Mimi MacLean:
Welcome to The Heal Podcast for all things related to Lyme disease and other chronic illnesses. I'm Mimi MacLean, mom of five, founder of Lyme 360, and a Lyme warrior. Tune in each week to hear from doctors, health practitioners, and experts, to hear about their treatments, struggles, and triumphs to help you on your healing journey. I'm here to heal with you. This week's podcast is brought to you by Air Oasis. As a Lyme warrior, I know how important it is to have clean air in the home. I've been using a room air purifier, but recently had to purchase an all home unit to combat mold issues throughout our house. I did some research and found a great company called Air Oasis. Their air purifiers help fight bacteria, viruses, and mold. So if you have not put in an air purifier into your home, go to lyme360.com/airoasis. They carry room units as well as entire home units.

Mimi MacLean:
Hi, welcome back to The Heal Podcast. This is Mimi MacLean from Lyme 360. And today we have Greg Peterson, and he's the host of The Urban Farm Podcast, and he's also a Lyme warrior since the late 1990s. He was experiencing symptoms for over 15 years before being correctly diagnosed in 2014 after his partner, Heidi, tested positive for Lyme as well. He founded The Urban Farm as a hub for people to reconnect with their food system and regain control of their health through nutrition. Urban Farm uses blogs, free resources, the podcast, and events to provide the inspiration, knowledge and tools for people to live a healthy and enriched life. This is a great podcast to learn about the basics of farming as well as GMO and all the things that we should be paying attention to in order to grow our own food.

Mimi MacLean:
To get my detox for Lyme checklist, go to lyme360.com/detoxchecklist. Greg, thank you so much for coming on today. I really appreciate it. I'm excited to talk to you because I actually haven't had anybody on where we actually talk about gardening and creating our own food. Yes. I've talked to people who have, paleo chefs, and written cookbooks, but nobody we've talked about gardening and owning the process yourself.

Greg Peterson:
But did I see recently that you had Dr. Gundry on?

Mimi MacLean:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yes.

Greg Peterson:
Oh, my gosh. I got chills because his work is so important to all of this.

Mimi MacLean:
Yes. Yep.

Greg Peterson:
All of our immune system. Yeah, Gundry's work is amazing.

Mimi MacLean:
Dr. Gundry, and I also I think I released his yet, I'm not sure, but Dr. Bock, Kenneth Bock. I don't know if you ... And he's the same thing. It's all about food and your digestion. And I've been following him for 20 years, so when I got on, I was a little starstruck. I was like, "Oh, my God. I can't believe you're on. I've been reading your books for 20 years." He's like, "Really?" And I was like, "Yes. I saw you in New York City 20 years ago." And he's like, "Oh, my gosh." So I was, these pioneers have just been kind of holding the flag when nobody else knew who they were and what was going on. And now it's becoming more aware, but they've been talking about this for 20 years. 

Greg Peterson:
I've had a couple of those on my podcast where I was a little starstruck, so I understand. 

Mimi MacLean:
Yeah, it was great. And you know what's great is because I 20 years ago, I knew about GMOs. And I've been telling my friends, GMOs. I'm like, "What are you talking about?" So for me, I've always been researching it because I've always had a compromised immune system, and so I've kind of taken it on myself. I'm just not a gardener, so I haven't ... I've attempted to create my own garden, it just didn't work. So that's why I was excited to talk to you today because I'm hoping you could simplify it for us, people who are not ...

Greg Peterson:
I can do that.

Mimi MacLean:
We're challenged when it comes into the gardening department. But anyway, so I'm excited to have you on. And what's also neat about it is that you've also had Lyme, so you understand the process, what we're all going through, and that's what led you to what you're doing today. So can we start out with just you talking about your Lyme journey a little bit?

Greg Peterson:
Yeah, absolutely. So for the first 15, 16 years of my Lyme journey, I hadn't a clue that it was Lyme. Back in 1999, maybe even 1998, I went to the doctor with this gnarly shake on my right side. They called it an essential tremor. It's just on my right side. For those of you on video, you can see my hand shaking. I'm not doing that. That's just my hand shaking, so it makes it hard to write, to-

Mimi MacLean:
You still have that now?

Greg Peterson:
Oh, yeah. Oh, in spades.

Mimi MacLean:
Oh, my goodness.

Greg Peterson:
Absolutely. Have not been able to get rid of that at all.

Mimi MacLean:
You need to go to my doctor. We'll talk later about that. I went and got hypothermia that treated my neurological Lyme.

Greg Peterson:
Oh, interesting. All right.

Mimi MacLean:
Because I couldn't walk in a straight line.

Greg Peterson:
Oh, my gosh. So '98, '99, I was diagnosed with something called an essential tremor, and at the same time, I had cicadas, I hear cicadas in my ears 24/7. Right now, I'm hearing cicadas. About three years later, I went and tried again, went to Barrows Neurological Institute, and they looked at me and they said, "Oh, yeah. That's just a benign essential tremor. There's nothing we can do about it. But here's a drug." Yeah, I haven't been on drugs since the '70s, so no. And I went on with my life. I'm an entrepreneur. I've had 30 different business in my life. Some of them lasted 20 years. Some of them lasted 30 days. But that's what I do, so it's just for me it became a new way of being. I have this shake, and oh well. And 2014 rolls around. And my partner, Heidi, gets a bullseye rash. Now we're in Phoenix, Arizona. She got bit by a tick in Phoenix, Arizona. 

Mimi MacLean:
Wow.

Greg Peterson:
We had no idea what that was, didn't have a flipping clue. So this was in the spring of 2014. By August of 2014, she's literally and the emergency room, trying to figure out what's going on with her. It's getting so bad. She self diagnoses. She's so good at that. She self diagnoses. She goes back to the emergency room doctor and says, "Test me for Lyme."

Mimi MacLean:
So they didn't know. The emergency room doctor had never seen it.

Greg Peterson:
Oh, God, no. 

Mimi MacLean:
Wow.

Greg Peterson:
Oh, God, no. In fact, when she was in the emergency room, they told her she was crazy. You don't have Lyme. There's no Lyme in Arizona.

Mimi MacLean:
Right.

Greg Peterson:
And they ran a test and guess what. 

Mimi MacLean:
She had Lyme.

Greg Peterson:
She had Lyme. So at her prompting, they put her on 10 days of antibiotics. And by that point, it had advanced, so we're six months into it at this point. So 10 days of antibiotics later, she comes off of the antibiotics, and three days later, she's in-

Mimi MacLean:
Crashes again.

Greg Peterson:
Crashes and is in the hospital. She was in the hospital for nine days. She had seven different doctors tell her after her positive Lyme test, had seven different doctors, including two neurologists, that she couldn't possibly have Lyme. Lyme doesn't exist in Arizona. So we get her better enough to get her out of the hospital and take her out to this place out in Scottsdale that's supposed to be known for treating Lyme. And they say, "We can treat it. No problem. We'll put in a ... " What do they call it, a PICC?

Mimi MacLean:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's what I had, yep.

Greg Peterson:
Yeah, a permanent. And oh, by the way, the treatment is $70,000.

Mimi MacLean:
I know. It's $2000 a week, at least for me it was, for the antibiotics.

Greg Peterson:
And I was pissed at them because they kind of said, "Oh, yeah. Come on in. We can help you. No problem. We'll get it handled." And we get there and it's 70 grand. And she just broke down and cried. And so we went away. She did more research, and we actually find a Lyme nurse practitioner in our neighborhood.

Mimi MacLean:
Oh, really?

Greg Peterson:
Yeah.

Mimi MacLean:
So obviously, there's enough Lyme that there's a Lyme nurse practitioner. Or was she only doing Zoom?

Greg Peterson:
No, no, no. Remember, this is 2014. This was pretty much pre Zoom.

Mimi MacLean:
Oh, it has to be pre Zoom. Yeah.

Greg Peterson:
Yeah. No, at this point, this Lyme practitioner is buried in Lyme cases in 2014 in Phoenix, Arizona. She was getting two or three new ones a week. So I go in with Heidi the first time, and she looks at me and she says, "Greg, have you been tested for Lyme?" Like, "No. Why would I be tested for Lyme?" Well, first of all, my partner and I are sexually active. 

Mimi MacLean:
Right, because there's another theory that: Because it's part of the syphilis family, why wouldn't it be sexually transmitted?

Greg Peterson:
Exactly. So she sends off this test to a place in Washington, the good place for Lyme testing. 

Mimi MacLean:
IGeneX.

Greg Peterson:
IGeneX. Thank you very much. And my Lyme test comes back as positive. And she looks at it and she says, "Greg, how long have you had Lyme?" 

Mimi MacLean:
Because your titers are so high, or something like that.

Greg Peterson:
Exactly.

Mimi MacLean:
Yeah, because they can tell how long you've had it based on-

Greg Peterson:
Exactly. So at that point, I would've had a new case that if it would've been because of Heidi and I had been sleeping together, it would've been a fairly new case. And the titers came back as very old. I don't understand the test and how that works, but she said, "Greg, you've had Lyme for a long time." And then I started expressing my symptoms. And she said, "Oh, yeah."

Mimi MacLean:
Yeah. You have it. 

Greg Peterson:
Yeah, exactly. And the other piece of it was though, back in August, Heidi says, "Greg, I think I have Lyme." And I said, "Well, tell me. What are the symptoms?" And she was telling me, rattling off these symptoms. I said, "You can't have Lyme. I'm having those same symptoms."

Mimi MacLean:
Crazy.

Greg Peterson:
So what we think happened is that I had previously had Lyme, and then she reinfected me with one of the other versions of it, so I was having some of the same symptoms that she was having.

Mimi MacLean:
Right, right, right.

Greg Peterson:
So that's kind of how it happened.

Mimi MacLean:
At that point, were you already farming and doing all that?

Greg Peterson:
Oh, yeah. 

Mimi MacLean:
So you were already doing this. You were already eating super healthy and into this healthy world. This was not because of Lyme.

Greg Peterson:
No, no, no, no. I wrote a paper in the eighth grade, I was 14, it was 1974, on how we were over fishing the oceans. In 1981, I was on the board of the Arizona Aquaculture Association. And we visited non-sustainable farms here in the state, and it was ludicrous what they were doing. They were harvesting the fish. They were throwing away 70% of the extra stuff. And so I looked at that model, and it's like, "There's got to be a better way." So I designed what we would now call a regenerative fish farm in 1981 on paper, where everything in the system gets used because that's just what made sense to me. And then in 1991, I discovered permaculture, the art and science of working with nature. And for me, it was oh, my God. There's something to call the way that I think because I think regeneratively.

Greg Peterson:
I don't like the word sustainable. Sustainable simple sustains the mess we've created. Regenerative puts in systems, like natural systems, that regenerate themselves over time. And that's really what we're trying to do. I'll bring this right back to Lyme. That's really what we're trying to do with our health. I don't believe that we ... So let's talk COVID just for a minute. I don't think we really have a COVID problem. I think we have an immune system problem. And while Lyme is very real, I think a big part of Lyme is our negative impacted immune systems.

Mimi MacLean:
Yeah. So that's why some people get bit and can't get better. Right?

Greg Peterson:
Right.

Mimi MacLean:
And 20% of the people can't get better because they're immune compromised for other reasons.

Greg Peterson:
Exactly.

Mimi MacLean:
If it's a toxic overload, or if it's mold, or if it's parasites, whatever, it does that. So obviously, you have not gotten completely better because you still have some neurological problems. But are you feeling better otherwise?

Greg Peterson:
Yeah, mostly I feel better.

Mimi MacLean:
And you did all herbals and supplements?

Greg Peterson:
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, homeopathic supplements, that kind of stuff. I still get glutathione shots to help improve my immune system. Recently, I got a COVID vaccine, just because I'm not a person to get vaccines, in fact, the last shot I had was in the '90s. I got something.

Mimi MacLean:
And you felt fine after it.

Greg Peterson:
After the COVID, I did.

Mimi MacLean:
After the vaccine.

Greg Peterson:
I did, yeah. But we actually did, with this practitioner, we actually did an immune system test. They can actually take blood.

Mimi MacLean:
They can test it before, oh.

Greg Peterson:
Exactly. So both Heidi and I got our immune system tested, and then we waited six weeks, and we worked a little bit more on our immune system. I think a big piece of this is immune compromised issues. And I think we as a culture, I have this theory that my mom, who passed away when she was 85, lived on the planet about 25 or 30 years where it was really polluted. So she had a pretty good healthy life until she was 85. Me, I've been on a planet for over half of my life, and I'm having some of the same health issues that my parents had at 80 and 85 at 60.

Mimi MacLean:
Now. And our kids are going to have it in their 20s.

Greg Peterson:
We're already seeing that. My nephew was diagnosed, he was diagnosed with celiac at the age of 12. 

Mimi MacLean:
Wow.

Greg Peterson:
Now he was born in 1999.

Mimi MacLean:
That's because if you know all the crazy GMO in the wheat.

Greg Peterson:
Exactly.

Mimi MacLean:
I don't really think we're having a wheat gluten problem. It's we're having a GMO problem, if you ask me personally.

Greg Peterson:
Exactly. Exactly.

Mimi MacLean:
I think if you could find clean wheat, it's very different than having ... It's the GMOs that we're allergic to.

Greg Peterson:
Well, and there's a whole movement. There's a whole movement on the clean wheat. Hayden Flour Mills contracts here in Arizona contracts with all kinds of growers to grow the ancient grains. And Rocky Mountain Seed Alliance has a whole grain trial program. They're a nonprofit, and they're actually encouraging people to grow ancient grains, and it's working. Go figure. Right?

Mimi MacLean:
Right. And then you also look at Europe. You go to Europe, the wine doesn't have all the tannins in it, or whatever you call it. And then also, the bread, you can eat bread the entire vacation not gain any weight, don't feel bad. 

Greg Peterson:
Exactly.

Mimi MacLean:
And it's because they don't have all the preservatives and all the GMOs and everything else.

Greg Peterson:
Well, and GMOs are one thing. But here's the thing that listeners may not know. Round Up is sprayed on nonorganic grains. And the last thing that farmers are encouraged to do is to spray a good dose of Round Up on their crop when it's ready to harvest. Did you know this?

Mimi MacLean:
No. 

Greg Peterson:
They have to have the wheat dried up before they can harvest it. So what they do is they spray it with Round Up, which kills it immediately, then they can harvest it immediately. And we're taking in those toxins when we eat nonorganic wheat.

Mimi MacLean:
So people who don't know GMOs, it's genetically modified organisms. Monsanto, the devil, created it. And so if you could just tell ... I mean, I understand, but if you could explain to people why it's so bad, how they've injected.

Greg Peterson:
Right. So basically, there's multiple kinds of GMOs. And GMO, genetically modified organisms, or transgenic organisms. Basically, what they're doing is they're taking a gene from a fish and they're putting it in tomatoes. That was done. They stopped doing it because it didn't work. But basically, they're moving genes trans-genically from one species to another. This is not something that happens in nature. And I'll have to be honest with you, I don't know whether this is a good or bad thing. The science hasn't really proven whether moving genes is a good or bad thing. That's from a scientific perspective. Do I personally believe it's a bad thing? I think it's a bad thing. 

Greg Peterson:
But the thing I have the biggest problem with is that these companies are doing this and they're putting it out in the public domain without testing it. So what happens is they do this genetic alteration, and they put it out there in corn. Guess what, the corn pollen has this genetics in it that now pollutes other corn. And it's said that there is probably no such thing as organic corn on the planet anymore because of that. And that is highly irresponsible. That's highly irresponsible. So what they're doing is, they're doing this transgenic work to be able to do different things. 

Greg Peterson:
So one of the things that they've done, which I believe has helped create the celiac disease, is they've taken a naturally occurring bacteria called Bacillus thuringiensis, or Bt. And Bt is sprayed organically to kill caterpillars. And what it does to the caterpillars is that it degrades, listen very carefully, it degrades their digestive system and kills them. So what they've done is they've made genetically modified Bt corn. So when I use Bt in my garden, and I have some in the cabinet over here that I use on my grapes occasionally, it's naturally occurring. It's organic. But what they've done is they've taken a synthetic version of it and they've injected it into every single cell of this corn, so that when a caterpillar comes along and chews on this corn, they're chewing on Bt. So rather than getting ... People ask me if it's safe to use Bt in my garden, it's absolutely safe.

Greg Peterson:
What makes it not so safe is that it's now in every single cell of that corn. So if you're eating that corn, or if often, corn is made for cow feed, animal feed, so all of a sudden, these animals are getting Bt corn in every bite that they're eating. And then if you're eating nonorganic corn, it's likely that there could be some of that in it. You can tell I'm passionate about this. 

Mimi MacLean:
I have a question to ask you. When it goes back to the meat, if you're eating organic beef, can they have fed that cow that Bt corn, even though it's organic beef? Or does that exclude it?

Greg Peterson:
That should. You'll have to check with the organic standards. But I believe, I don't know this to be a fact, but I believe that they cannot feed it nonorganic feed. If it's going to be an organic cow, it has to have organic feed. I know that's the case for my chickens. 

Mimi MacLean:
Yeah. Right. Okay, so talk to us about your business and what you do, and how you help people, teach them about how to start gardening and farming for themselves.

Greg Peterson:
So I've actually been growing food since 1974, that's 50 some years ago. I don't know why I had to start growing food when I was 15. But one of the things that I've noticed, and I'll get back specifically to your question, but one of the things that I've noticed is with my compromised immune system of Lyme and who knows whatever else is there, if I eat something, like if I eat nonorganic bread, I know within a couple of hours. If I eat something, one of my favorite things to drink, absolutely one of my favorite things to drink is a Coke. I love Coke, absolutely love Coke. In fact, the ones from Mexico actually have sugar in them.

Mimi MacLean:
Yeah, those are better for you. Right?

Greg Peterson:
Right. Well, they're somewhat better for you because they just have sugar. I haven't had a Coke in 10 years because if I drink six or eight ounces of Coke, or any soda for that matter, it shows up that fast. I am sensitive enough. So the other night, I love wine, I absolutely love wine, and so the other night, I had two glasses, and I know better. I know better. But the other night, I had two glasses of white wine. It was a nice sparkling, it's summertime, it was a nice time for it. And I was miserable within about 18 minutes.

Mimi MacLean:
That fast.

Greg Peterson:
Oh, yeah. Yeah, it happens that fast for me.

Mimi MacLean:
See, me, I'm the next morning.

Greg Peterson:
Well, the next morning was ... I can drink two ounces of wine and get a little buzz going. And I don't know that has to do with the wine. I'm just a lightweight when it comes to that. But if I eat or drink something that doesn't agree with me, I know within 20 to 30 minutes. And so what I've had to do, and this goes back to your question, what I've had to do is I've had to get really good about what I put in my body. And COVID was a gift because I used to eat out. Pre COVID, I used to eat out maybe five times a week. And I have my certain places around town that I could go, and I knew exactly, if I eat that, I'm not going to feel bad. But if I eat that, I'm going to feel bad.

Greg Peterson:
And with COVID, Heidi and I just, we started cooking at home. And for the past year, for the most part, I've eaten at home three times a day. People ask me, my landscape, I have an edible landscape here at The Urban Farm. And there's always something to eat. And people ask me: How much of our food do we get out of the yard? Maybe 20%, 30% on a year over year basis. There's always something to eat. I'm constantly harvesting something out of the yard for one of my meals. For lunch today, I had eggs from the organic chickens. And what I've found is that if people are paying attention to what they're eating and how they feel, if you keep a diary, a food diary of what you eat, you'll notice. You'll start seeing these subtle shifts in how you feel over time.

Greg Peterson:
Is eating food giving you a headache? Is it giving you indigestion? Is it giving you heartburn? These heartburn commercials, I have to laugh at them because heartburn is in a lot of case, I'm not a medical doctor, I don't know this to be a fact, but my opinion is that in a lot of cases, heartburn is: What are you eating?

Mimi MacLean:
Yeah. And so much fatigue though, right? 

Greg Peterson:
Fatigue, yeah.

Mimi MacLean:
For me I find, yesterday I was like, "Okay, I'm going to juice." And I don't know why I did this, but I had two big glasses of watermelon juice. Oh, my God. I think it was just too much sugar. I had to lay down. I couldn't even keep my eyes open. It was just too much sugar for my system. 

Greg Peterson:
Yeah, exactly. And those are the kinds of things we need to start looking for. So I'm a big proponent of organic, not surprise, surprise. And I've actually felt better over the past year eating exclusively at home and eating exclusively organic because when we go to the farmer's market and the grocery stores, we only buy organic. And you shop on the outside of the grocery store, stay away from the processed food. So really, my business is about educating people around food and how to grow their own because I believe the single most important thing that we can be learning right now is where our food comes from and how to grow our own. Do you know what food miles are?

Mimi MacLean:
No.

Greg Peterson:
Food miles are the amount of miles that food travels from where it is grown to your plate. The average food miles, what would you guess the average food miles in the United States is? 

Mimi MacLean:
Oh, I would say a couple thousand because I think a lot of it comes from overseas.

Greg Peterson:
Yep, exactly, somewhere between 1500 and 2500 miles. I'm sure Dr. Gundry spoke to this too. There's something called leptin in food. And as food ripens, these leptins start to disappear. So let's talk about a peach, and a peach that is picked in Peru and shipped to the United States. That peach has to be picked when it's not ripe because if you pick a ripe peach, by the time it makes it into the box and into the factory, it's going to be dead. Peaches need to be eaten right when you pick them off the tree. So the thing is, is that an unripe peach is high in leptins. If you pull it off of the tree, you have just discontinued the ripening process of this peach on the tree, and discontinued the reduction of those leptins. Plus, the second thing that happens is you pick that peach when it's not ripe, it's sitting in a box, and it travels.

Greg Peterson:
The moment you pick something, it starts degrading nutritionally. So when you're eating food that is picked 1000, 1500, 2000 miles away, first of all, there's a nutritional deficit when it's picked, it degrades nutritionally, so that when it gets to you, the nutrition value is a lot less than the apple tree that you see in back of me in this picture. If I go pick an apple off of that tree when it's ripe, the leptins have mostly disappeared. The nutritional value has skyrocketed. Have you ever taken a bite of something, and it's like, "Oh, my gosh. That is the best, of the best, of the best"? Right?

Mimi MacLean:
When you go strawberry picking yourself and you're like, "I'm not going to wait until I get to the car. I just want to eat it out here."

Greg Peterson:
Exactly. The nutrition when it ripens on the vine, it's most nutritionally dense, it's best for you that way. And it tastes good. There's this whole thing called a Brix Meter, B-R-I-X, and I know that they use them in the wine making industry to measure the nutritional sweet density of grapes for wine. You can do that with food as well. A friend of mine who used to live with me 20 years ago had a Brix meter, and he would measure the Brix ratings out of our food here at The Urban Farm, and it was through the roof when we were harvesting things when it was ripe and ready to eat. 

Mimi MacLean:
Can I ask you a quick question? 

Greg Peterson:
Please.

Mimi MacLean:
So how do they get it from, they pick the peach, it's not ripe, it travels, how do they get it to ripen? Does it stop? Or does it ripen in the box? Or do they spray it?

Greg Peterson:
So I've heard that there are ethylene, I think it's ethylene gases that they gas them with to make them ripen. So here's the thing, we have an amazing food delivery system in this country. We have this food delivery system that feeds over 300 million people a day, 330 million people a day. It is a masterful system. If you think about it, we're delivering a billion meals a day in the United States. That's pretty masterful. The thing that people aren't paying attention to is exactly what happened a year ago when COVID hit and the grocery store shelves went empty.

Greg Peterson:
This goes back to my most important thing, that we need to figure out where our food comes from and how to grow our own because we have a three day supply of food in any grocery store. It's called a just in time model. And again, we saw it happen, actually twice in the past year with the pandemic, mostly around toilet paper, go figure. But there were also grocery stores that I went into when the pandemic started where the shelves were empty. And with the storm in Texas, grocery store shelves empty. We need to be figuring out how to grow our own food. And the cool this is, it's really easy to grow your own food. Hold up your thumbs for me. They're not brown, I promise. You can have a green thumb. You just need to know the rules. Growing your own food is really simple. It's really simple. You just need to know the rules. And where do you live? 

Mimi MacLean:
Connecticut now.

Greg Peterson:
You're in Connecticut. I'm in Phoenix, Arizona. Your rules are different than my rules. So if you're going to grow food where you're at, you have to know the rules for where you live. If you move from Connecticut, and you're a master gardener in Connecticut, you are a master at growing things in Connecticut, you come to Arizona and try to use those rules, eh, you're going to say, "Oh, I have a brown thumb now." Wrong. You don't have a brown thumb. You just need to know the rules. And so a lot of the education that we do online through Urban Farm U is teaching people that rules, or how to decipher and figure out the rules for your area because it is super simple. And the easiest thing to grow, and the most expensive thing to buy, what do you think that is?

Mimi MacLean:
I was going to say tomatoes, but I don't know. 

Greg Peterson:
Tomatoes are fairly easy to grow, but they take a little bit more effort. Herbs. 

Mimi MacLean:
Oh, yes. You're right. The herbs. That's the only thing I actually do know how to grow because I use them all the time. So that's the only thing I always go to because it costs so much money for mint, and mint is a weed.

Greg Peterson:
And mint is a weed, exactly. I have a garden bed in my backyard that has a weed in it that's taken over the bed. It's got to be six foot by 20 feet long, and it's mint.

Mimi MacLean:
Yeah. It's just invasive. It just takes over.

Greg Peterson:
Right. So grow basil, you can grow basil in a pot on a sunny windowsill. I use basic practically every day here at The Urban Farm when I have it growing in the yard.

Mimi MacLean:
That's great. It's true. But you touched on a point where I think it's super important, is that we need to be self sufficient going forward. I think there's two things that came out of this pandemic. One, if you don't have two sources of income and you're relying on your company and you don't have stacked up savings, you're in trouble because the government's not coming to save you. 

Greg Peterson:
Oh, no.

Mimi MacLean:
So you need to have a second source of income, or a good six month lead time of being able to financially take care of yourself. And two, I think you need to be able to sustain yourself food wise, if it's seeds, if it's something.

Greg Peterson:
Yep, most important thing we can be doing right now, figuring out where our food comes from and how to grow our own.

Mimi MacLean:
No, it's true.

Greg Peterson:
I was mentoring a guy earlier today. Occasionally, I get interesting emails from people. And so he called me today and he says, "Greg, I struggle with going to work with somebody, for somebody else." And I've been self employed for 45 years. I've had a couple of jobs along the way. And he asked me something about going to work and work for somebody else. And I said, "That's really hard for me. For me, it's selling my soul," because he asked about the risk factor of working for yourself. For me, it's less risky to work for myself than it is to go to work for somebody else.

Mimi MacLean:
Because you could be laid off tomorrow, whereas it's up to you to make-

Greg Peterson:
Right. That's another thing. I've been self employed for 45 years. I've never missed a rent payment. I've owned a house for 32 years. I've never missed a house payment, never turned off the electricity. That was all me. I had to figure that out. And there were some times that I was eating ramen-ish along the way. But I always figured it out. 

Mimi MacLean:
Right. You had to figure it out on your own. And that's important for getting kids back, it's funny, I went to a school called IIN in New York City to become a holistic health counselor. And this was back 13 years ago. And at the time, he was trying to encourage all of us to try to get gardens in the schools. And at that point, nobody had gardens.

Greg Peterson:
There you go. 

Mimi MacLean:
But look now 13 years later, I would say, I don't know, maybe have the schools have ... You go to any kind of school.

Greg Peterson:
No.

Mimi MacLean:
Well, at least where I've gone. In LA, even LA, where our school ... Because I just moved from LA, even our elementary school, where we didn't have a grass patch, they planted in our backyard a cute little garden. I felt like it was so much more prevalent than it was 13 years ago. I feel like every town or every other town has farmer's markets now.

Greg Peterson:
Right. Oh, yeah.

Mimi MacLean:
But they didn't 13 years ago.

Greg Peterson:
Nope, that is the case.

Mimi MacLean:
So it's definitely becoming more aware. People know what GMOs are. They're demanding it. You can get organic and Costco and Wal Mart, so we're getting there. We're getting there. But being able to take care of yourself I think is the most important. Right?

Greg Peterson:
Yeah.

Mimi MacLean:
And you save a lot of money, like you just said. So instead of spending $10 on basil, you're going to spend $10 on a basil plant that going to keep giving you basil all summer.

Greg Peterson:
Right. Yeah, exactly. Often, what we'll do when we go to San Diego on vacation, one of the grocery stores that we go to, Boney's in Coronado, they usually will have an organic basil plant that we can buy. So we actually buy the basil plant, use the basil for a week, bring the plant home, and stick it in the ground when we get home. 

Mimi MacLean:
Oh, that's great. That's a good idea. 

Greg Peterson:
Yeah. 

Mimi MacLean:
So Greg, this has been amazing. Is there anything we haven't covered that you think we should be covering?

Greg Peterson:
How much time do we have?

Mimi MacLean:
Whatever you want. I know, right?

Greg Peterson:
Yeah. So growing your own food, it is simple. And one of the key factors in success for growing your own food is knowing how to create healthy soil. Building healthy, organic, nutrient dense soil is the key to a brown thumb going to a green thumb. And so I actually have a series of videos on that at healthysoilhacked.com, if anybody's interested. You can go there and sign up for that and get the videos on creating healthy soil. The other thing is don't overwhelm yourself. I do tours here at The Urban Farm. The Urban Farm is my house. It's a third of an acre right in the middle of Phoenix. And I've been gardening here for 32 years. And we do tours, and it's pretty dense here. Food wise, I have a food forest that is amazing here at The Urban Farm.

Greg Peterson:
And I had a young lady on tour, maybe six years ago, and we go from the front yard, because there's a lot of food growing in the front yard, to the back yard. And she stuck up her hand in the back yard and sheepishly said, "Oh, my gosh. Where do I start?" And I looked at her and I said, "First of all, take a deep breath. What you're seeing here at The Urban Farm is a process of 25 plus years of work. This doesn't happen overnight." So that's one thing. The next thing is pick one thing. Don't try and convert your entire landscape to edible. Pay attention to your yard for a year and pick the perfect place to put a five by five garden. Or as we did this year, plant your front porch with edibles.

Greg Peterson:
Heidi, my partner, has all these great flower pots on the front porch. Well, this year with COVID, last fall we said, "Let's just plant food in the pots on the front porch." So we did that, and we harvested an amazing amount of food out of the pots on the front porch. So what I encourage people to do is don't overwhelm yourself because what happens is, if you overwhelm yourself, you get discouraged. You say, "Oh, I've got a brown thumb. I can't do this." But if you pick one thing, get really good at it, grow basil in a pot on your windowsill. Get good at that. That is simple. And then do pots on your front porch. Then maybe put in a five by five garden. But do it step by step because if you overwhelm yourself, you'll discourage yourself and you'll quit doing it. And the last thing we need right now is people getting discouraged around gardening. 

Mimi MacLean:
Very well said. I appreciate all your suggestions and comments. This has been amazing, and I really appreciate it. And I'm definitely going to check out Urban Farm and try to plant something. You got me inspired. Maybe tomorrow, Saturday, I'll go out and go get my basil.

Greg Peterson:
Nice. 

Mimi MacLean:
Thank you so much.

Greg Peterson:
Sure. My website's urbanfarm.org. I've been doing the website for over 20 years, and you can find all kinds of information there.

Mimi MacLean:
Great. Thank you. 

Greg Peterson:
Thanks for having me. 

Mimi MacLean:
Each week, I will bring you different voices from the wellness community, so that they can share how they help their clients heal. You will come away with tips and strategies to help you get your life back. Thank you so much for coming on, and I am so happy you were here. Subscribe now and tune in next week if you want to learn how I detox, and you want to check out my detox for Lyme checklist, go to lyme360.com/detoxchecklist. You can also join our community at Lyme 360 Warriors on Facebook, and let's heal together. Thank you.