From Soil to Soul: Transforming Global Food Systems Through Living Nourishment

What we eat shapes not just our bodies, but our communities, our ecosystems, and our future. At Springboard Connectivity, we’re exploring how to transform global food systems in ways that truly nourish both people and planet — starting with the most fundamental question:

What is the healthiest diet for humanity and the Earth?

In a world full of food tribes — vegan, raw, carnivore, fruitarian — it can be overwhelming to know where to begin. But what if we started with this simple truth:

🌱 Living food creates living energy. Nourishment from the land heals us — and heals the Earth too.

My Journey Through Food and Healing

After battling undiagnosed bacterial and fungal infections for over five years, I found healing through a diet many wouldn’t expect: a raw, nutrient-dense, animal-based protocol. I consumed raw beef, cream, goat milk, herbs, garlic, and eggs — alongside fresh plants and oils. It was a revelation. My chronic conditions shifted, my vitality returned.

Books like The Recipe for Living Without Disease taught me something radical: cooked food may rob the body of key nutrients, requiring it to work harder to extract energy. No animal in nature cooks its food — and many, like the Inuit, once thrived on a 99% raw diet, free from degenerative diseases.

Raw food is alive. It’s filled with enzymes, electrical energy, and microbial allies. It’s no wonder stories like Hogan healing a chronic sinus infection with a raw food diet, and Essa healing chronic constipation with the raw food animal diet and looking 20 years younger than his chronological age, the 74-year-old raw foodist who looks 24, inspired curiosity and awe.

Eggs: Nature’s Multivitamin

In our work with food systems in Kenya and beyond, eggs are a keystone food. They’re portable, stable without refrigeration, and packed with essential nutrients. Here’s what one raw egg provides:

6 grams of complete protein
Vitamin B12, choline, selenium
Fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E, K
Omega-3 fatty acids (especially if pasture-raised)
Lecithin for brain and liver health

Eggs are remarkable for everyone, especially those who are infirm. Three years ago, a medical doctor called me on a Thursday evening about her 70 year old female patient with emphysema. She explained that her patient had been mainly bedridden for 2 years, was on 100% oxygen and respiratory machines. She prognosed that her patient would die that weekend unless I could help. I told her that the only thing that I thought might help at that late stage was eggs. I recommended that she get her patient 10 dozen raw eggs. I suggested that she ask her patient to eat one as often as she could and that there was no limit. Very early Monday morning, I received a call from the patient. She told me that she was off the machines, out of bed and feeling stronger than she had in years. She had eaten 66 eggs over the weekend.”
— Aajonus Vonderplanitz, Chapter 10, The Recipe for Living Without Disease

And importantly: no harm is done when we gather eggs mindfully. With loving stewardship of chickens, we can receive without exploitation.

From Permaculture to Perennials: Planting for a Living Future

My background in permaculture, especially living in Hawaii, revealed a powerful truth: the land wants to feed us — if we let it. Fruit trees like jackfruit, avocado, banana, and coconut are perennial gifts. Once rooted, they nourish communities for decades with little input and minimal environmental cost.

That’s why, when Springboard enters a community, we plant fruit trees first. Then we bring in chickens — for eggs, for education, and for regenerative systems.

Regenerative Agriculture: A Partnership with the Earth

The food system doesn’t need to be extractive. According to documentaries like Kiss the Ground, Common Ground, and Rachel’s Farm, regenerative agriculture is our best hope. It builds soil, stores carbon, replenishes water cycles, and heals land degraded by mining, monocropping, and tree-cutting.

The 5 Principles of Regenerative Agriculture:

Minimize soil disturbance
Keep the soil covered
Maximize biodiversity
Keep living roots in the ground year-round
Integrate animals into the system

And that last one — animals — is often the most debated. Can cows, goats, chickens actually restore ecosystems? According to regenerative ranchers and ecologists like Allan Savory, the answer is yes — when managed properly, they reverse desertification.

Savory’s position has drawn critique from environmentalists like George Monbiot, who advocate for rewilding and plant-only systems. Yet both seek the same goal: a thriving, biodiverse Earth. The question is not “animal or plant?” — it’s how we integrate all life into harmony.

A New Paradigm: From Exploitation to Partnership

Yes, exploitation of animals must end. Industrial farming is a trauma to the Earth. But that doesn’t mean animals must disappear. A new relationship is possible.

We imagine a world where:

Chickens give us eggs and fertilize our gardens
Goats provide milk and prune the land
Trees offer shade, fruit, and life
And we, humans, tend the web — not control it

As Alia Herbs shared in a recent video: “The future is fruit. The future is light.” I agree — and also see that in this transition period, many people are sick. Nutrient-dense animal products help them recover and rebuild their bodies quickly.

Over time, as we heal, we may move toward lighter, fruit- and plant-based diets. But right now, we need nourishment that meets us where we are — physically, emotionally, and ecologically.

What Springboard Connectivity Is Doing

In Kenya and Uganda, we’re supporting communities to:

Plant diverse, perennial food forests
Raise happy, healthy chickens for eggs and soil-building
Build regenerative gardens that feed families and restore ecosystems (introducing raw foods like lettuce, fennel, nasturtium)
Teach grafting, permaculture, and traditional knowledge
Create resilient systems that don’t rely on fossil fuels or industrial supply chains

We believe in food that feeds the soul. Food that doesn’t just sustain, but uplifts. We believe in partnerships — between people and animals, humans and land, science and spirit.