Elspeth Hay: Feed us with trees

2025-09-21

What if the way we eat could root us back into place, instead of tearing it apart?In this episode, I speak with Elspeth Hay. Elspeth is a writer, public radio host, and food systems advocate whose work explores what it means to live thoughtfully in place. Raised in Maine by birdwatcher parents, she grew up seeing how species adapt seamlessly to their ecosystems, while human communities eroded them, often just to feed ourselves.For more than 15 years, Elspeth has interviewed farmers, harvesters, cooks,...

What if the way we eat could root us back into place, instead of tearing it apart?

In this episode, I speak with Elspeth Hay. Elspeth is a writer, public radio host, and food systems advocate whose work explores what it means to live thoughtfully in place. Raised in Maine by birdwatcher parents, she grew up seeing how species adapt seamlessly to their ecosystems, while human communities eroded them, often just to feed ourselves.

For more than 15 years, Elspeth has interviewed farmers, harvesters, cooks, policymakers, and visionaries, asking how we might eat and live without extraction. Her work reveals a paradox: humans are highly adaptable to ecosystems everywhere, yet we’ve forgotten how to belong to them. Based in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, she co-founded the Wellfleet Farmers Market and Commons Keepers, and works on community food initiatives like the Wicked Oyster restaurant.

We discuss:

🥥 How food connects us to place and to all the living beings we share it with.

🥥 The flow state that comes from engaging with what grows around us.

🥥 How disconnection from story shows up materially, and why storytellers must tell stories of what we are for to nurture imagination and possibility.

Check us out: www.coconut-thinking.com

Check out Elspeth's website: https://elspethhay.com/

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