Care More Be Better: A Podcast For Sustainable Social Impact and Regeneration

Coffee is the richest source of dietary antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents in the American diet. But behind every cup of coffee is a global story that spans centuries of cultural transformation, health science, and a tangled web of trade ethics. Corinna Bellizzi delves into this topic with Chris Kilhan, medicine hunter and author of The Way of Coffee. Together, they unpack the role of coffee in social transformation, particularly with critical tensions in the coffee trade and the nonstop price increase due to the “coffee shop culture.” Chris also presents potential solutions to solve the biggest problems of the global botanical trade to radically improve consumer prices and provide better opportunities to small farmers, the heroes behind our most delicious cups of coffee.

About Guest:

Chris Kilham is a medicine hunter, author, educator and yogi. The founder of Medicine Hunter Inc., Chris has conducted medicinal plant research and sustainable botanical sourcing in over 50 countries. Chris works with companies to develop and popularize traditional plant-based food and medicinal products into market successes. These include ashwagandha, kava, maca, rhodiola, schisandra, tamanu oil, cat’s claw, dragon’s blood, ayahuasca, and hundreds of other plants. Chris also works to bridge worlds, regularly sharing information about other cultures through presentations and media. He has appeared on major media globally for decades. The New York Times calls Chris “part David Attenborough, part Indiana Jones.”

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chriskilham/ 

Guest Website: http://medicinehunter.com/

Guest Social: 

https://www.instagram.com/medicinehunter/

https://www.facebook.com/medicinehunter/

https://www.youtube.com/user/chriskilham

Additional Resources Mentioned:

BOOK: The Way of Coffee by Chris Kilham, Medicine Hunter

CHRIS' EARLIER EPISODE: On Building Sustainable Communities By Learning From Indigenous People with Medicine Hunter, Chris Kilham

PRIOR EPISODE MENTIONED: Healing The Soil Through Regenerative Farming With Ric Scalzo, CEO of Kokora Life

Show Notes:

02:39 - Deep Dive Into Coffee Production And Consumption

15:06 - How Coffee Transformed Our Societies

21:03 - How We Can Walk Away From Unnecessary Coffee Hype

34:43 - How Firms Can Commit To Running An Ethical Business

49:10 - Giving More Opportunities To Small Farmers

53:40 - What It Is Like To Bridge Different Worlds

01:01:39 - Green Flags To Look For When Buying Coffee And Botanicals

01:07:00 - Diving Into A Big Product Project On Coca Leaf

BUILD A GREENER FUTURE with CARE MORE BE BETTER

Together, we planted 36,044 trees in 2025 through our partnership with ForestPlanet. We screamed past our goal of planting 20,000 trees thanks to subscribers like you!

NEW CAUSE PARTNER FOR 2026!

If you value open dialogue, sustainability, and social equity, I invite you to support our new cause partner — Prescott College. To learn more about this effort and to support the show, visit: https://caremorebebetter.com/support/

Follow us on social media:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/caremorebebetter

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@caremorebebetter

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caremorebebetter

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CareMoreBeBetter

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/care-more-be-better

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As human beings, we are built for relationship. Yet many of the leadership models we inherit are hierarchical, extractive, and rooted in struggle. In this conversation, Nina and I explore:


What relational leadership really means


Why empathy, vulnerability, and collaboration are strengths — not weaknesses


How climate justice, racial equity, gender equity, and economic reform are deeply interconnected


Why “solving for pattern” (in the spirit of Wendell Berry) leads to cascading regenerative benefits


The importance of integrating restorative, regenerative rhythms into our leadership and lives

Nina also reflects on redefining sacrifice, embracing conflict as a doorway to deeper relationship, and leading from wholeness rather than burnout.

Why This Matters Now

We are living through overlapping crises — climate instability, political gridlock, reproductive rights rollbacks, and widening inequity. Nina reminds us that these are not separate issues, but interconnected systems.

We will not achieve climate justice without racial and gender equity.
We will not build regenerative economies without collaborative leadership.
And we cannot solve systemic problems while remaining disconnected from one another — or from the Earth.

Relational leadership invites us to lead not from dominance, but from interdependence.

About Nina Simons

Nina Simons is Co-founder and Chief Relationship Officer at Bioneers and leads its Everywoman’s Leadership program. Throughout her career across nonprofit, social entrepreneurship, corporate, and philanthropic sectors, Nina has worked with nearly a thousand diverse women leaders to cultivate mutual learning, trust, and transformative leadership.

She is the author of Nature, Culture, and the Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership and co-editor of Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart. Her work integrates ecological wisdom, spiritual insight, and systems thinking to inspire regenerative futures.

Connect with Nina:


LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nina-simons/


Website: https://www.ninasimons.com/


Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/1ninasimons/


Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nina.simons


Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/ninabioneers

Join Me at Bioneers 2026

I’ll be attending Bioneers in Berkeley from March 26–28 and look forward to meeting Nina in person and hearing her speak live.

If you’re considering going, now’s the time:

https://conference.bioneers.org/
***Use code BRINGAFRIEND for 2-for-1 pricing***

Let’s gather, learn, and co-create regenerative solutions together.

Support Care More Be Better

Care More Be Better is an independent, values-driven podcast. We answer only to our collective conscience.

If you believe in regenerative leadership, systems change, and social impact storytelling, please:


Subscribe, Rate & Review


Share this episode


Support the show at: https://www.caremorebebetter.com/support

Together, we can care more and be better — and we can even regenerate our leadership models to heal people, planet, and the next generation.

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Effective altruism is the philosophy of doing the most good by maximizing your time, money, and resources. Corinna Bellizzi dives deep into this concept with JD Bauman, Executive Director of Christians for Impact. Together, they discuss what every person in the world can do to help address today’s biggest social problems, from the climate crisis to global poverty. JD explains what it takes to live an impact-driven life with the willingness to confront the uncomfortable and without reducing morality to mere statistics. He also talks about the mindset and character needed to reach across the aisle, as well as the right way to vote with your dollars.

View complete blog: https://caremorebebetter.com/how-to-save-lives-with-your-dollars-radical-empathy-effective-altruism-with-jd-bauman/
About Guest:

JD is executive director of Christians for Impact, a nonprofit career advisory that helps Christians maximize their impact on global problems, through research and 1-on-1 advising. He lives in the Washington D.C. area with his wife and son, and has a book coming out with Eerdmans called All the Lives You Can Change, which is about turning good intentions into real change, especially through your career and donations.

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jd-bauman-4ab940159/ 

Guest Website: https://www.christiansforimpact.org/ 

Additional Resources Mentioned:

Preorder Book: All The Lives You Can Change by Dominic Roser, David Zhang, and JD Bauman

Show Notes: Raw audio | FV

[03:40] The Role Of Radical Empathy In Solving Climate Change
[10:35] Treating People Equally Deserving Of Infinite Value

[13:31] Reaching Out To The Human Beyond The Statistics
[15:59] How To Solve The Migration Problem

[28:40] Using Your Money For The Better Good

[38:31] Why Focus More On Stories And Less On Numbers

[42:36] How Impact-Driven Framework Challenges Selective Morality

[45:48] Church Or Charity: Where Should You Donate?

[54:37] How To Pledge 10% Of Your Lifetime Income Wisely

[01:00:10] Discussion Wrap-up And Closing Words

BUILD A GREENER FUTURE with CARE MORE BE BETTER
Together, we planted 36,044 trees in 2025 through our partnership with ForestPlanet. We screamed past our goal of planting 20,000 trees thanks to subscribers like you!

NEW CAUSE PARTNER FOR 2026 SELECTED!

If you value open dialogue, sustainability, and social equity, I invite you to support our new cause partner — Prescott College. To learn more about this effort and to support the show, visit: https://caremorebebetter.com/support/

Follow us on social media:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/caremorebebetter

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@caremorebebetter

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caremorebebetter

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CareMoreBeBetter

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/care-more-be-better

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Human progress may be beneficial to human society, but it is usually achieved at the cost of the lives of other species. Corinna Bellizzi explores how we interrupt the movement and migration of wild animals with Hillary Rosner, a science journalist, editor, and author. Together, they discuss how human-made fences and borders, the privatization of land, and the displacement of indigenous stewardship hinder countless animals from moving freely from one place to another, leading to their dwindling population. Hillary also explains what it takes to create large-scale solutions to solve this ecological problem, and why it all starts with shifting our consciousness to see the world from an animal’s perspective.

Blog Page for this episode: https://caremorebebetter.com/the-right-to-roam-wildlife-corridors-public-lands-ecological-regeneration-with-hillary-rosner/
About Guest:

Hillary Rosner is a science journalist, editor, and author whose stories about the conservation, biodiversity, and other environmental topics have appeared in National Geographic, The New York Times, Wired, The Atlantic, High Country News, Audubon, bioGraphic, and dozens of other publications. She is assistant director of the Center for Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her book Roam: Wild Animals and the Race to Repair Our Fractured World was published in 2025 by Patagonia.

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hillaryrosner/

Guest Website: https://hillaryr.net

Additional Resources Mentioned:

Roam: Wild Animals and the Race to Repair Our Fractured World by Hillary Rosner

Show Notes:

[01:58] Why Hillary Focuses On Animal Migration Instead Of Extinction

[06:18] How To Make Borders And Fences More Animal-Friendly

[09:48] How Modern Development Impacts Wildlife Migration

[14:56] Finding Hope In Public Lands And National Parks

[26:56] How Privatization And Human Progress Hinder Wildlife Movement

[32:48] Various Movements To Keep An Eye On

[41:27] Bringing Species To Spaces They Do Not Belong

[48:13] Are Indigenous People The Best Stewards Of The Land?

[53:10] Let Animals Move Freely In Your Land

[56:56] Discussion Wrap-up And Closing Words

BUILD A GREENER FUTURE with CARE MORE BE BETTER
Together, we planted 36,044 trees in 2025 through our partnership with ForestPlanet. We screamed past our goal of planting 20,000 trees thanks to subscribers like you!

NEW CAUSE PARTNER FOR 2026 SELECTED!

If you value open dialogue, sustainability, and social equity, I invite you to support our new cause partner — Prescott College. To learn more about this effort and to support the show, visit: https://caremorebebetter.com/support/

Follow us on social media:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/caremorebebetter

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@caremorebebetter

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caremorebebetter

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CareMoreBeBetter

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/care-more-be-better

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

(Originally recorded July 28, 2024 for another podcast Corinna once hosted, Nutrition Without Compromise — shared with permission.)

Aging is often framed as inevitable decline. But what if much of what we call “aging” is actually preventable disease accumulation?

In this essential re-release episode, Corinna Bellizzi sits down with Michael Greger, physician, internationally recognized speaker, and founder of NutritionFacts.org.

Dr. Greger’s latest book, How Not to Age, builds on the groundbreaking work of How Not to Die and How Not to Diet — translating peer-reviewed science into practical guidance for living longer and healthier.

In this conversation, we explore:


The difference between lifespan and healthspan


Why excess protein may accelerate aging pathways


The myth of “incomplete” plant proteins


Fish consumption, pollution, and algae-based Omega-3 alternatives


Autophagy, spermidine, and cellular repair


The role of vitamin B12, vitamin D, and DHA


The promise of lifestyle medicine in addressing Alzheimer’s and chronic disease

This episode launches a curated Care More Be Better re-share series highlighting foundational health conversations that remain deeply relevant today.

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