S5 Ep24: We Are the Regeneration Generation! with Ryland Engelhart
“We can be the regeneration generation, and our food system is the mechanism to do that.” — Ryland Engelhart
The world is changing. The way we live, the way we work, the way we interact with each other and with the world around us - it's all changing. And we are the generation that is leading this change.
We are the generation that is breaking down barriers and opening up new possibilities. We are the generation that is using our creativity and our passion to build a better future. We are the generation that can help our planet heal. We are the regeneration generation!
And that starts with transforming our food system. The food industry has been one of the biggest contributors to our planet’s deteriorating condition— but we can change all that. And that change is happening right now!
Kiss The Ground, is a documentary that provides a clear picture of how big our impact is on our environment and reveals a sound and practical solution to climate change. Co-founded by Ryland Engelhart, its nonprofit partner, Kiss The Ground is actively leading the citizens of the earth to the possibilities of regeneration.
Tune in to this week’s episode as Justine and Ryland discuss how we can turn food into a transformational experience, how culture and emotions are inseparable aspects of food, what it means to be committed but not attached, how knowing our farmers can help us get a wider perspective on regeneration, and how we can become better stewards of the earth.
Connect with Ryland:
Ryland Engelhart co-founded Kiss the Ground in 2013 and plays a leadership role in the organization as the Chief Mission Officer; he is a producer of the Kiss the Ground film released on Netflix and host of the Kiss the Ground Podcast. As a 15-year entrepreneur, he is also the co-owner and prior Mission Fulfillment Officer of the nationally recognized plant-based restaurants Cafe Gratitude and Gracias Madre, located in Southern California, and co-creator of the documentary film, May I Be Frank.
He is a passionate speaker on the topics of sacred commerce and regenerative agriculture, tools for building community, food is medicine, and the practice of love and gratitude. Ryland is also a dedicated husband and father and lives on a 17-acre regenerative organic farm in Fillmore, CA, where he is learning to practice what he preaches.
Connect with Kiss The Ground
Connect with Café Gratitude
Connect with Gracias Madre
Episode Highlights:
01:48 The Matrix of Life
06:17 Food and Games and Life
12:11 Cafe Gratitude to Gracias Madre
17:08 Committed But Not Attached
20:45 The Regeneration Generation
23:30 Be an Advocate for Soil Health
Tweets:
We can be the regeneration generation! — A generation that advocates, not only for soil health but for our earthly home and everything in it, including us. Learn how we can be part of this movement with @jreichman and @kissthegroundCA co-founder, @lovebeingryland. #podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredients #kisstheground #food #missionbusiness #plantbasedfood #businessuilding #regenerationgeneration #RegenerateAmerica #soilbill #soilhealth #regenerativefarming #knowyourfarmers
Inspirational Quotes:
03:41 “This intelligent matrix of life has this beautiful design and it's all connected. How can we be, in this web of life, act in a way that can be in service to the rest of the web?” —Ryland Engelhart
10:09 “Growing anything, oftentimes, will require compromise and shifting of ideals and values.” —Ryland Engelhart
11:02 “We're only going to grow as fast as we have the appropriate leadership to do that.” —Ryland Engelhart
11:28 “Small is beautiful. Things don't have to scale to a hundred times before they have an impact because sometimes, the most profound stories and experiences carry and transmit beauty.” —Ryland Engelhart
17:08 “One of the lessons is how to be committed but not attached—committed to an outcome and intention, but not being attached on how to get there.” —Ryland Engelhart
17:40 “Commit to what you want; surrender and be grateful for whatever is given.” —Ryland Engelhart
20:45 “We could actually have a food system that goes from arguably, the most destructive system on the planet to the one that is the great redeemer.” —Ryland Engelhart
20:45 “We can be the regeneration generation, and our food system is the mechanism to do that.” —Ryland Engelhart
Transcriptions:
Justine Reichman: Welcome to Essential Ingredients. I'm your host, Justine Reichman. And today, we have Ryland Engelhart, Co Founder of Gracias Madre, and Cafe Gratitude and Kiss The Ground. Did I get them all in there?
Ryland Engelhart: Yeah. In order, I guess Cafe Gratitude was the first one and Gracias Madre. And most recently, Kiss The Ground is the nonprofit organization that I founded and now run as the executive director. And then that organization inspired and co created a film called Kiss The Ground which came out on Netflix.
Justine Reichman: So for those folks that are not familiar, because they're not from California, I'd love for you to just tell them.
Ryland Engelhart: There's people not in California?
Justine Reichman: I think the world revolves around New York, because I'm from New York and California. I'm still getting to figure it out, but it gets bigger. It's so big.
Ryland Engelhart: It is. I've been here 20 years, but I'm actually on my way out. But I'd love to talk.
Justine Reichman: You have to tell us about that. But in the meantime, I want for our listeners and the viewers that are watching, if you could just tell them a little bit about what Cafe Gratitude is, what Gracias Madre is so that we can just know a little bit about who you are. Because I think that really, once they know that, they'll better understand who you are. What the inspiration is behind where you're going next.
“This intelligent matrix of life has this beautiful design and it's all connected. How can we be, in this web of life, act in a way that can be in service to the rest of the web?” —Ryland Engelhart
Ryland Engelhart: Cool. Thank you. So Cafe Gratitude is a plant based organic restaurant that opened back in 2004 in San Francisco. And it was really a creation from my father and stepmother. I joined in about the first year that they were opening, but it was really an experiment in merging this idea of food and gratitude. What a novel idea. It's kind of the oldest ceremony sitting around a table and eating food. And oftentimes, what people do is they would give thanks. My parents are sort of hippies back to the landers, very sort of experimental spiritual seekers, and they always had this aspiration to bridge the commercial world business with sort of the spiritual values of love, compassion, kindness, gratitude, transformation. And as a family, we were always seeking to create transformational experiences. And so I grew up in a household where we'd meet once a week and sit around in circle, ask the question like, we'd say, I love and honor myself, and I'm grateful to share myself with you. And everyone say, we love and honor you, and we're happy to listen to you with love. And then we sort of check in with what was going on in our lives. And it was a very sort of exploratory of how we can be connected to our feelings, our emotions. Their direction in life was always seeking teachings, books, things that would expand their consciousness and expand their ability to understand the meaning of life, and what it is to be connected to a higher power. And it wasn't connected to one religion or one godhead. It was just that life is an intelligent matrix of life that has this beautiful design, and it's all connected. And how can we be in this web of life acting in a way that can be in service to the rest of the web?
Justine Reichman: So beautiful. Honestly, that is so beautiful. Then to create a business and a life that you encompass that all and to share it with the world.
Ryland Engelhart: Yeah. I think most people, again, sort of mission driven businesses or values based businesses. I think most people come from the business, and then let's add a little mission, add a little values, add a little culture, we really came at it from, how do we create transformation and a model of business. The primary product is the experience of transformation and gratitude. And so thus the creation of Cafe Gratitude, which again, it was created from a transformational board game that people would play similar to monopoly or life, and you would go around, and you'd land on the square, and you'd ask a question like--
Justine Reichman: So you actually had a board game that you played with your family that you guys created every week.
Ryland Engelhart: The board game was created at the state same time that my folks were exploring by eating just raw food. We've always been pretty health conscious and into plant based food. And as I shared earlier, we're here on Sow A Heart Farm, me and my sister live here together. We grew up on a farm in Upstate New York where you're from, if the cover you want to call it. So we definitely have roots in understanding a more agrarian and a life more connected to nature. But fast forward to Cafe Gratitude, again, mostly vegetarians. We were in macrobiotics. And for those that don't know, it's like eating very seasonally and eating a sea vegetable, whole grain and lagoons. It's mostly plant based. A very sort of healthy diet that some people have found a lot of success with, or sort of a framework of cooking. And so we went even further than this that originally was at a raw food restaurant. So we didn't even have a stove. We didn't even have a hood, a restaurant with literally only raw fruits and vegetables. And this was back in 2004. And so the business model was we were a raw food restaurant/transformational gaming parlor.
Justine Reichman: Did you have the game there?
Ryland Engelhart: Game was on every table. And literally, there was no two tops. You had to sit in the community. We drank the Kool Aid, and we were definitely like, if you come in and hear the Kool Aid to, and we were actually quite threatening to a lot of people because we would ask you questions of the day every time there would be like, what do you love about your life? What moves you from your head to your heart? We even ask questions like, what do you want to do before you die? What were you experiencing fear in your life? How could you have a breakthrough today? So we asked these very sort of prompting, sometimes confronting questions. But that was part of this whole gratitude experience where it was an authentic people would come in, and we weren't just curating your bowl of quinoa on sprouts and tahini. We were also curating a conversation of so our question of the day and we invite our guests to participate in this question of the day and be like, well, we're having a conversation. Awesome. You don't have to interrupt it now, but just whenever you want. Here's the seed of the question. The question is, what are you passionate about?
Again, it was confronting. But ultimately, it led to meaningful dynamics where people, we all know that when we prompt Thanksgiving dinner, if we just get to eating, and we actually don't allow everybody to go around and share what one thing they're grateful for. There's something lost, so that there is an opportunity of curating a conversation that leads people slightly into the discomfort of that feels not normal that a business is going to be drawing me into a more meaningful conversation. But that was the experiment we were doing. Bay Area, vegan restaurant, we were kind of a little bit hippie dippie. And everyone, many people with coloured hair and dreadlocks, it was a wild iteration. The first seven years of Cafe Gratitude was definitely kind of this very exploratory experimental, kind of like the 60's of Cafe Gratitude. And then 10 years--
Justine Reichman: I was gonna say it, that was my next question, how did you go from being that hippie dippie restaurant to that imposing way where you're like, okay, you're coming in from my experience, you're gonna answer my questions. You're gonna have this experience here to now it's a completely different restaurant. I'm not saying it's bad, it's different. So you actually get from there to where you are now. And what did that look like? And as an entrepreneur, how did you make that decision?
“Growing anything, oftentimes, will require compromise and shifting of ideals and values.” —Ryland Engelhart
Ryland Engelhart: Yeah. So the business, we had a seven year chapter here in the Bay Area. And then we met two partners who lived in Los Angeles, Chris and Lisa Bonbright who were very savvy and real estate business acumen, finance, raising money and also design. And so we were kind of the food and culture people. They were really the sort of business and design, and real estate, and sort of that merger that marrying of those two different worlds. It really kind of had a second coming. When we moved to Los Angeles almost 11 years ago, we opened the first Cafe Gratitude and Larchmont in Hollywood. They're a kind of niche hippie dippie to like, oh, my god, it has become this total phenomenon packed to the gills. People can't get in. We're like there and there's like, all these celebrities around. It's like, oh, my God, it became this total phenomenon hotspot in Los Angeles. That was kind of 2000, March 4, 2011. Over the next seven years, we opened seven restaurants in Southern California, from Newport Beach to San Diego. I think growing anything oftentimes will require compromise and shifting of ideals and values. That was definitely the struggle for me because I'd say that, I actually had a role in the company. I was the general manager, and even sous-chef at times in the restaurant because food has been definitely one of my sort of creative places that I love to create and explore. But my role ended up being the mission fulfillment officer. The appropriate, yeah, the evangelist for the business. And I mean, for the culture of gratitude. As we grew, and I think part of the challenge was, multiple locations. Seven locations, 300 plus employees. We always said that we're only going to grow as fast as we have the appropriate leadership to do that. And I would say that that was an area where we did compromise, and you only see that in hindsight. You think, oh, we can grow this. We have the right leadership. But it's kind of driven by this aspiration of more and grow, which ultimately is kind of the dream of businesses always scaling, growing, selling. And I think the idea of small is beautiful. Things don't have to scale to 100 times before they have impact. Because sometimes, the most profound stories and experiences carry and transmit beauty. So anyways, yeah, seven or 10 years now, we've opened seven restaurants. We've closed one of the restaurants here in Beverly Hills. But actually, this whole journey of Cafe Gratitude and sort of the transformational culture led me to actually just to stop--
Justine Reichman: Before we moved to Kiss The Ground, I want to just take a minute and just say, how did we get from Cafe Gratitude to Gracias Madre?
“We're only going to grow as fast as we have the appropriate leadership to do that.” —Ryland Engelhart
Ryland Engelhart: Beautiful story. So we opened the restaurants in San Francisco. It was mostly friends and family who were employed there. On day two, a woman named Imelda walks in she says: "You guys need a dishwasher?" We were like, I think we do. We didn't have to hire a dishwasher. We just thought we'd take turns to do dishes. Imelda introduced us to Pedro, Pedro and Imelda. We're from a small town culture within six months. 8 out of the 10 families inter to do all their kids were working in our restaurants. They became our family, community friends. We got invited to Mexico tour, the small community called (inaudible) state of Mexico. We went there for a wedding of one of our employees, went back to get married and sort of fell in love with this culture. I mean, we'd always been in love with Mexican food and culture, and their hospitality, and even the Guadalupe image of this Divine Mother. And on that trip, we kind of had this awakening of like, and it was because we always loved Mexican food. But we always wanted something where there was like organic, healthy version of Mexican food with no lard, the beans are no GMO, corn tortillas. So we had this vision of like, we're always hoping that someone would do the perfect Mexican restaurant in our vision. And then on that trip, we thought Gracias Madre. It's a beautiful way to acknowledge that culture and that they are the backbone of our organization. And this is their family lineage of food and wanting to give that voice and reflection. So some of the first original recipes of Gracias Madre were from mothers of our staff from Cafe Gratitude. But it was inspired by a trip to Mexico, visiting our employees who were getting married and invited us to their hometown to go visit.
“Small is beautiful. Things don't have to scale to a hundred times before they have an impact because sometimes, the most profound stories and experiences carry and transmit beauty.” —Ryland Engelhart
Justine Reichman: I know you made some changes in Cafe Gratitude from the time that it was, you and your family to when you had co founders or partners. So when you then opened Gracias Madre on your own, did you integrate some of those original core values back into it?
Ryland Engelhart: So yeah, ultimately. Life is one big conversation, right? It's continuing to live, continues to iterate and evolve. Cafe Gratitude or Gracias Madre that there is today is very distinct from what it once was. And it still all comes from a family lineage of moments, experiences, values, commitments and decisions that were made within the overall lineage of the company. At one time, we would take managers and all go drink Ayahuasca to kind of understand the meaning of life and what it means to love and serve Mother Earth. And that was like, alright, we want everyone to have that experience so that our guests can have that experience, that was a radical thing to do. But you get six restaurants and to grow something like that becomes very, we did something called a holotropic breathwork. We did it for 250 people. Everyone dressed up in white, and we had facilitators.
As the company has grown, I've stepped away to now Kiss The Ground. My brother steps in mainly running it. You take on new partners, obviously, there's compromises and shifts. At moments one could judge like, oh, it wasn't what it used to be. Everything is a communication that is cascading into the influence and the unfolding of other things like so, you know, what we did, you know, it was a flower that blossomed, and gave itself, and it's continued to, I mean, the amount of impact and marriages that have happened from first day of Cafe Gratitude, and the question of the day leading to a meaningful conversation to so many brands that have kind of gone on to do plant based things, and the whole idea of having a message of gratitude,as part of a brand ethos, that's like being communicated. 2004 was very niche there. And now it's very common. I was hearing your team talk about today. You can't have a company that doesn't have something that they're saying, that they're doing beyond just making money. And people are like, I don't want to be involved in something that's just about making money. So there's definitely been shifts from, I know the one producer who's, that one farmer who's growing corn for all of our tortilla chips, and that farmer is growing, doing regenerative agricultural practices. And I only want that. And then the company grows. There's just the complications of being rigid about our commitments. One of the lessons is really, how do you be committed, but not attached and committed to an outcome and intention, but not being attached to how you get there?
“One of the lessons is how to be committed but not attached—committed to an outcome and intention, but not being attached on how to get there.” —Ryland Engelhart
Justine Reichman: I think that's a big one. That's a silver bullet. Understanding that you're doing this and you're committed, but you can't be attached to all the outcomes.
Ryland Engelhart: Exactly the way that you get there, I have a mantra that says, commit to what you want, surrender and be grateful for whatever is given. Commit to what you want, surrender and be grateful for whatever is given. Because in that way, you are empowered to take action, but also not disenchanted. When life doesn't go your way, you actually have the courage to get back up on the horse and make another request and try to shape it in the way that you want to wheel something forward.
Justine Reichman: But before we wrap up, I do want to talk about Kiss The Ground. I want to talk about that. I want to hear what got you to do that, because I know that's really where your heart is, and your nonprofit, and what you're working on next.
Ryland Engelhart: Yeah. I went from a really cushy job, running restaurants in an office to essentially saying, all right, sort of a sleepless night. A conversation with a good friend of mine led me and actually watching a little YouTube video of Greta Thunberg and kind of her courage around being a stand for climate action. And just really reckoning with the fact that I had a very profound moment where I saw that human life on planet Earth could be healthy in five or seven generations forward, because we understood our role in nature, our role in relationship to the earth, and that we could actually be a keystone species that brings health to the planet versus harm. And that sort of mythology and history kind of shows that human interaction and civilization ultimately is in conflict with nature. And so that's a pretty big mythology and sort of paradigm. I had a very profound moment of really getting, oh, my god, the way that photosynthesis works, the way that the carbon cycle works, the way that soils connect with plants, microorganisms, trees, animals, humans, and that we could actually have a food system that goes from arguably, the most destructive system on the planet to the one that is the great redeemer. And that as a restaurant tour became very compelling.
“Commit to what you want; surrender and be grateful for whatever is given.” —Ryland Engelhart
I'd always love narratives around food, and sure healthy food, healthier for you less chemicals, organic eat, but not really getting the bigger sort of organism, the Gaia effect of Mother Earth. And literally, the planet has gone through massive transformation. Whether it's volcanoes erupting, or meteors hitting it and being totally covered with gaseous smoke and greenhouse gasses, and ultimately suffocating life on planet Earth. And how that came back to balance is photosynthesis. And photosynthesis is the mechanism that pulls carbon out of the atmosphere, and can put that carbon in the soil. And right now, we have twice as much carbon in our soils as we do in the atmosphere. And there's a lot more room. And so as eaters, and as farmers, and as chefs, and as advocates, and activists, the most hopeful horizon of hope is that we can actually be the generation that understands our role in nature, and that we can actually be the regeneration generation, and that our food system is the mechanism to do that.
And so Kiss The Ground's role is an advocacy and education, communications nonprofit, really, to be the messengers, storytellers and connectors around the profound leaders and practitioners that have discovered this, and are seeing the values of it and seeing that it's profitable, that it actually transforms landscapes much faster than we thought when we are following the best guidance, and that it really is this hopeful way forward for humanity and nature to coexist in a really productive way versus spending billions of dollars to go to Mars to re inhabit a totally vacant of life planet and create bunkers for the continuation because we can't figure out how to work in harmony with nature.
“We could actually have a food system that goes from arguably, the most destructive system on the planet to the one that is the great redeemer.” —Ryland Engelhart
Justine Reichman: If there was a farmer listening to this, or a business, or an end consumer that wanted to understand better, how could they participate in this?
Ryland Engelhart: Yeah. I got lots of things that most people don't know where their food comes from. So find a farmer in your local ecosystem, in your Farmers Market and start to ask how they take care of their soil, and find what farmers are really passionate about regenerating your soil, and have that farmer be the farmer that you shop from. Have that farmer be your new hero, your new celebrity, the person that you uplift. Because truly farmers not only do they sustain us, but they actually have the solution to our climate crisis. And so we need to uplevel our appreciation, affinity and advocacy for farmers that are doing that. Know your farmer, find out who's taking care of soil and buy food from them. Kiss The Ground, we have a map called the Regenerative Farm Map on our website, so you can find a regenerative farm near you.
Justine Reichman: Just for those that are not familiar, what does it mean when you say regenerative farm?
Ryland Engelhart: Regenerative farm means a farming system that creates a regenerative effect on the ecosystem while producing a crop. So year after year, we have more health in the soil, we have more biodiversity, more plant life on the farm, and we have more economic viability on the farm. So basically, the ecosystem is getting healthier year after year while producing a crop that goes and keeps the economics of the farm running.
Justine Reichman: Thank you. I just like to make sure that whoever's vote, of course, I want to make sure that everyone's at the same level, we're all speaking, we all have the same vocabulary. I appreciate it.
“We can be the regeneration generation, and our food system is the mechanism to do that.” —Ryland Engelhart
Ryland Engelhart: Know your farmer. If you're inspired by becoming an advocate, we have an amazing course called The Soil Advocacy Training. We train people all over the world to be advocates for soil health and regenerative agriculture, kind of like how Al Gore's Climate Reality Project. We created one for the regenerative movement, so become a soil advocate. That obviously grow something if people are becoming more connected to growing food, you obviously become more connected to life and become a better steward of the earth in a small way. And then compost, kind of like yucky and want to deal with my food waste. But the reality is compost is one of the greatest sources of methane, and one of the greatest contributors to climate change. We could take that waste stream out of our landfills and put it back into the earth, and actually have a regenerative effect versus a degenerative effect on the climate. So composting. And then at a very simple level, go see the Kiss The Ground Film. Hopefully have your mind blown by like, oh, my god, there's a whole new possibility of life and a horizon of hope, and getting engaged because the grounds, we've got four programs where we support farmers, advocates. We create media content, and we work on changing federal policy.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. What's new and what's next for you?
Ryland Engelhart: We're launching a campaign called Regenerate America, which is a federal advocacy campaign that is designed to reform aspects of the 2023 Farmville and sort of building a massive Coalition, a massive grassroots activation. And we're working over the next 18 months to create farm tours for legislators to have them really understand the importance of soil and creating a series of content that will be broadly shared to the American general public and have the American voter really understand what is the Farm Bill? Why does it matter? How it actually is a juggernaut if it could change? And some of the resources that are there, $480 billion that are spent of taxpayers money could actually be shifted to new practices, and new incentives that would lead to a whole different food system.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us on Essential Ingredients. It's so great to meet you.
