Farming for Health Podcast #22: Erin Meyer

Erin Meyer intertwines a broad range of experiences to connect people in ways that improve our communities and our food system—and here’s how her journey unfolded. 

For twenty years, she served as a certified diabetes educator where she listened to people’s stories: what they liked to eat and what they didn’t; their lifestyle and behaviors; and more. Through this experience, she recognized that she needed to know more about food to further help her clients: food varieties available, ways to prepare it, and methods of engaging in taste. So, she went to culinary school and became a professionally trained chef. 

At this point in her life, she and her husband moved to a twelve-acre farm with their young children—and Erin quickly found out that going from a full-time educator to a stay at home mom was too significant of a change, and she needed something more. So, she started a for-profit business where she created herbal-infused vinegars that she sold at farmer’s markets.

This small hobby turned into something bigger as she explored foods from her heritage (Italian) and her husband’s (German) and worked with farmers. In fact, in six short years, she went from an in-home business to one she ran out of a church—and then it grew large enough that she needed to purchase a building. 

Then, disaster struck. A tornado damaged the building she used for her business, which served as an impetus to move to Chicago. There, Erin got her masters degree in sustainable food systems, and she became the executive director of a small non-profit agency that brought culinary professionals to a farm so that they could have a better sense of where their food came from. The missing piece for Erin, though, was that she thought health professionals should do the same.

So, in 2018, she founded Basil’s Harvest, a non-profit organization that works with community leaders to support regenerative food systems and community health. To hear the rest of her story, listen to our Farming for Health podcast, episode #22: Regenerative Food Systems, Food Sheds, and Resiliency. 

Past Episodes of our Farming for Health Podcast

If you’ve missed any of our previous episodes, you can find them here:

• Episode One: Keto, Cruciferous Vegetables, Salt and Your Mindset
• Episode Two: Cooking, Conviviality, and Preserving the Harvest
• Episode Three: Ferments, Food Insecurity, and Wasted Food
• Episode Four: Anti-Cancer Diet, Food as Medicine, and Vegetables
• Episode Five: Plants, Happiness and Mindful Neglect.
• Episode Six: Whole 30, Sustainable Habits, and Loving Vegetables
• Episode Seven: Iodine, Egg Yolk Enzymes, and Miso
• Episode Eight: Fungi, Bitter Foods, and Food Extinction
• Episode Nine: Understanding Food, Nutritional Healing and Farming
• Episode Ten: Enjoying the Process, Connection and Soup
• Episode Eleven: Monica Geller, Community and Limiting Salads 
• Episode Twelve: Nourishment, Creativity, and Full-Spectrum Health
• Episode Thirteen: The Joy of Cooking, Fermentation, and Seasonality 
• Episode Fourteen: Cauliflower, Potlucks, and the Joy of Food
• Episode Fifteen: Time Savers, Pickled Raisins and Cooking With Creativity
• Episode Sixteen: Romanticizing Food, Seasonal Eating, and Shamed Spinach
• Episode Seventeen: Being Present, The Eat In Method and Food as Fuel
• Episode Eighteen: Regenerative Grazing, Monarchs and Voting with Your Dollar 
• Episode Nineteen: Childhood Injustice, Soil Health, and Relationship with Nature
• Episode Twenty: Yoga, Climate Changes, and Creating a Livable Future
• Episode Twenty-One: Understanding the Soul, Flow State, and Finding Your Purpose