Meet “Dirt-to-Dinner”: changing the game in food communication

Food Matters. There has never been a better time to share the story of modern agriculture.  That’s why “Dirt-to-Dinner” is an amazing organization that’s working to do just that. The team – Lucy, Lisa, Hillary, and Hayley, flew out to our Iowa farm last month to take a tour and learned all about how we run our livestock and row crop operation, and I’m so grateful to them for taking time out of their busy schedules to visit us.

Dirt-to-Dinner’s mission is to help you better understand how your food is grown and processed, and why this is important to you and your family. They provide the facts behind your food.

Lucy MacMillan Stitzer founded Dirt-to-Dinner to clear up food misconceptions with her friends. She learned a lot about labels and healthy food as two of her children were born with a blood disease and she had to be extra vigilant in providing them nutritious food to keep their immune systems strong. She discovered that labels aren’t always what they say, and she started asking questions, many of which were not answered online.

Needless to say, we had so much fun showing them around our farm, while taking some photos in the process!

Bottle feeding the orphan lambs. Lucy was an expert at making them share!

As an “agvocate”, I very strategically align with like-minded-brands or publications that share a similar mission to that of Farm Babe. What made me gravitate towards Dirt-to-Dinner was their overarching mission to uncover the facts behind your foods. What sets Dirt-to-Dinner apart from other agriculturally based blogs is that they do their research by talking to the top industry leaders in the ag space and beyond. Their relationships with major universities, research and development institutions, and scientist are endless. By basing each article in well-rounded, extensive scientific research, coupled with constant mindfulness for the everyday consumer, you can be sure of two things: accuracy and readability!

Michelle, Lisa, and Hayley inspecting the equipment shed!

The gals all have had interesting and varying careers and currently live in the Greenwich, Connecticut area just outside of New York City. I was excited to have conversations with them as we have similar backgrounds and share the same goals of consumer education in the food space.  Out here in rural Iowa, we don’t always hear about the latest trends and diet fads like they do in big cities. Case in point:  the celery juice craze – bad science debunked from the Dirt-to-Dinner team.  Read more about that here.

When asked about the future of D2D, Lucy responds with the thought of having a bigger influence with food corporations while raising awareness on the importance of food education for the end consumer.  As dieting trends become more mainstream with the help of social media, food companies need to wake up to the fact we have to be more proactive, not reactive when it comes to explaining what happens on today’s modern farms… particularly when it comes to topics like pesticides, food labels, veganism, and misleading marketing.  I couldn’t agree more, which is the whole reason why I also started my Farm Babe blog.

With the same ideas and goals in mind, I am proud to be a social media partner of theirs to help spread the good words of all that we do in food production, every single day.  You can follow them on, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and sign up for their e-newsletter here.