this is wildlife unschooling with my mom
okay cool so this episode is going to be all about food because oh i forgot to ask you how
do i pronounce your name correctly because from my german perspective i would say louis the jäger
but is it right yeah well in german it sounds like that so you can yeah nice where are you from
originally i'm from belgium i'm from belgium your name yeah that's cool so how do you pronounce
your name from from your belgian perspective well in in flemish we say louis de jager
in english in english you say louis or louis de jaeger louis de jaeger i've heard it all and
i don't really mind okay so we use all of these names luigi is also luigi i will call you luigi
You're perfect. No, you are the food god.
And you traveled the world to find out more about food, health, soil, all the connections between these topics.
And you are an award-winning documentary filmmaker.
You're a speaker.
And I think you did a pretty awesome job in collecting all this information.
So welcome on the show.
Maybe you want to share before we deep dive into your book topic.
Like, how did you end up doing what you're doing?
Because I think it's not normal to wake up one day and say, oh, I want to regenerate 550 millions of hectares in this world and save our planet.
I mean, it's nice, but there's a story to it, isn't it?
Yeah, well, first of all, super happy to be here, Alex.
And yeah, it doesn't happen overnight.
It's like a process.
It's like, you know, I think a person's life is like an ecosystem.
I think every person is a forest and there are some seeds planted very early on in childhood, some seeds even before you're born, like nature and nurture.
Both of those things are seeds.
And like, you know, there is when there's enough nutrients and enough water, these seeds start to germinate.
And certainly you're suddenly you're like, all right, now we're going for this type of ecology, which is then, of course, a kind of mission.
And so throughout my life, I've been getting a lot of interesting seeds.
For example, my father has a very good friend who basically lives off grid with his solar panels.
He grows all his food.
And so it was really planted a lot of seeds in my mind.
My mother had a very good friend who is like building all kind of windmills.
He taught me how to build my own windmill with like a bike wheel and like an alternator to make a windmill that produces light.
So, yeah, those super cool stuff.
And I think, yeah, throughout my youth, my grandmother and my aunt both are herbalists.
And one of my grandmothers really is like an organic freak in a good way.
and she like says yeah only organic food enters my house and she's been yeah doing all kind of
alternative medicine and and a very broad view on the world and and it worked she's still
living 85 years old and walking 15 kilometers a day easily um very bright still uh so yeah i think
all these seats really came together but i think in your youth you then like um say oh i don't want
to do anything with all this, I'm going to do something
entirely different, which is, I think,
very natural.
Suddenly, there was this aha moment
when I realized that
one of my
biggest value is freedom.
The only way you can be free
is if you eat healthy and
are healthy.
How do you do that? You can
work and earn money.
With that money, you can go into an organic shop
and pay a lot of money
for food
or it seems a lot of money.
If you know that some people pay 300 euros or dollars a month
for medication, then it suddenly is less money
if you just pay a little bit more for organic food.
But so yeah, very good food and also growing your own food
because when I was 18 or maybe 16, 17 years old,
I had this naive thought, well, if you grow your own food,
it's like printing your own money.
You know, you don't have to work to get money and then buy food.
No, you just like skip the work part and just grow your own food.
That's like maybe a naive thought, but that shaped my vision.
And then I was at the place in Mexico where like everything came together in the word permaculture.
I never heard of that word before when I was 18.
And for me, it was like, all right, this is it.
This is my framework.
I want to build my life around it.
I kind of did.
And then, of course, evolved and also looked into agroecology, food forests, agroforestry.
but a lot of these names have a lot of overlaps.
So yeah, little by little.
There is like 10 times longer,
but I'm like keeping it short.
You skipped like the 90% part.
No, I really like what you said
because I had the same thought when I was younger.
I can just grow my food and I don't have to work.
And my family was like, you are fucking stupid.
And I still don't get it.
I still have the feeling like
this is the way I should be living like out there in the woods.
I'm still working on, on it. It's work in progress.
I've been traveling to many places,
but I didn't find the place yet where I want to do that because then you're
stuck there for quite some time. And this is the thing I think at the moment.
Yeah. I think at the moment,
there are so many crazy things going on in this world.
Flexibility is quite important.
And so this somehow made it for me more difficult to really go for it and be like, okay, settle here.
I do my food thing and everything.
I started to do it on the Canary Islands, actually.
Oh, I love those.
Yes.
Most of these islands.
It's also like my plan B.
Yes.
It's really nice, but don't do it.
It's now more and more digital.
so you have this you cannot access the beach or hiking trails without a qr code and these kind of
things so it's slowly but surely yeah not everywhere yet but it is going i left uh i mean
which island was that la palma but la palma is the last one so they transform it into a smart
island at the moment oh really and it's really crazy and oh my god that's terrible yeah it's it
is so we moved away we are now in portugal like two weeks ago i it was done with all these like
i don't know it was the world came closer you know it was like when i moved there it was like
so free now it's like this is the land i want to build and harvest my food from the sun and
everything's so beautiful and then over the years it became like prison like oh my god one day i'm
not gonna be able to leave and then i have my strawberries but what else so didn't make sense
no way
where are you living now in Portugal
or in Germany
no we live in Portugal on the campo
between
like in the middle of nowhere
basically but I don't like
it so this won't be
this won't be long
there's my landlord
with her little dog now there will be a lot of
barking
yeah well the thing is
we often tend to think
and or
we are in one place and then we're stuck there
or we're flexible
but I thought that too
I was a nomad for
about 5 to 7 years
and after 5 to 7 years
I went back to Belgium
also started a company
to have a landscape
design company
that now designs places all over the world
so that's nice to have
be a bit grounded but like for example now i'm like starting to look to really make a
a self-sufficient project uh for myself and my family and um but i i still have something like
okay like in the winter you can leave it alone that's the good part of being in a temperate
climate like okay then then you're flexible or or even if shit hits the fan then yeah then
try to be resourceful enough
if you have to leave to do something.
Not that you have some roots somewhere, I think.
It's nice. It is nice, to be honest.
It gives the whole life a little bit of stability.
You can build on.
Let's maybe talk about what you said,
that if you spend $300 a month on medication,
you better spend it in the market
on ecologically grown food.
Because I have the same thought.
Here in Portugal, it's surprisingly difficult to find good food without any chemicals.
La Palma, it's easy.
You just go around the corner, then you have everything you want.
Food is growing on the street.
Because I think a lot of people, including my family, they still don't get it.
They think they have this scheme in their head of what is healthy through mainstream media.
And I think it's incredibly, I don't know, surprising to me because you can just listen to your body.
You don't have someone else to tell you actually what you put in your body.
And what I think, I was reading stuff you've been writing and one thing you mentioned, the food is tastier if it's healthy.
And that's actually true.
and I think this part I don't get why people maybe they're so used to that tasteless food
or this convenience package this is so fast and everything is so I don't know easy to handle maybe
it is that maybe what is your thought about that because it could be so easy if people just open
their eyes on yeah what is landing on their plate yeah 100% and I totally feel you I have the same
with a lot of friends.
Friends not anymore, actually.
Most of my friends now
are also
very conscious
about that food really is your medicine.
But yeah, some
family members are like, I was literally
chatting this morning with a friend that said,
oh my God, I'm so tired of my parents
not getting it.
So it's really something very
common. And it's
sad, you know?
Because food
really is your medicine and there's a saying that if food is not your medicine medicine will become
your food and it's so true um and the problem is we stopped listening to our bodies a long time ago
and and that's that's terrible like like your body speaks to you all the time um there is also
a nice saying and they say listen to the whispering of your body so it doesn't have to scream
most people wait until like
it's starting to die
and they're like okay now I better do something
yeah like I have family members
the doctors say look you have this
inflammation on your foot for the last
seven years now you have to stop
drinking you just have to like
or maybe like only drink a little bit
but not like half a bottle of wine every day
but they're like okay
then they do it for half a year and then like okay
screw it and then the inflammation comes back
and they're like oh I have this inflammation
and then you have to as a family member be supportive and say okay i still love you and
you make your own choices yes um that is the hard part yeah that that's a very hard part like okay
everybody has has the right to self-destruct themselves um uh but yeah this this the moment
you realize that like we exist most like half more than half of ourselves are non-human cells
then they're all like little creatures keeping us healthy that's 90 and that's 90 of your
happiness hormone is made in your guts 90 of your serotonin is like created in your gut system so
if you want to be happy in life uh don't buy drugs buy good food and then then you like have
a natural high be yeah and then i think that's yeah everybody wants to be happy and but but but
there's a long way. Also a very funny thing. In Belgium
we have a Flemish part and a Walloon part. A French-speaking
part and a Dutch-speaking part of Flemish. And the Walloon part
is kind of more natural. There's much more nature.
And the Flemish part is very much built.
More rational people, I think.
I'm maybe generalizing a bit. And we started a petition.
in France there was a petition against
deadly pesticides that like gathered
more than 2 million signatures
crazy like just a young student
did it
and it spread like wildfire amazing
and we were like okay let's do it in Belgium
it was not my idea actually it was an idea of
another guy Philip said yeah Louis
you want to help to spread it in Flanders
because he's from Wallonia I was like okay
I helped a bit with the petition
to launch it and then in Wallonia
it really exploded
but even the Green Party kind of almost hijacked it a bit.
And then it became really big.
Even it was in the media, everything.
And then here in Flanders, like, phew, not one word in the media,
not one word at the politicians.
They were like, we don't give a damn about this, you know?
And you have these big agriculture organizations
who are a bit conservative.
And I have very good friends who are working in regeneration,
but they're also working with certain
agricultural organizations and she
was like oh yeah I want to support the petition
and I have a lot of following on
social media so I can really boost
it and then she talked with colleagues
and then the colleagues said yeah but no no don't do it otherwise
you might upset those agricultural organizations
who are still like having farmers
with some of them still use pesticides
and I'm like okay but
we're yeah if we think like
that then we're doomed you know
yeah that is exactly the point
If people are annoyed, that is exactly where we need to go.
But it is what it is, I think.
Okay, really nice.
Let's talk about your book because I really think you got a point.
Regarding everything, we're so connected.
Everything in us is connected to all the little beings in us.
It's affecting everything we do on a daily basis, what we shovel into our mouths.
And I think a lot of people are really disconnected from Earth, from nature,
from all these things and um i truly believe because i saw it through traveling with my child
to the jungle and really remote places off grid you get that connection back and you are me
personally and my child we are really unhappy when we are in cities or when we are in surroundings
that are too dense with too many people too many cars doesn't even need to be a city we are at the
I don't even know the English word for it.
Campo.
Landside.
Land.
Yeah, just like countryside.
Countryside.
Oh, my God.
So easy.
Yeah, countryside.
It's still too dense because it's still not natural anymore.
You know what I mean?
I mean, we have all this space, but it's not nature anymore.
So I really think if you have this connection back,
you really get what you're doing.
You're not capable of picking up an apple that looks like from a commercial anymore.
It's just impossible.
And I really think that goes beyond your physical health.
It's all of it.
It's emotional.
It's your connection to whatever you want to call it, God, universe, whoever is up there, whatever.
I think it's all connected.
And I think what you said about freedom, that is connected to this as well.
Because if you have your mindset clear, of course, it's easier for you to be free.
So it's all one thing.
So this is why I like your work.
So maybe you can talk a little bit about your goal of regenerating 550 million hectares, because this, I think, will change a lot for humanity, actually.
Way more than, you know, all these, oh, we're going to do this and that and we're going to build this and that.
I think supporting nature is really what we should be doing.
yeah i i read a very cool quote that said uh how on earth do we need uh like scientific research
into proving that nature is good for you it's it really we really came very far as a human species
to need studies to to like prove yeah but it is good for you feel it you know but yeah we we came
into a kind of world where like feeling doesn't uh isn't validated anymore you know but but i think
everybody feels that if you go to the mountains or to the forest or to the seaside yeah look it like one of the favorite past times of of people from any walks of life even if you like super poor or even if you a billionaire
What do you want to do?
You go to the seaside, enjoy the waves clashing
or go to the forest or go to the mountains.
It's like, ah, I feel at ease again.
Then I'm recharged and I can't go back to the city
for a couple of months again.
and there is a real thing called nature deficit disorder
that says that
we lack nature and you see that with all kind of
mental disorders or problems that people are having
they're sending kids to a shrink or a therapist
or to something to make them calmer or give them
pills to become calmer but we put people in boxes
and a lot of these boxes are not built naturally
like all these toxins
that comes from paint
from furniture, from everything
it's full of chemicals
and so we are bombarding our
bodies with chemicals
the clothes that we're wearing is also full of
PFAS for example
or other
these kind of connections
the food we're eating is full of chemicals
the air we're breathing is full of chemicals as well
so then it's very natural
that we become sick or mentally not so happy anymore.
And there are a lot of scientific studies
that say that people have less ADHD problems
if they're in nature, they have more concentration.
Kids don't fight as much if there's nature around them
in the school grounds.
It's even like a psychological effect
that if poor people move to places
where there are a lot of trees,
they become more wealthy and it's it's strange but it does something with you you feel more
i don't know better or you feel more wealthier and wealth is a feeling it it has nothing to do
per se with your bank account it can have to do something with your bank account but
you can feel wealthy and have 500 euros a month or 300 euros a month and just be yeah live a simple
life that's also wealth but but it helps to feel wealthy if you have a lot of trees around you and
And I think when we start realizing that,
that if you work together with nature,
that we go much further than if we fight against it,
then that's for me like if I had to say like one sentence
to say, okay, hey, kitty.
If I had to say one sentence, okay, what you do is like
work together with nature instead of fighting against it.
If we do that, then we solve all our problems.
We solve floods.
We solve our health crisis.
We even solve war, you know?
We have to start working together.
That's the thing.
That's really nice.
And it's powerful.
And I really do believe that as well, because I've seen people going through, like, nature just for a couple of weeks, and they came back completely different, like, changed.
And I really believe in that power.
And what I think is hilarious, I mean, we are nature.
So this is it.
I think that's the craziest part that we have to argue about this.
We come from nature.
We are part of nature.
It's not going to change no matter how much technology or anything we have around us.
Yeah.
Our bodies is like more than half of our cells are nature.
so we like on a microscopic level
literally
our nature
what a cool dog you have
he's a big baby
everyone is so afraid of him
he's just a baby and he's afraid of everything
the most hilarious part
people are like oh my god
he will eat us
and the question I hear
the most is does he bite
of course he is going to
bite if you're a stupid motherfucker
if not
probably not but it's nice
because of him I'm so
much in nature it's really
incredible I mean
I don't know how many hours a day I spend
in nature because I have to walk him
and have to run around with him
I would say
this is therapy
and yeah I have someone in my family this person is really depressed and I've been the same but
having a big dog is really helping and people think it's about the dog I really think it's
about the nature you are in every day for hours because you're running around there and
yeah what I miss most about not living on the Canary Islands is really being in nature like
first thing in the morning you fall out of bed we lived in the middle of the forest we I could
walk for hours without seeing anybody around me it was the best thing ever and i really
feel my mindset changing here i'm getting up i'm in a bad mood why the fuck i'm a happy person but
i already feel the change settling in like oh my god it's coming closer so let's see how this is
going yeah scary let's it is scary and there is still nature around me but not enough it's not
wild enough it's more you know if you if you want wild nature we're we're currently uh designing in
a hotel in the azores islands oh nice i like a totally ecological hotel with with natural wine
natural food everything natural it's gonna be amazing um that's super natural and wild you know
you can have like a crazy rainstorm in the day which makes like airplanes not able to land which
which happens on every second flight.
I love that.
If you go to there by airplane,
it's the only real way to get there,
unless you have a sailboat.
Then one of the two flights is going to not be able to land.
I love it.
Go there or the flight to go back.
So it's like, you know that.
Yeah, I love it.
We once had a meeting with the mayor for that project,
and we had to land on other islands.
And we flew all the way there.
And then we had to do an online call from one island to the other island.
So that's super wild nature, you know?
And super beautiful because everything grows super lush.
It can be pretty cold as well.
Not Germany cold, but still pretty cold.
But then like five minutes later, the sun shines and you can walk in your bikini, you know?
Yes.
That sounds like Canary Island.
Yeah, but it's greener.
It's greener than Canary Island.
and still less spoiled.
Nice.
I will check that out.
Yeah.
Oh, nice.
Yeah.
Let's talk about your book
because I think you figured out some kind of solution
and maybe not only one,
but you have so many ideas about what we actually can do
instead of just sitting around complaining about that
everything is packed in plastic in the supermarket.
It can really change something.
Yeah.
The goal with the book is really to show people
in the most simple matter as possible
what we can do about our personal health
but also about the health of our planet
and how food and soil
is like the key ingredient to do all that.
And the nice thing is it's super easy to do
and it's super easy understandable.
I didn't wrote a book in scientific jargon.
I really wrote it as a 10-year-old could understand it
and 10-year-olds have been reading it
and they could understand it.
We're like, oh, my God, that's just like crazy, you know?
So, you know, there was once a guy that said,
everything you tell to the world,
if a 10-year-old doesn't understand it,
then you're not doing it right.
So it's like my mantra.
And so, yeah, it's super simple.
If we save our soils, we're going to save our souls.
And there is one very important piece of information
that you need before you, like, talk about it.
it's like okay in everything you do whether you're an engineer or or a gardener or uh or
fixing something you first have to like assess you first have to check okay what is there a problem
what's what's like going on what's what's the observation what's the current situation
the current situation is that in uh in a little less than 25 years um 90 of our land of our planet
earth will be degraded.
So that's 90%.
And that's if we continue the way
we farm today.
So that's 25 years. You will still
be alive. I will still be alive. A lot of
the listeners will still be alive.
It's not that far ahead,
you know, 25 years. And 90%
of
degenerated earth,
it means famines. It means
massive
prices for food.
We have the global warming.
So our temperatures are rising worldwide, are getting more extreme, sometimes super cold, sometimes super hot, but sometimes super dry, sometimes super wet.
And I've seen it all over the world.
You know, I've talked to farmers.
Sometimes I also meet people that don't really believe in climate change or in the warming of the climate.
Mostly they live in an apartment in the city who say that.
Farmers, they're like, OK, well, I don't care what you believe.
You know, this field has been drier.
it's been harder we have had more extremes there were like like monster floods that like wiped
everything away so things are really getting worse and 25 years i know friends that say oh louie
you're so funny i wish it was 25 years we only have three years left and if we don't do something
then we're screwed yeah and it's happening in spain it's happening in portugal for example
but also in usa it's happening all over the world and so that's a super scary thing you know i'm i'm
I'm not easily scared by stuff, but we all need food.
Even if you want to build a spaceship to go to Mars,
you still need food.
You still need to put something in the cans,
or even if you make liquid gels or so to put in your,
I don't know, slurp, or I don't know how you eat or drink that.
But it still needs to come from somewhere.
And soil is still the best way and the easiest and cheapest way to grow food.
and that's like one of the scariest things happening right now and we need to do something
about it so then that's the assessment we need to do something about it because everybody wants to
have food and then what do we do about it go back to the real cause of the problem and what's what's
the problem with humanity right now is that we like to do the following right now like
all of our roofs are leaking.
We have leaks in our roof.
Water is dripping on our living room,
on our rugs, on our sofas,
on our everywhere.
What do we do?
First of all, you get a bucket
to put under the leak.
It's very logical.
Then you fix the roof, right?
And what do we do now?
We don't fix the roof.
We just buy bigger buckets
and you have all people
selling those buckets
and say,
I have very special buckets
It's like super lightweight.
Or now I have a robot that can automatically empty the buckets.
And that's what we're like working on.
Oh, I can build a bigger bucket.
Oh, now mine is made out of nanomaterials.
Oh, now I have this self-walking bucket.
And everybody's like, oh, this bucket is way cooler than that bucket.
Oh, buy it or buy a subscription to my bucket service.
And that's what we're doing right now for our agriculture,
but also for our bodies.
You know, people paying 300 euros a month for their medication.
they're like just putting buckets under the leaking roof they're not fixing the roof
and that's what's getting us here true i really like the roof thing because it really starts in
your head all the decisions you make you know what i figured out if people call me crazy for not
as your grandma i don't allow uh shit food in my household if people come around and want to cook
and share food it's like most of the time no way because i'm not gonna eat that shit
and i'm not gonna share my fucking expensive food with people that are not used to it because i mean
you know what i mean i want to invest in people but i'm a single mom i have to watch out for my
kids so my kid is being like fed to the top and i really think it makes a difference because they
treat their soil differently than regular farming. And I come from a background of the last couple of
years, really hippie dippy communities and all these, oh, we love the land and this and this.
And I've never seen someone really self-sufficient in this hippie dippy style. And what I see is,
and I really like that about you, you said the way is in between this Monsanto monster farming
and in between this hippy-dippy lifestyle.
Maybe we can talk about this.
Yeah, no, it's so true.
And to be honest, I also started in the hippy-dippy world,
or how you call it.
Never heard that, the dippy part.
It's true, isn't it?
I mean, that is what I do.
Yeah.
Idealism doesn't feed you.
You also need to be practical.
and um unless you you know how to be a breatharrier and can live from the from the air but i haven't
met somebody oh i did my father is doing this i think for one year he wasn't eating and he was
building a house the same time so he had energy output and energy had to come from somewhere he's
the super fasting god i don't know how he does without food yeah i think so i mean i am gonna
to ask him to reassure, but pretty sure.
Yeah.
Well, maybe one year you can do it.
If you like drinking of water and you have enough reserves or maybe have some magical
powers.
Yeah.
I like, I believe I always have like 1% that I believe everything because you never know
that you might be wrong.
So yeah, cool.
Well, good for him.
So I don't want that, you know, I want to have good food.
I love food.
so yeah we were talking about the hippie versus monsanto thing so a lot of
idealistic people and i was one of them too are like against technology or are against
efficiency and are even against putting things in rows that's the first thing you learn in
permaculture is like yeah you have to use the edge and and have to have everything as
as chaotic as possible, which is for nature very good,
but it's not efficient if you want to grow your food.
It is just very practical to put things on rows,
and that nature doesn't really care if you take the same plants
and put them in rows, but to have a very healthy polyculture,
what means like putting different plants together.
They don't mind that they're in rows.
It's we humans that actually are making a problem out of it.
of it of course it it would be better to like put everything chaotical but if you really have to get
your calories from it then and you're gonna have a hard time to do it so we need to embrace
technology to do it and and like permaculture style if you if you spend let's say one day and
a half per week on your land to grow your own food it's possible to like grow 80 of all your
food i know people who do that you know spend about half a day to one one day and a half and
they're they're self-sufficient for 80 they're not growing their grains or or chocolates or
or coffee if in europe you can't uh not yet um we still have to have a bit of patience with the
global warming um but um but so yeah so it is possible that you you that it really takes skills
and a lot of hard work to do so.
And if you then look at agriculture,
yeah, you can't,
or I'm not against giant machines
who like they saw a crop,
for example, to regenerate the land.
And like I teach farmers as well.
And we have these farming programs
that I helped to develop
where people have to like plant
or saw at least five different botanical families
as in the seeding mix to like regenerate the soil.
It's just regenerating the soil.
That's the only goal.
It's good for biodiversity,
but also good for soil biodiversity.
So you're feeding the earthworms,
the bacteria, the fungi,
because plants,
they do not only consume from the soil,
they mostly actually feed the soil.
A lot of people don't know that up to 40% of all,
all the photosynthesis they're doing,
all the all the like I call it pancake dough that they making like the eggs the milk whatever it in it They give it via their roots to the soil
It's called exudates.
And so they're feeding the soil.
So you're literally pumping food in the soil
if you have your earth covered.
So you have like tractors being able to do that
on giant fields on hundreds of hectares
at the same time they do that.
And then the next time they come,
a couple of months later, it's like super high.
you have several tons per hectare
that you grew of biomass
and then you like
with a
roller crimper it's called
or a roller faca it's like a giant
roll with knives on it
that like you're like crushing these plants
just like putting
laying them down it's in the front of the tractor
at the back of the tractor
they have a direct seeding machine
what does that mean normally
up till not so long ago
they always had to like
scratch the soil
or till it or like
remove the top layer a little bit
so you could seed
you could put the seeds in the soil
so that's
always disturbing the soil
but the direct seeder
they don't need to disturb the soil
they're just perforating the soil a little bit
to put the seeds inside
so the structure only has to drive once
like crushing these
cover crops or green manures
and at the same time
like drilling the next crop into the ground which is going to be food the next time the tractor comes
it will harvest that food and at the same time drill in the green manure crops again next time
it comes it will like crush the green manure crops and put in the new crop which is going to
be a different crop than the other one to like have a kind of rotational system and you don't
plant one crop, you could, but it's better
to mix crops.
And for example, I don't know if you... Have you heard
about the tree sisters?
Yes, actually.
Yes, I like that. Tell me more about
it because I'm not a pro and maybe the listeners
either.
So the tree sisters, that's a system that
has been discovered in
Mexico, for example, or in Central
America, but also has been discovered
in China. So people have been doing it all across
the world. So you have the
corn stalk, which is
growing corn, you have beans grow next to it.
And these beans, they like wind themselves around the corn stalk.
These beans are edible, of course, but they also take nitrogen from the air and put it
into the soil thanks to bacteria.
And these beans, they're super good at it because 78% of what we are breathing is nitrogen.
That's like fertilizer flying into the air, but they can take it.
Plants can't do it without these bacteria.
So they're fertilizing the soil for the corn.
And then you grow squash or a member of the squash family next to it to cover the soil so the soil doesn't dry up.
So it's a beautiful combination of tree plants.
And that's like the tree sisters is a very famous one.
But you have a lot of these combinations.
So they have been doing it for thousands of years.
Now people are doing this with tractors.
And I know some modern farmers who are doing this with tractors and on giant surfaces.
And so without this technological evolution, this direct seeding, it was not possible in the beginning of the organic revolution, which happened around a century ago.
But now, thanks to this technology, for example, we can do it.
And we save a lot of diesel or electricity, as you now start to have electric tractors as well.
and you save fertilizer
because these green manures are fertilizing
the soil, you save pesticides because
once your soil is super healthy
the plants will be healthy too
and that's the thing that
people underestimate
even in your garden, if you're like
angry that your roses are attacked
it's like yeah, but if you grow sissies
as plants, if you grow
pussies, then of course they're going to be
attacked, they're weak, you're growing weaklings
because your soil is rubbish
and so you have to invest in this so and it's the same with your human body you know if you get sick
all the time um there is something internally wrong that you need to fix and most of the time
it's possible i've seen people fixing even like things that are not supposed to be fixable i have
yeah it's it's it's crazy that that's some yeah some things that are in a modern medicine not
fixable that are fixable with natural remedies.
And again, here too, I don't like it when people
say it's or modern medicine or traditional medicine.
If you break your arm or if you need a heart transplantation,
then it's very good to have modern medicine. But you don't need pills if you
have a sore throat or something. Eat some raw ginger. Don't get a pill.
Eat raw ginger and your throat pain
will also go and and that that's with a lot with a lot of things um and and and yeah once you know
that and and and embrace the the richness of and the traditional stuff whether it's medicine or
agriculture with like this maya techniques literally thousands of years old i know now
modern farmers like you know most people don't know belgium that well but you have like a province
called West Flanders, where my grandmother is from,
and they're really no bullshit people.
They're also not real huggers.
They're these more sturdy people.
I'm from the West Flanders,
and especially the western part of West Flanders,
the West Corner, we call it.
I can't say it because my grandmother is from there,
and I'm living there too.
It's not that extreme, but I'm just exaggerating a little bit.
But, you know, that's like the kind of feeling you have with West Flanders.
Like, we're like, we're, you know.
But I now even see West Flemish farmers using biodynamic techniques.
And biodynamic techniques, you know, real diehard biodynamic farmers,
they work together with the moon, with full moon,
depending on the phase of the moon they plant.
they do some things
that are not really scientifically proven
some things are for example with the moon
like for example every
professional woodworker
knows that when you have to cut
the tree you have to look to the moon
phase because tree will have more
or less water so some of the things
are proven some of the things are not proven
but they're trying it out
they have like hundreds of hectares that they're working with
like super modern machinery some of them even
still use pesticides
but they're like trying out all these
weird
air marks
these weird things
you know so it's so nice to
combine stuff and
not to close yourself for me
personally I always try to keep an open mind
for me it's very clear like pesticides
we need to get rid of them as fast as
possible any type of
harmful chemicals but I
still work together with farmers who are like not
there yet they're going
to a place without chemicals but they're not there yet and so i'm not like oh i don't want
to see you anymore like screw screw you go away no i'm like okay you're doing great stuff it's
you're already like only using half than all the rest and and only by having this kind of mindset
and attitude we can also connect because if you before when i was like 18 years old and seeing all
the anti-Monsanto films, I was
like super angry with
everybody and
all the farmers
or just everybody who was
not perfect.
And then
you'll never
inspire anybody.
Au contraire, I know very
high
class professors who don't eat
organic because they're like
yeah,
They had too much organic people who think they thought it better.
That they're like, oh, screw all these better than perfect organic people.
I don't eat organic anymore.
Go away.
Then you're making the opposite effect of what you actually want to achieve.
I like that because I'm a hardliner.
and I usually, I just don't waste time to talk to people
who are like on the other end of the scale,
let's say like that or other direction
because I'm like, forget about them.
So what I really want to know is,
so that inspiration, that is inspiration
to be a little bit more open-minded and yeah,
because it is what it is.
We're not going to solve anything through,
I don't know standing on our point and not moving away from that um what I wanted to ask if we did
so much damage as the human race to this planet do you think it's reversible and how much time
would it need because from my point of view if I see what is in these pesticides and how people
are treating this planet I'm like dude I don't even know if it makes sense or if I would just
enjoy the rest of my life and then drop out and be happy I had a life I don't know because sometimes
I'm really like can we even fix what we did I don't know can we it's funny when when you were
started to talk I thought you were you were gonna say um with all the things we did wrong do we even
deserve to keep on living on this plan oh I mean I do I don't know about the others
No, no, no. I'm joking. I thought you were going to ask me that question. I'm not going to answer that one.
Well, first of all, I believe in forgiveness.
Okay, that's good.
And, you know, most of the time, we just don't know. And you can't be angry at people that don't know or don't get it.
That's like the worst thing you can do. I think we should treat everybody as children, including ourselves.
And if a child doesn't want to listen or doesn't want to understand, you have to have patience.
You have to care.
You have to be sweet to them.
You have to give love to them.
I remember being a child and I did very stupid stuff.
And my mother was angry that I did that stuff.
But then she was also loving.
And then I think because of that loving, I then started to listen to her again.
yeah it's it's like a very logical thing um it's like the the punishing versus not punishing thing
um so um now to answer your question uh can we fix it yeah we definitely can fix it you know
my profession is running a landscape architecture uh company and we do it all the time so people
phone us or email us and say oh we have a piece of land that's totally rubbish what do we do now
and it's amazing to see that in a couple of years
you can really turn things around
and the nice thing, microorganisms are the key to everything
so they're the key to our happiness, we already know that
they're the key to our health, we also know that
but they are also the key to soil regeneration
so if you feed soil organisms, they will do the work for us
to give you an example
one hectare
of land,
which is 10,000 square meters,
can have two tons
of earthworms.
So imagine two tons of people.
Depending on where you are
on this planet, that's a lot of people.
Not in the US.
I didn't say that.
So that's a lot of people.
And even if you're in the US, it's still a lot of people.
or like a little less maybe but it's still enough people and they work earthworms they work 24 7
you don't have to pay them you don't have to explain them what to do they just built the soil
they're like underground cows they're constantly eating stuff and they're constantly pooing out
like gold that's like the best soil you can have the earthworm castings um and so that's they're
doing it for free you you just have to allow them and that's that's what everything is like
for example the the the five different plant families which are then sometimes 12 different
plants we put in the soil which pump all these different kind of nutrients in the soil they're
like boosting the soil they're boosting the soil life and the soil life is like building complex
structures they're building entire cities in the soil so then if you plant a seed of a desired crop
uh thing you want to eat it will grow very good it will be very healthy and uh and and so
So, of course, if you're in a place that's really degraded and you don't have a lot of water, because that's mostly the limiting factor, then it's harder.
But even there, I recently talked with Tony Rinaldo.
He's a desert regenerator.
He's one of the guys who regenerated probably the most hectares in the world as a single human being.
Not that he literally did it by hand, but he like put people together, spread knowledge.
Even in Niger, for example, you have a lot of like tree stumps that are still in the ground.
So there's still a forest, but like animals are just grazing it.
So what did he say?
He said, well, look, all these stumps that are still here, like always keep a couple of branches.
So you can like cut one branch like every time.
And then they will always re-sprout.
and then you'll have the forest.
And even there, you can then slowly regenerate the land.
Other places where it's super dry,
you can use cows to regenerate land.
Something very contraintuitive,
because people always think,
oh, cows are ruining the planet.
We're actually going to need cows to save the planet.
I don't eat meat myself.
I live mostly plant-based,
unless I have desserts.
Then sometimes it's hard to find your stracciatella ice cream
without dairy in it.
But we're going to need grazers to save our land.
Why? Because they trample the soil.
They make all these little micro ponds with their hooves.
Their dung attracts dung beetles.
These dung beetles eat shit.
They dig tunnels, and these tunnels are then used to aerate the soil.
And it's one of the fastest ways to store carbon in dry areas
is by having grazers in a holistic grazing area.
So I've been seeing these kind of projects all over the world,
sometimes with my own eyes, sometimes on just photographs or film,
where they, like, with these cows, with these animals,
by having a very fast rotation, so they never, like, overgraze.
They're mimicking how the bison used to graze.
They were always close together as a herd because they were afraid of predators,
and they never were in one place too long
to not be eaten by predators.
So we killed all those predators, unfortunately, as humans.
So we have to play these predators ourselves,
not by trying to kill them,
but just by moving them from one area to another area
in a very civilized, loving way.
And that's amazing.
And once you know the power of regeneration,
that's fantastic.
I once had an interview with a journalist who asked me,
yeah, Louis, why are you not depressed?
And I was like, oh, what a funny question.
And then she said, yeah, but a lot of climate activists
I interview are like super depressed.
And I'm like, yeah, I can understand why they are
because they're screaming and they're like doing
all kinds of action against climate change
or global warming, I mean, because climate change,
we're not supposed to say that.
That's a word that's a certain political party
invented to make it less
worrying. It's global
warming. That's the real word.
So they're constantly
fighting against global warming,
but it keeps on warming.
They don't see something change. So it's
difficult to do something for
10, 20 years and you don't
see change. It would probably also depress me.
But when you plant a tree
and you see that tree grow, it's very small.
Today I looked at my garden
and I said to my wife, oh look,
that's our kaki tree. It's already
like 70 centimeters high now i was so happy you know like i'm here i live on a sand dune here so
it's like just sand and like it's almost impossible to grow anything but they're like oh my god look
how big it is it's already 70 centimeters it should be two meters normally but i'm already
happy with 70 centimeters and so like if you plant the seed and it grows it's the most magical thing
on earth and it gives you so much hope because yeah, then you can like this morning I went
in my garden and I picked strawberries and somebody stole my prunes, but still, yeah,
I was a bit angry with that, but I still had five prunes that were left on the tree.
They were already a bit eaten by animals but I like still could pick it and remove the eaten part and I made a fantastic smoothie this morning So these kind of things they give you so much hope
And once you connect to the point I'm making,
how can we regenerate the earth?
Because that was your question.
Can we do it?
Yeah, we can.
But we also have to show real-time benefits to people.
And if you make it edible, if you can then make a smoothie
or a granola bowl in the morning with your own raspberries
raspberries and berries and prunes and whatever.
Oh my God,
regeneration tastes so great.
It's so fantastic.
Because, yeah,
people don't realize that we have oxygen
thanks to plants
and also thanks to
sea creatures, of course,
but a lot of thanks to trees
and thanks to plants.
They have a joke that, well,
if the forest would provide Wi-Fi,
we wouldn't cut them down.
yeah to shame they only produce oxygen yeah sad isn't it i like the part of what you said
being really proactive and working on it like on an everyday base um it's a little bit like
if you gift someone something it makes you as happy or even more happy than receiving a gift
You know what I mean? So this is actually the everyday hands on experience that is connecting you not only to the outcome, but back to Mother Earth and nature.
And I really think it's a mindset. And if you're just an Internet warrior, like, my God, everything is going to shit.
And yeah, of course, that is varying. And I wanted to ask you something quite similar, because when you turn on the TV, it's always, of course, the negative stuff, blah, blah, blah. Where can people actually find good news about initiatives that are that are being really carried out real nice results that make us happy? Because I think it's quite hard. If you're like used to just, you know, click on the remote, like, okay, there's the shit show for today.
but where can we find a nice shit show
yeah yeah or no shit show
at all
good news show
yeah well first of all disconnect
your TV look I have a TV
but it has zero connection
the only connection it has is a HDMI cable
HDMI cable that you can put in your laptop
to watch some nice films
that you really consciously choose
so ditch your television and stop
watching the news like be very selective
and because like
if you put shit in, shit will come out.
And that's with the news. If you constantly
put shit in, then
some of this shit will stay in your body.
And so
where do you find good news?
I think the algorithms
on all my social media are trained now
to only give good news to me.
So that's like
stop clicking on bad news.
That helps train the algorithms well.
And follow some people who are
doing some nice stuff
on social media or follow companies.
Like I recently bumped into a very cool thing.
It's called the happiness or no, the good news broadcast,
I think is the name.
I think it's on Instagram.
And so every, I think every day or a couple of days,
they're like posting some super cool news.
Like for example, they posted the news,
like one of the Nordic countries, I think it was Sweden.
that banned all caged chickens.
They're totally bandits.
So, wow, fantastic.
It's because of normal people.
It's not politicians that did it.
It's like a small group of people who do it.
They can do it.
I can do it too.
So, that's empowering.
And, yeah, just Google good news
and you'll find amazing stories.
stories like like i'm i'm also myself constantly every day trying to spread some good news or
something hopeful um to like push people to to showing that yeah we have a problem we can't
ignore the problem you know ignoring the problem is not a good idea but yeah once you know that
there is a problem you have to have love for the planet you have to have love for humanity and
because of that love he and because the gratefulness also for everything you have around
then you know that well this beautiful world because it's still beautiful there are a lot of
things are going wrong um and and i feel that i sometimes even dream about that um
once you look at the beautiful part you're like okay but this is still so beautiful look look
look at you you're healthy it's so nice to see i'm so grateful that i'm talking to another healthy
person um and and and and a very bright person so so let's be grateful for that so i want the world
where you can thrive where your beautiful dog and cat can thrive where these beautiful streets who
are in my garden can thrive and and once you feel that love and you know at the same time that
our beautiful thing that your love is under threat and it's like okay but what can i do about it
and some people will do very small stuff some people will do very big stuff but it doesn't
matter what you do you just have to do something that's pretty cool and you know what once i started
to really follow a good news instead of like watching bad news stuff there is so much going
on on the good side oh yeah yeah it only feels like we're in the shit show because this is what
the mainstream media shows us but there are so many people like you that are out there and really
doing something so this is empowering as fuck and i think being uh happy about not only what you do
in your everyday life but seeing other people do it that is like you are indestructible you know
what i mean that gives you so much power to go on even if you have like i don't know too much to do
not enough energy and all these things because i think we're so many it's not like you and me it's
There is so many people like us.
That's the beautiful part.
You don't know it because they are not shown on the media
in your 8 o'clock news show.
But there are.
So I love it.
And that's the thing that I was blind for it.
I kind of knew, but I didn't want to see it.
But they're out for you.
They want to get you.
I didn't want to believe that.
But it's like I'm writing a new book right now about all the ways we're being polluted, which is like you're polluted like with everything.
And then I really like had to face the reality and see that they're really out to get you, you know, with the news.
I know people who work at a very high level in news companies who are like or are leaving or are like trying to still do something good.
But people are paid by the click, you know.
And bad news sells.
Even for very high educated people.
Or low educated people.
It's all the same bad news sells.
So the more horrible news.
And how you call it.
Shit shows they present.
The more it's going to sell.
So they want to get money.
It's the same with medication.
A healthy body doesn't need.
A lot of medication.
Only like.
If you had a bad thing happening to you.
But most of the time you don't need it.
You can just eat some ginger.
or make some herbal tea or something.
But they want a subscription.
They want you to be subscribed to their pills
that will make you slim again.
And that costs you 300 euros a month.
The same with soils.
If soils are unhealthy,
they want you to have a subscription to their seeds,
a subscription to their pesticides,
a subscription to their tractors.
They want you to have a subscription to everything.
And for that, you need to make a conscious effort to look at where your food is coming from.
And you have this very famous infographic that shows, well, these 10 companies control almost all of your food.
I think you probably have seen it.
Just Google that.
Google that, which 10 companies control all of our food.
Don't buy those anymore.
Yes.
And it's easy.
Yeah.
They're not organic.
It's actually easy.
Yeah, they are not organic, first of all.
And when you realize, I mean, I went through this process when I was pregnant.
I was like, it wasn't conscious.
I think the baby told me not to eat that shit anymore.
And then I went through the supermarket and I realized, okay,
the only thing I can eat is the vegetable and fruit section.
Everything else is poisoned, even the fruits maybe, you know.
So I changed my mindset.
Yeah.
And you don't even need the rest.
That is the most hilarious part.
You can just skip it completely.
The supermarket is 90% no-go area and just 10% what you really, really need in your life.
Once I realized that I don't need anything of these things, my life got so much easier.
So it's not because people often when I tell them, like, I don't even buy these things.
They're like, what are you eating?
I mean, all the rest of nature is producing, first of all.
And secondly, if you really, it's like minimalizing your food consumption or your food.
I don't know.
It's maybe even addiction at some point.
If you just skip that part, it makes everything easier in your life.
Maybe it's not making it easier to go out and eat with your friends that still eat differently from you.
But it makes everything easier from your mindset to how you organize your life and all these things.
So it's really worth the effort.
and it's not an
yeah sometimes I get this
yeah it's too much work thing
it's too much of a hustle to
get into this new lifestyle
it's actually not that hard because we're
human beings and this is where we come from
I think our body is like yeah eat more of that
so you get happier the more you get into it
and then
it's a self
sustainable
thing how you eat
I really think so
we go evolve for thousands or even 10 or hundreds of thousands
of years with all these natural stuff we didn't co-evolve with all these chemicals only exist for
10 50 maybe 100 years so that's uh our body is not used to to all these chemicals and and it's
sometimes even cheaper i know people that switch to organic foods and it became cheaper because
they just have like a subscription to this food box of vegetables and fruit so they don't buy
pringles anymore they don't buy all this little garbage that it's like cool uh but like those are
the thing that really costs a lot of money a funny thing is i actually like processed foods
um which is like very contra intuitive so i like to be able to put a open my freezer take a pizza
put it in the oven and eat it it's so handy you know i sometimes don't have enough time so i really
love that people also like saying oh what the heck you're like you can still eat processed food
they also exist organic
and sometimes
they're sometimes even
like as expensive
as like a famous brand
deep-freezed pizza
you know
or like you can buy canned meals
in organic shops
like I was in France and the BioCoupe for example
they have this I think it's called
Jeff and Nadine or like it's like a
name of a couple of it it's like just a couple
who like started to like make it
in bulk and then sell it, they can
food and then you can
just buy a meal.
You don't even have to cook it. You can even just buy
couscous and pour it over the couscous and wait
for a minute and you can eat it
instantly. So even if you're lazy,
you maybe have to pay a little bit more
because it's processed, but even if you're lazy,
you can still eat the best food
out there.
You don't have to go
back to the Middle Ages.
You can if you
like it.
But yeah, so that's also like a good way to like put people at ease.
Like you can't just put a pizza on your own.
It is.
Actually, I'm a prepper and I was thinking, okay,
I'm not going to buy shit food to eat in the apocalypse.
That's impossible.
I just want my good food if shit is about to go down.
And then I made some research and there are so many brands that sell,
even in glass bottles or in glass, in jars.
You don't even have to have this aluminum thing and all these things.
There is so much out there that you can choose from.
So I really think it's possible.
It's just a different kind of research you got to do.
But in the end, you're going to love it because it feels so nice
when these things arrive in your package, you know,
and you just know it's healthy.
And maybe to circle back to one of the first things you said,
during his podcast.
It's like people taste the difference.
I know a lot of top chefs in this world
and
most of them use the best ingredients
they can get
and most of them are organic.
For example, I interviewed Dan Barber,
a very famous guy in the USA.
In Europe, people don't really know him.
But in the USA, he's a very famous guy.
And he just started his own farm.
He invests
a lot of money
even like to create food with even better taste.
They're like even like crossing different varieties together
to create even better food instead of bigger or bulkier or whatever
or like easier to store.
No, he's like doing the opposite.
It's like, how can I create healthier, better food?
And people are paying hundreds of dollars for one meal, you know?
Like people are going...
So he's like upstate New York.
So people from the city are going there,
driving for one or two hours depending on the traffic.
And I don't know how much, but I think even up to...
$300, $400, $500, depending on how crazy you go,
for one meal, you know?
So that's the top, you know?
The top is already doing it.
The top culinary people know that this is the best taste.
We are eating rubbish.
We shouldn't allow that anymore.
We should demand the right, come on the street, protest,
and say we deserve good food, tasty food.
Just stop buying shit.
it isn't that easy
really
so I need to cook
that is nice because now I'm
a little bit more motivated before I was like
I don't know
now I feel like okay I gotta do
something about it
go and take that knife and cut some
delicious tomatoes
really nice
I really enjoyed our talk I think I learned a lot
although I thought I know
quite some things about
what you're working on
I really enjoyed that.
Yes.
Thank you so much.
I will put all the links to your work in the podcast description.
So everyone can find your work with one click.
And that's it.
You want to,
I don't know,
say one important thing you want to give the people or the listeners to,
I don't know.
Yeah.
I'm just going to repeat a quote of Margaret Mead,
who said,
never doubt that a small number of people can change the world because it's the only thing that
ever has so every change is created by people just like you and me every big change we wouldn't be
in the air without the simple brothers right who made airplanes so although they were being
supposed to make bicycles they said okay let's just fly instead you know there's like just
crazy people doing crazy stuff.
We can all do it. It's in all of us.
And people,
I know people I've met, I think,
a girl, she was only 12 years old and she planted
already thousands of trees and wrote
a small book about it. And is now speaking
all over the world to promote it.
It's crazy. Kids can do it.
So why couldn't you?
We don't have any excuse. We can all do it.
I like that a lot.
Nice. Thank you so, so much.
Really appreciate it.
okay let's see
thank you so much for listening
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Thank you so much.
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Have fun and see you soon.
돈ny