We wanted to share his knowledge and inspiring story so let's #gethonest with Bill 👇
Q: What prompted your interest in making better food more accessible?
A: It all started with a desire to learn how to feed my family in the most nourishing way possible. After decades of archaeological research into our ancestral dietary past, ethnographic fieldwork around the world with indigenous and traditional groups, literally “living” all of the different milestones of our evolutionary past while co-starring in National Geographic’s series, The Great Human Race, and receiving professional culinary training to learn how to cook entirely from scratch everything that we eat as a family, I developed strategies that worked very well for us. It was so successful, in fact, that my wife and I left our careers (her as a director of special education for a local county and me as a college professor) to share our approach to nourishing our family with the world. We are accomplishing this in several different ways. My book, “Eat Like a Human: Nourishing Foods and Ancient Ways of Cooking to Revolutionize your Health” helps empower people to cook healthy food for their families in their own home kitchen. Our family’s foodery, The Modern Stone Age Kitchen, puts everything from the book into practice and makes nourishing food accessible to the community. And our non-profit, The Eastern Shore Food Lab continues our research and education efforts.
Q: Can you tell us a bit more about Eastern Shore Food Lab and its mission?
A: The mission of the Eastern Shore Food Lab is to preserve, revive, and infuse ancestral dietary approaches in food to create a nourishing, ethical, accessible, and sustainable food system.
The Eastern Shore Food Lab is a nonprofit with three main purposes:
- Preserve - Identify and document ancestral food practices in the archaeological and anthropological records and around the world
- Inspire - Spread the message locally and worldwide to create a framework for meeting current and future modern dietary needs
- Empower - Equip people with the skills and knowledge to transform basic ingredients into the most nourishing food possible for themselves, their families and their communities
We give people voices, keep their traditions alive, and create meaningful change:
- Conduct Research using a variety of approaches including archaeological, ethnographic/anthropological, modern culinary
- Teach both in-person and online classes, workshops, retreats and intensive trips designed and targeted for different demographics
- Disseminate Information in a variety of formats including media appearances, scholarly and popular publications, podcasts, emails, social media, online videos, etc
- Create Connection by hosting and highlighting guest speakers/presenters from around the world in a variety of disciplines including farmers, chefs, doctors, etc.
Q: What about tbh’s hazelnut cocoa spread aligns with your personal eating habits / restrictions?
A: As I mentioned earlier we have high standards for the food we feed our family. Some of those are nutritional and we love that tbh contains less sugar than other brands. We also pay attention to the ethical and sustainable implications for how we eat. From working to eliminate wasteful packaging to localizing shipping and using less materials where possible, the incremental changes tbh are making fall directly in line with what we practice at both our home and at our Modern Stone Age Kitchen as well as what we advocate for at the Eastern Shore Food Lab.
If you enjoyed Dr. Bill Schindler's story and want to learn more, you can find his website here and his instagram here.
