and you kind of raised me by going to the co-op when
we were very small and getting unsulfured dried apricots.
Tell me your opinions of diet and natural foods after you’ve lived all these years
and have a little bit more wisdom than I.
Well I’ve got to tell you, I grew up in a different time than you.
When I was growing up, my mother made spinach for me out of a can, and she heated it up
on the stove, or maybe a green brick from the frozen food section of the grocery store,
and that’s the way I thought all food came was from the grocery store.
But I generally knew that my grandfather, your great-grandfather, grew corn, grew alfalfa,
and let some of his fields go fallow for a season.
Just plow it under, and let the old material rot and compost, the next year’s crop.
So I knew vaguely about that.
But I really didn’t get well until 2001, when by your courtesy, I went to a place called
North…
True North, dad.
True North Health, was called the Center for Conservative Therapy, and found out that the
pizzas and the hamburgers and the other kind of processed foods, hot dogs that I had been
enjoying for most of my life were really not good.
I learned the phrase “greasy, slimy, dead, decaying flesh.”
[laughter].
Then after that, when I went to the center, I went in at 220 pounds, I finished a fasting
program and came out at 170 pounds, and now I am a nice, steady 190 pounds, and it is
not like my body is burdened trying to deal with all of the material that I was carrying
around with me.
Wow so what did you feel different dad after changing, making your dietary changes of eating
more plants and fruits and vegetables and all this kind of stuff?
I think I’m healthy.
I went to my doctor two months ago for the results of a blood test that was taken about
four months ago.
They measure high density lipoprotein, low density lipoproteins, the LDLs and the HDLs
everybody talks about, the total cholesterol results from the combination of those.
My doctor told me that I have the lowest total cholesterol of any of her patients.
That’s what I learned.
Alright dad, so I know you’re into secret society or maybe a society that has secrets,
the Freemasons, so tell me how long you’ve been doing that and actually tell me about
your lodge brothers, and what they eat and how you eat and what’s happening to them?
I belong to a Masonic lodge in San Francisco.
Before I joined and was accepted into the lodge, there are three degrees in the basic
lodge, first degree, second degree, and third degree.
Before I received my first degree, I had completed the dietary fasting and modification, fruits
and vegetables that I had just learned about.
So from the first meeting I went to, there’s always a dinner at these meetings, I always
brought fresh fruits and vegetables for my own dinner.
I never criticized my lodge brothers who were eating their steak and their roast beef and
hot dogs on national holidays like Fourth of July, but I simply ate my fruits and vegetables,
sometimes cooked, sometimes raw, and my lodge brothers look at me kind of strangely – “Are
you a vegetarian?”
And I say “Yeah, but I try,” and I think I learned this from you, “not to convert
anybody, and get on a soapbox and talk” but I think I’m healthier than my brothers
who are basically dying of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.
All of which are preventable.
Alright dad, so I’m glad you found eating a healthy fruit and vegetable-based diet,
and according to my research, things like some of the top killers in America are preventable
by simply changing the food that you’re eating, and that’s one of the reasons that
I grow my own food, and one of the reasons why I teach you guys, because hopefully, even
if you’re going to eat the crap, and I don’t really care if you eat the crap, all I care
about is that you eat more fresh fruits and vegetables, even if you’ve got to cook them
like my dad, right?
You’re going to be healthier for a longer period of time, and I just kind of take it
to the extreme and eat TONS of fruits and vegetables myself.
Alright dad, so the last question I got for you is do you have any plans to grow your
own food, because that’s what I teach, and I’m so popular on YouTube, but yet my parents
are not growing their own food!
You see you could teach others, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him
drink, and it’s easier to teach others than to teach your family so don’t even try.
I have a tract home in the suburb of San Francisco, there’s a small lot, it probably could accommodate
fruits and vegetables growing on the lot, but right now I’ve only got native California
flowers growing.
I’ve got California poppies and they’re doing quite well.
Awesome.
So any plans for letting me come in and put in a garden for you guys?
Until we have 100% support in my household, it may be a while.
Yeah my mom’s not quite up on the deal, she doesn’t yet see the true value of growing
your own food, and the true convenience of growing your own food, she thinks it may be
more of a headache, you know, and once again, that’s what I teach for you guys.
Growing your food is not a headache, it’s a great joy.
Being out in nature every day, working with my garden.
But the main thing is to set it up properly, and to be smart about when you’re setting
it up.
Because if you don’t set up your garden properly, it could be a cluster f, u, k, c,
or something.
It could be totally messed up.
So you’ve got to plan properly, build the beds properly, put in automatic irrigation
systems that can handle everything for you so literally I would come in, put in a garden
for my parents, and literally I’d plant it out, it would be all automated, everything,
they’d have to just come outside and just once in a while pick the stuff and eat it.
And yeah, they’d have to maybe pull out some plants at the end of the season put in
their green bin, but gardening’s super-simple, and that’s simply what I share with you
guys, and I want to encourage you guys if you’re not already, check my past episodes,
I have over 1050 episodes now on all aspects of gardening, visiting gardens, showing you
how I set up my own garden.
Be sure to subscribe if you’re not already for new and upcoming episodes, and be sure
to like this video with me and my dad.
So dad, any other final comments you’d like to say to my people [inaudible] about natural
foods, growing foods or the whole you know real food movement, organics, or anything?
An author, Marion Nestle, who doesn’t have any connections to Nestle Food Corporation,
has written a lot about the politics of food, about nutrition, and I would like to recommend
every one of your viewers to go to the library and just pick up one of her many books by
Marion Nestle.
You’ll start to learn more about what’s really going on.
Yeah, it’s actually kind of scary what’s going on, so I let my dad read all the books
and figure all that stuff out and he tells me some stuff, and I just work on being a
solution, you know growing my own food, and teaching you guys how to do it as well.
Alright so with that, I think I’ve got to get going, I’ve got actually a ton of more
work in the garden to do and enjoy the beautiful day here that we’re having.
Dad, I want to thank you for coming out today, and once again this is John Kohler and…
John Kohler.
With growingyourgreens.com, we’ll see you next time and until then remember, keep on
growing!