Ben Bergquam, Author of "Step Into Fear"

This is Iowa Talking Points, the candidates, produced by Studio 5 at Mud Advertising and Totally Iowa Media, where you hear from candidates in the November 2026 general election.

Now, Iowa Talking Points, the candidates.

From Studio 5 at Mud and Cedar Falls, here is Jeff Stein.

Hello and welcome.

Direct agriculture production and related value-added industries account for roughly a quarter of Iowa's overall economic output.

Two candidates are on the November general election ballot for your consideration as Iowa's Secretary of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, and one of those candidates joins us at the Iowa Talking Points table today.

He is Chris Jones.

Mr. Jones is a Democrat.

nominated by his party for the election.

ChrisJonesForIowa.com is the website.

Mr. Jones, thanks for taking the time, sir.

All right.

Thanks for

having me.

So what led you to get involved in a statewide political race?

Well, I never had any sort of aspirations to be involved in politics.

I had spent my career studying water quality and agricultural landscapes.

I retired in 2023.

At that time, I published a book, The Swine Republic.

I had been writing a blog at the University of Iowa where I worked at the time.

I was writing, then I began writing a substat column that is still pretty popular and talking about these issues.

And I realized at some point that just writing about this and traveling around talking to people was not going to affect change the way I wanted to.

And that if I wanted to see some change and some improvement here in Iowa's water quality and overall environmental condition, I was going to have to run for something.

And so I got hounded by one guy in particular to do this.

And so about a year ago, I made a decision that I would try this.

And so here I am.

The title of the office is Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.

A lot of folks shorten it, but the land stewardship part is vitally important, is it not?

Well it sure is and you know that was added in the 1980s actually the land stewardship a part of it and so look if we know we're going to maintain the productive capacity of our farms and continue with a strong role in Iowa's economy with agriculture's role in Iowa's economy we've got to take care of the land and by taking care of the land we also take care of the water and so the condition of our water is a real indicator

that we're not doing the best job that we could in taking care of the land.

So how did we get to this point?

I know there's the old saying it happens slowly and then all of a sudden I trust it's something similar with this but but how did this issue rise to the top of people's agendas?

Well so firstly the system we have

corn, soy, KFO, which is animals in confined systems.

And then ethanol, that's the vast majority of our agricultural production system.

We got to that point slowly, as you say, but there were certain events along the way that

got us here that sort of in a stepwise fashion, if you will.

And so some of those events would have been a tiling where we installed tile in our lands across Iowa to lower the water table, especially in areas north of interstate 80.

Another step there would would have been the emergence of GMO crops in the 1990s, the renewable fuel standard in 2005 that

created a guaranteed market for corn and, you know, pretty much entrenched to this corn and soy system.

Then in 2000, we reworked our livestock laws here, the laws governing livestock production in terms of siding and zoning new facilities.

And so that really drove a

a transition to these confined systems where we have only a very small subset of farmers that are raising livestock.

And so those are some of the steps along the way that led us to this condition.

And so yes, it's been slow, but there's been some steps that have caused some change within a short period of time.

I'm summarizing as someone without an ag background.

I've lived in Iowa my whole life, but not on the farm.

So the concentration of production, whether it's livestock or crops, the lack of diversity of some of these things, is that what put unnatural strain on the infrastructure that has led to this issue?

So we know that nature likes diversity.

And so we look at ecosystems that have a lot of resilience and those systems tend to have a lot of resiliency.

We know that our system does not have resiliency because we get these big changes with weather and with pests and some other things.

And so that's right.

The lack of diversity here is a big driver.

And so in science, we know that we cannot get the environmental outcomes that we want and we can't get the water quality that we want when we only have two species of plants covering 70% of our land, which is what we have here.

And so corn and soy are those two species.

If we want diverse, if we want better water quality, then we need diversity.

We know in this system, if all farmers are doing everything perfectly right, we're still probably going to have an intolerable level of pollution.

And so we need to diversify the system to build in resilience so we get the outcomes that we want.

How much of the problem or the challenge is

also based upon increased use of chemicals as opposed to past generations.

So in a diverse system, in a diverse farming system, which we had here at one time, you rely on sunshine to

provide you with many of your inputs.

And so you have a crop rotation where some of the crops are going to be fixing nitrogen from the atmosphere.

You have a rotation where some crops aren't going to require tillage and that are going to be resistant to weeds and pests.

And then you have your cash crops, you know, where you go all out, where you try to earn money.

And now we have all cash crop all the time.

And so this all cash crop all the time is a system that requires a lot of inputs, right?

It requires the expensive GMO seeds.

It requires a lot of fertilizer.

It requires a lot of chemical with pesticides, insecticides, herbicides, fungicides now.

And so that's right.

This system that is not diverse, it requires inputs of chemicals and fossil fuels.

so it can maintain its productivity.

So what's the role of the Iowa Secretary of Agriculture and Land Stewardship in addressing and remedying this issue?

Well, there's 14 bureaus within the Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.

You know, not all of them are there to address the issue of water quality and environmental outcomes.

I think the role of the secretary of agriculture is one, determine how money is spent on how to improve the condition.

And so there's decisions to be made on how we're going to spend money related to water quality projects and conservation and other things.

The pesticide bureau is within the department of agriculture.

And so the secretary has the responsibility for enforcing and implementing the rules that are in Iowa code related to pesticide.

Application and licensing of the applicators and so that's a pretty strong role that the secretary has in Determining what the outcomes are going to be from that activity pesticide application

Well with regard to pesticide application are their deficiencies now is not enough being done in your mind to address that particular aspect

We know the complaints about pesticide drift

and people getting sprayed on in Iowa have roughly tripled over the last 10 years.

And so that's a strong indication that enough is not being done.

And so we need some more zealous enforcement of the existing rules.

We need to take a look at the licensing system here.

And is it delivering what we want in terms of pesticide application?

We hear stories all the time.

I mean, these stories are legion about people getting sprayed on, about people, their oak trees dying, their grape vines dying, vegetable crops.

There was a recent report from a vegetable farmer in Page County that

lost $60,000 worth of produce because of drift.

A lot of these complaints are from row crop farmers too.

And so as we've gotten weed resistance to round up

We've had farmers transition to dicamba resistant crops.

Dicamba is a pesticide that drifts pretty easily, especially on hot and windy days.

When dicamba drifts over to a field where the farmer's still growing roundup ready crops.

Well, guess what?

Dicamba kills those crops.

And so a lot of these complaints are from row crop farmers.

And so I would say the pesticide enforcement here,

is a lacking for sure in Iowa.

Chris Jones is our guest.

Mr. Jones is a Democrat.

He is representing his party on the November ballot.

As you vote for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, the website ChrisJonesForIowa.com, we have much more to discuss and we'll do it when Iowa Talking Points, the candidates continues in a moment.

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You're watching Iowa Talking Points, the candidates.

Here again is Jeff Stein.

We continue the conversation with Democrat Chris Jones.

He is a candidate for Secretary of Agriculture and Land Stewardship on the November General Election ballot.

ChrisJonesforIowa.com is the website.

Give us a little sense of your background.

You mentioned a bit of your work and being at the University of Iowa at the end of your career, but give us a sense.

I know that you have done a lot of research in this area of water quality as we've been talking, but give us a sense of your background.

Well, I grew up in Ankeny, Iowa.

I've spent most of my childhood in Ankeny.

I graduated from Ankeny High School.

I went to Simpson College in Indianola.

I earned a degree in biology and chemistry.

I went to graduate school at Montana State University.

I got a PhD in chemistry.

I worked in a number of different capacities in my career.

I did consulting work for water and wastewater utilities.

I managed an environmental testing lab.

Then I worked for the Des Moines Water Works, which is a municipal water utility in Des Moines.

I managed the testing laboratory there.

After eight years, I decided to go over to the ag side and I worked for the Iowa Soybean Association in Ankeny for four years.

And then the last eight years of my career were spent at the University of Iowa.

Firstly, I managed the state's network of water quality sensors, and so we hear about this sensor network quite a bit in the news.

It was defunded by the legislature in 2023, and then we've heard the politics of this quite often about whether or not the legislature's going to fund it or not fund it.

We hear the governor's candidates talk about the sensor network.

That was the program I managed at the University of Iowa.

I also had a research program where I worked with colleagues in the Iowa Geological Survey and then IIHR, which is an institute within the College of Engineering.

I worked with colleagues there to do research on these topics, water quality and agricultural landscapes.

And so I published a number of papers, wrote my book and so forth.

And so that's my background.

And again, retired three years ago.

And again, the book is entitled The Swine Republic.

And that's how you and I first connected for the radio when that book came out.

What is it that the average citizen, a layperson, does not understand about, quote, water quality?

And what I mean by that is for those of us who don't have experience on the farm and I live in a rural area and so I know I have my well, but I turn on the.

Faucet and I expect water.

I don't pay much attention beyond that.

What is it that those of us without the kind of knowledge you do, what do we not understand or appreciate about water quality?

Well, we have a very altered system here in Iowa.

The hydrology has been highly altered.

We don't have much left in terms of natural ground cover.

And so most of the state was once covered with perennial plants, and that would have been the tallgrass prairie plants, the oak savannah, and then the wetland plants.

And so that stuff's all gone, right?

And we've replaced that with annual plants.

And so we have a system here.

where the precipitation patterns and the stream flows and stream meanders and water quality were aligned with a perennial cover and now we've transitioned that to annual cover.

And so that's had a dramatic effect on water quality.

So I think that's one thing.

People don't understand this difference between a perennial

covered landscape and an annual covered landscape.

Another thing folks don't understand is this drainage in Iowa.

And so we have installed about 2 million miles of drainage tile.

And so we put these porous pipes four feet down.

We've done that.

And most of the areas north of Interstate 80 in Iowa, that's lowered the water table over this vast area.

Tens of thousands of square miles, that's caused many of our wetlands.

to dry up.

And so we don't have wetlands providing ecological function on the landscape anymore.

That's degraded water quality.

It's reduced habitat for birds and amphibians and reptiles.

And I think most people lack a real awareness of this drainage system that we have here.

There's really no one alive that knows what our stream should look like.

We know that the prairie streams were clear water systems.

We know they were meandering systems.

Now we see streams now that have been straightened.

They're always cloudy or turbid or muddy.

And we see streams in that condition heavy rotted downward.

And so when you drive across the countryside and you go across a bridge and you see this stream way down in a canyon,

Uh, you might think that that's a natural condition.

Well, it isn't, right?

It's rewrote downward over time.

And so these prairie streams would have been shallow, clear water systems.

They would have meandered across the countryside.

And so we've completely changed the, the hydrology of our system.

Uh, doing that and then bringing in this chemically intense farming system with annual crops.

That's caused the pollution that we see and that we struggle with.

And so.

Really, Iowa, people think of Iowa as a rural state, but it's really the most industrialized state because so much of our land is being used as a working land and we've transformed everything.

And so everything here is just very highly disturbed from an ecological standpoint.

And I think most people don't know that.

It also occurs to me that when we take more and more ground and pave it,

You mentioned growing up in Ankeny, the explosion of growth of that city, a lot of what used to be good farm ground, or at least bare ground, now we're paving it, we're changing what had been intended, that has an impact on rivers, it has an impact on flooding, and I trust just the overall quality.

So absolutely, and it's interesting to just talk about Ankeny.

When my folks bought their first house there, there were 6,000 people in Ankeny.

Now there's 85,000.

And so you're right, that expansion gobbled up farmland.

And there's a stream on the east side of Ankeny, four mile creek that flows southward.

through Pleasant Hill in southeast Des Moines before it dumps into the Des Moines River.

There's a huge flooding problem now on Four Mile Creek and we saw that this year.

These heavy rains in Central Iowa and so water runs off pavement and roofs and other impermeable surfaces very rapidly.

It doesn't get a chance to soak in and so that can cause some of this flash flooding that we see in these urban areas.

And again, it happened this year.

Huge floods over there.

in eastern Polk County.

I am aware that there is an enhanced movement to do things like cover crops.

How much of a benefit and that does sometimes restore a wetland.

Again, it has to be very purposeful, but there are a lot of efforts, especially your former employer, the soybean association.

I've talked to those folks about this.

how much of a benefit can that alone provide?

Is it far better than nothing, but it only goes as far as this particular parcel of ground or is that a concept that could be expanded upon?

Cover crops are a great idea.

We know that.

We know that around 10% of our crop acres get cover crops these days.

And so we know from

the scientific literature that cover crops reduce nitrogen and phosphorus loss from farm fields on the order of about 35%.

And so that's good.

It's one of our best practices.

One of the problems with cover crops is the cost, and so it costs roughly $30 an acre to do cover crops.

Well, you know, we have 26 million crop acres in Iowa, and so to do cover crops on all that, it's 30 times 26 million, whatever that is.

It's a lot of money.

That's every year.

right?

And so the question becomes who's going to pay for that?

And so is that a sustainable strategy economically?

If the taxpayers paying it all the time, are they going to agree to do this, right, for a problem that they're not causing, which is the

the pollution from the farm lands.

Are we going to ask the farmers to do that where, you know, right now we know that they're not making much money and that this may be a burden for farmers economically to require them to do cover crops.

And so cover crops are great viewed within a vacuum.

They definitely do work.

The literature tells us that.

But, you know, is it the silver bullet?

It probably isn't.

We also know some

Farmers struggle to get cover crops established in certain areas of Iowa.

They seem to work better in southern Iowa than they do northern Iowa.

And so there's, you know, it's not the perfect solution by any means, but they're a good thing for sure.

Chris Jones is our guest.

Mr. Jones is a Democrat on the ballot in November for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.

We're midway through this edition of the program.

We'll continue talking about issues and proposals when Iowa Talking Points the candidates returns after this short break.

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Watch all the programs in the Iowa Talking Point series online at IowaTalkingPoints.com.

Iowa Talking Points, the candidates, continues with Jeff Stein.

And we continue with Chris Jones.

Mr. Jones is a Democrat.

He's on the November General Election ballot.

Running for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture and Land Stewardship, Chris Jones for Iowa.

dot com is his website.

You are running as a Democrat.

You're taking on an incumbent Republican.

Differentiate your positions and proposals.

What you would do in the office as opposed to the incumbent?

Well, the incumbent is very much an advocate for the status quo with this farming system.

And so, uh, again, that's corn, soybean, uh, CAFO, agriculture and ethanol.

And and so as such improvements to water quality that are occurring now are very much geared towards patching up this leaky system that we have, especially with corn and soy.

And so we know that this system is going to leak nutrients to the environment.

We know this system produces a lot of soil erosion about.

six tons per acre per year in Iowa is the average now.

And so efforts to improve water quality and improve the condition of the environment are necessarily going to happen within that corn soy framework with the incumbent.

My idea is to transition the system to something that's not going to generate pollution in the first place.

And so that way we won't have taxpayers having to pay for conservation practices.

We won't have to burden farmers.

with that expense as well.

And so let's transition to something that's not going to pollute in the first place.

What does that look like?

It looks like a diverse assemblage of crops.

We need more crops in the rotation other than just corn and soy.

And so we need things like oats, for example.

Iowa was once the top oat growing state.

Now we're not.

We don't grow many oats here at all, even though we have the world's largest oatmeal.

and Cedar Rapids about 30 miles south of here, 40 miles south of here.

We need to return cattle to pasture.

We know that we get much better water quality and much better environmental outcomes with cattle on pasture.

Then we need a four-inch crops like alfalfa and clovers to feed cattle in the wintertime.

We could use some hogs on pasture.

We know that hogs will thrive in a grazing situation.

We need vegetable and fruit crops here.

We hear the industry and the current incumbent secretary of agriculture say Iowa feeds the world.

Well, we don't even feed Black Hawk County here.

We import about 97% of our food to Iowa.

And so I think a good first step here would be for Iowa agriculture to feed Iowa.

We can't feed the world if we don't feed Iowa.

There's a desperate desire for fresh.

fruits and vegetables here amongst Iowa citizens.

And so let's recruit farmers to do this.

Let's give them access to land.

Let's create the infrastructure that we need to get the food delivered from the farm to people's mouths.

Many times growing the food is the easy part and getting it refrigerated, getting it processed, getting it on a plate.

That's the hard part.

I think state government should play a role in that.

And so those are some of the things we can do to shore up this system so it's not going to pollute so much.

And we're not going to have to rely on the taxpayer to provide money to patch up the system with band-aids and diapers.

Let's create a system that's going to be diverse and is going to produce the outcomes that we want.

If farmers don't want to do that, if they want to stay in the fast lane of corn and soy and CAFO, then I think we need some regulation of that system.

And so I've proposed a number of things here that I think we can do that are not going to affect crop yields from that land that will help patch up the system and will produce accountability for the industry.

If you go back a hundred years or so, you'll find we raise no soybeans in the state of Iowa.

You get to about 65, 75 years ago.

You start seeing that become much more important to where now I think we produce the second most in the country.

the point of that is to say, for those who sit and say, well, of course it has to be corn and soy.

It's always been this way.

Well, it hasn't always been this way, but what role can the state play?

If I'm a farmer and I'm having a hard enough time making it with corn and soy and rotation, what's the role of the state to help me make it to the goal you have?

So if I might first talk about the soybean point you brought up,

you know, the old rule of thumb is when the cows go out, the soybeans come in.

And so that's when soybeans, soybeans came in when farmers, most farmers transitioned away from having livestock.

Now, what role should state government play?

Well, to transition farmers to these other systems, I think we need what I call off ramps.

where farmers are a help to recapitalize to a different system.

And so, you know, you just don't wake up one morning and decide you're going to grow oats, or you don't wake up in the morning and decide you're going to grow apples.

You need different equipment, different buildings, you need infrastructure, you need markets, all these sorts of things to support this.

activity.

And I think it's crazy to think that farmers are just going to be able to do that on their own using their own money.

And so I think since these are more environmentally robust systems that are more sustainable, more resilient and more humane, it makes sense for the taxpayer to participate in that transition.

And it makes much more sense to do this than to spend money on these band-aids and diapers.

that have not worked.

The incumbent says he's spending a hundred million dollars a year on water quality projects.

You know, he's been in office about 10 years, and so that's almost a billion dollars.

Does the water quality look a billion dollars better to anybody?

It doesn't to me.

And so I think we need to look at our spending money here.

Can we devise and develop a system that's not going to pollute in the first place?

That's what we need to do.

Iowa obviously has its position in some of these markets, corn, beans, pork, et cetera.

If Iowa changes what it produces in the way that we're discussing, can it do that alone as opposed to the whole country?

working together on it.

And what I'm meaning is you've got USDA, it has its policy.

Is it possible to be successful with all the external forces that might be rowing in a different direction?

Well, firstly, we're not successful now.

And so we hear that farmers are underwater on both corn and soybeans.

They're not making money.

They need inputs of federal money.

President Trump has just allocated a $12 billion, another $12 billion for farmers.

I think about a billion of that is coming into Iowa.

We hear that farmers can't get diesel fuel and

Inputs of chemical at reasonable prices, fertilizer, a same thing.

We see the tariffs have hurt Iowa farmers.

We see other policy that is just not delivering the profitability that Iowa farmers want.

At the same time, we're the highest state in the country now for farm foreclosures.

We have farmer suicides rates that are four times.

the general population rate.

And so what we have now is not working.

And so to think that we're going to go from a system that's working and take this big risk to

something that is maybe going to work and maybe not going to work.

I don't see it that way.

What we have now is not working at the same time.

People aren't getting the water quality that they want.

We don't have clean lakes to recreate in.

We see out migration of our young people is a terrible problem here.

So nobody's getting what they want.

Now, we don't want to put Iowa farmers at a competitive disadvantage to other states, for sure.

And so the farmers that remain in corn and soy, we don't want to, as I said, put them at a competitive disadvantage.

But look, Minnesota has some regulations on corn and soy production.

They have regulations on fertilizer application.

They have required setbacks.

for crops from streams.

I don't hear about farmers in Minnesota going bankrupt, you know, I mean any more than any other state, right?

And so there's things we can do here to shore up that system that's not going to put farmers at a competitive disadvantage with other states.

The other thing I'll say here is there's people not just in Iowa that thirst for something different.

And so some of these other places, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Nebraska, they also want something different.

And so, you know, we've heard.

Frequently these days, how Iowa has the second highest cancer rate.

People are concerned about that.

Nebraska has a very high cancer rate.

Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, the top three states are Iowa, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

So people are worried about health outcomes that result from production agriculture.

So can Iowa lead the way here to a more sustainable or more

more resilient and a more humane production system.

Can we catalyze change throughout the Corn Belt?

I think we can.

We can lead on this and show other states how to do it.

Chris Jones, Democrat on the ballot in November for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.

More with Mr. Jones in our final segment as Iowa Talking Points.

The candidates continues in a moment.

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A few more minutes with Chris Jones.

Mr. Jones is a Democrat running for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.

Chris Jones for Iowa.com is the website.

He's on the November General Election ballot.

It has become part of the job to advocate for Iowa products elsewhere, whether it is

diversity within a certain region, whether it's nationally, globally, et cetera.

Talk, if you will, about your vision for what the role is of the secretary in terms of helping Iowa producers, regardless of the product, maximize distribution.

Well, the strategy here has been to grow as much of these low value crops as we can.

And so those are the commodity grains, corn and soy, and then figure out ways to sell them to other places, right?

And so we do export or historically we've exported a lot of soybeans.

Corn has been less largely because a lot of corn here goes to ethanol.

And so the idea here has been to produce as much of these commodity grains as possible and then try to figure out how to get the rest of the world to buy it.

And I would suggest that that has not brought prosperity to rural Iowa.

That system has not brought prosperity to rural Iowa.

We have 99 counties.

We have 70 counties that are losing population.

We see our small towns.

Many of them are just shells of their former self.

They've been hollowed out.

They lose their physician.

They lose their lawyer.

They lose their grocery store, their post office, their school and all that's left is a tavern.

And we see this repeated across Iowa.

the same time we see out migration of young people and so this system that we have here, in my view, has not served rural Iowa well.

And so what can we do?

Certainly we're going to be able to produce vastly more calories than what we can eat here as Iowans.

So can we produce some high value crops and not try to market them to Vietnam and China and other places in Asia?

Can we produce some high value crops and have some domestic trade missions and get people in our country to buy what's grown here?

And so right now the United States is a net importer of food.

import a greater dollar value of food than what we export.

Well, why is that?

Because we import a lot of high value foods here, crops.

We bring fruit here from Chile, you know, for example.

And so can we produce some of these high value crops?

Can we sell them domestically?

I think that's how I would look at this a little bit differently than the incumbent.

Can we do some domestic trade here with other states to enhance the prosperity of Iowa farmers and improve the economic condition of rural

Iowa?

Is too much emphasis being placed on things like ethanol?

In other words,

We have the product, so therefore we have to find something to do with it.

Would it be better to not put so much support behind, and I'm saying ethanol blended fuels broadly, in order to reach the goal that you've just talked about, about high value products?

So ethanol keeps the system entrenched.

And so the renewable fuel standard that became law in 2005 created a guaranteed market for corn.

And so that helps keep the system entrenched.

The time has come to have a strategic discussion about ethanol.

It's a mature industry.

It's been 21 years now since the renewable fuels

standard was put in place.

I think it's time to let the industry stand on its own without the blending requirements and without other subsidy programs.

Here in Iowa we have the tax-income financing system for businesses that last 20 years.

That's the most we're willing to provide assistance to these sorts of businesses.

That's 20 years.

The ethanol industry is 21 years now, and they want a lot more years on that.

And so I think the time has come to let the industry stand or sink or swim on its own.

If farmers here want to grow ethanol and want to take it to the ethanol plant.

Great, that's fine, but let's let the product compete on the open market and see what happens.

I do think that there's going to be a declining demand for liquid fuels and people in the biofuels industry need to consider this very carefully and what is going to happen to Iowa if we continue to emphasize ethanol and soil biodiesel production.

You're asking Iowans to vote for you in November for Secretary of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.

I'll give you our remaining couple of minutes to make the case directly to those voters.

Well, my campaign should be seen as a referendum on the condition of Iowa water.

And so if people think that it's adequate and if they think progress towards improving it is adequate, then I may be not your person.

If you think it's not adequate and you want something better, then I would suggest to people they should take a look at my candidacy.

My opponent is for the status quo, and every indication is that we will continue status-quoing if he's elected.

With my candidacy, if I'm elected, we're definitely going to see some different things.

We're going to see the Secretary of Agriculture use the bully pulpit of the Iowa Department of Agriculture to advocate for something that's quite different than what people see now.

Mr. Jones, thank you so much for coming in and discussing these important issues.

You're welcome.

Thanks for having me.

Good luck in November.

Thank you.

Chris Jones, Democrat candidate for Iowa Secretary of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.

Chris Jones for Iowa.com is the website and that brings us to the close of another Iowa Talking Points program.

Thank you so much for being with us.

on this edition of Iowa Talking Points The Candidate.

This has been Iowa Talking Points The Candidates, produced by Studio 5 at Mud Advertising and totally Iowa Media.

For more information on this series, go to iowatalkingpoints.com.

When I was growing up in Central Iowa, I had dreams one day of pitching for the New York Yankees.

The only thing that stopped that dream from being reality was a complete lack of talent on my part.

And I am pleased to welcome on the news line now Brian Gaffney.

Mr. Gaffney is Vice President of Documentary Programming at Fox News Media, an author of a new book called School of Hard Nucks.

My Three Sons and Baseballs Wildest Pitch.

Brian Gaffney, good to talk to you again, sir.

How are you?

I am great and I'm just wondering way back when did you ever try to go in your backyard and throw a pitch that didn't spin because that has been the ticket for some guys who have maybe not had the real elite athletic gifts that Bo Jackson or Bryce Harper might have or Roger Clemens to fulfill that dream.

and get to the big lakes.

Wilbur Wood was pitching for the Chicago White Sox at the time that I had these delusions of grandeur and yeah, failed at that even too.

If you were coaching me perhaps, perhaps I could have made it to the top.

Tell us about School of Hard Nucks, this book that comes out two weeks from today that folks can pre-order now at Amazon.com.

What's the background of the book?

Well, it starts after

The All-Star game in 2012 when R.A.

Dickey starred for the Mets.

We're Mets fans and I came home from work and there were my kids out there trying to throw knuckleballs and I went out there and took off my suit jacket and caught a couple from my oldest guy Joe and I thought, my God, this is pretty good.

Like you was a huge Willowwood fan.

I grew up in the suburbs or for a couple years in the suburbs of Chicago and just marveled at him and And I tried to throw it myself and I realized it's kind of difficult or it takes a special knack to be able to chuck a ball across You know, you know across 50 feet with no spin and and and have an accurate so I knew it was

You know a little hard to throw when I saw my son kind of have the knack for it I decided I'm gonna see how far he could go with it and That led us all all three of my sons on a decade and a half long journey Which is kind of still going on in which?

We're still seeing how far they can go with it my little guy

is throwing it in college.

One of the few knuckleballers, maybe the only pure knuckleballer in college baseball, we don't know.

If any of your audience knows anyone else, I'd love to hear from them because these guys have to stick together.

It's a unique fraternity to be sure, by the way.

Today in the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Gaffney is authored a piece entitled Knuckleball Dreams that gives you a flavor of the whole thing as you then go order the book School of Hard Nucks, which again is officially released two weeks from today, Amazon or wherever you get your good books these days.

What is the big challenge with the pitch?

I mean, obviously your guys

saw a pro and said, okay, let's emulate this.

And you were able then to really delve into it when you saw they had some talent.

Why is this not more popular other than the union of professional baseball catchers, perhaps

objecting?

It's tough.

It's tough to catch.

And of course, if you can't catch it, you can't hit it.

You know, you're asking one of the more puzzling questions because

Forget about it.

How hard is throw up?

I'll get to that in a second.

But we're we're in a time where, you know, baseball's highest paid fireballers seem to spend as much time on the disabled list as they do on the mount.

So why wouldn't you want a pitch in which the guys who throw it don't have to worry about pitch counts?

The great ones have

pitched almost to their fifties, competed almost to their fifties in the MLB, Phil Neacro, Hoyt Wilhelm, Charlie Huff, for instance.

So why isn't, why aren't more people throwing it?

There should be more demand and there is demand.

I mean, I've talked with a lot of baseball insiders who started to, you know, started to create their own knuckleball pipelines within their organizations.

There are kids out there every so often getting signed.

So I think the teams want them if they can find them.

Why they're so rare is still a mystery, but I think it goes back to those you and I throwing in the backyard and discovering that while it doesn't take great superhuman strength or this huge athletic talent to

to throw this, it takes something that may be just as rare as a 102-mile-an-hour fastball.

School of Hard Nucks, My Three Sons and Baseball's Wildest Pitch, the book by our guest, Brian Gaffney, who's kind enough to join us on News Talk 1540KXL.

This is not just a book, though, of saying, well, here's how you hold the ball, and here's how you throw the ball, and there's much more to it than just a recitation or a sports how-to book, correct?

Yeah, I mean, first I should say, and I start out with a disclaimer.

I'm not qualified to teach this pitch, but I used the things that I kind of know how to do, shoot video, do research, and I was able to get my kids in front of some of the greatest that ever threw it.

They got to work out with Huff, but my younger son still does.

Phil Negro was a huge honor for them to, you know, be able to show their stuff for him and get some tips.

So that, and what I did and how the book kind of started was as they were, you know, they are trying to concentrate on what these guys were telling them.

I wrote everything down, so they would have that when maybe, you know, they have kids.

They said how'd you throw that knuckleball?

What kind of tip tips can you give me because it really is a You know It may be dying off So and that turned into the book and I organized the book in in lessons and as I was putting it together I came to realize that these lessons were not just Applicable to throwing this crazy rare pitch but to life itself

For instance, I talked to Tom House, the great pitching guru who loves the knuckleball, and coached Charlie Huff.

And he told me that the ability to fail without fear is a superpower.

It takes that to throw the knuckleball because you're out there on that mound with a bunch of people watching.

And sometimes it's very, very hard to control.

Sometimes you look like a fool.

But you have to go out there and do it.

And if you can do that and fail without a fear of failing, well, that's going to take you to places and to successes off the dot.

There's 49 lessons there all of them applicable applicable to throwing the knuckleball at least dealing with the You know the stress of trying to throw it or the physics of trying to throw it But also I think that they relate to To life in general and I think a lot of people will Will take a lot a lot of readers will take those lessons to heart even if they

Don't care about the knuckleball, even if they're not huge baseball fans.

It's also a story about fathers and sons.

And we sort of set out on this journey.

And I am unbelievably grateful for my kids to let me tag along on this ride and then to let me tell their stories.

Because if you read the book, it gets pretty personal.

I'm not a perfect dad and that's in there.

We knocked heads.

We had our ups and downs and that's in the book too.

So I think it's a lot about fatherhood and a lot about parenting and people who have looked at it have really appreciated that.

And

that's what's really interesting because I don't have children.

But to have something like you're describing,

That's a bond.

That's a unique experience.

And again, because of your background and connections, you were able to provide that unique experience.

Nobody's ever going to take that away.

That is something book or no book that you and your three sons will have, that they will have with each other that is truly remarkable.

And yes, life is not full of perfection by any stretch.

But what a wonderful thing to be able to have and to hold on to as they then become young men and fathers arguably themselves.

I hope so.

I hope so.

I mean, it's been a pretty wild ride.

I mean, we've traveled back and forth the country.

As I said, I can't really teach the pitch, but I was willing to sacrifice my body and try to catch it.

You know, it was not long before I realized that I could not get out there with them, you know, without the mask, the chest protector, the shin guards, the cop.

As a matter of fact, it got so bad because I got so battered that my wife got me one of those, you know, those Mike Tyson groin guards that just don't, you know, just don't protect the Jules, but you know, the kidneys and everything else.

because you really take a battering.

You talked about the, you know, the catchers who have, you know, who have, you know, signed up for, you know, what is, you know, almost combat duty catching a knuckleball.

So I did that and, you know, did my best to try to be there for him because it's kind of hard to get your friends to do this.

So, yeah, so that's

You know, I mean, that's the big journey we were on.

And I think I hope a lot of people appreciate and just have a lot of fun because there were a lot of crazy ups and downs along the way.

are good friends at Post Hill Press publishing this book, School of Hard Nucks.

It comes out two weeks from today.

You can get it now.

Any good location where you get your books, Amazon as an example, Brian Gaffney, the author, and he's joining us live on News Talk 1540KXEL.

And I did find it interesting when you talk about if you're going to throw a knuckleball, you have to, in essence, and I'm paraphrasing, be fearless about it.

uh... you can't fear failure you have to have the confidence and i was watching the game on tv the other day and there was a picture who just did not have his stuff quote unquote and

the announcers

were talking about well it's just not his stuff and then by the fourth inning he found his rhythm and everything was fine that's all a very predictable thing they can measure it based upon speed they can measure it based upon the graphic on the screen about strike zone et cetera and

The catcher can put the mitt where he wants the pitch to come.

But when you're throwing a knuckleball, it's sort of like firing a cannon blindfolded after somebody just spun you around, isn't it?

I mean, it just doesn't necessarily go where you want, which is a great thing if you're trying to get a batter out.

But oh my goodness, that's tough on the pitcher.

Never mind the physical demands of the catcher or dad.

With without a doubt and in a sense the knuckleball is the you know the exact opposite of every other conventional pitch it totally defies the saber metrics that you're talking about Every other pitch is thrown with spin and depending on the type of spin you put it on that Determines the way it moves and for the most part nothing most part that when that ball leaves the hand it's got a

certain spin on it, and that is going to chart its course on the way to the plate.

Knuckleball is thrown without spin, and for reasons that physicists and engineers still labor to explain.

Some have studied it, but they still don't know.

They tell me that a knuckleball will move around at random.

It will break late.

It sometimes breaks

twice, it can break up.

All things that conventional pitchers don't do, and that's why it moves around in those ways.

And the difference between the conventional pitcher, who has this mix of fastball, curveball, slider, trying to keep the batter off balance, the knuckleballer commits to that pitch.

He throws it all the time.

Everybody in the stadium knows it's coming.

Point Wilhelm, the great knuckleballer, said, this is the pitch.

I want them to know it's coming, and I want them to swing at it.

It's the pitch I want them to hit or try to hit.

It's very hard to get a barrel on it if it's thrown well.

Now, the problem is, is that if you spin that ball even a little bit, you're only throwing it about as hard as a little leager.

You know you you watch the game you see most players now.

I think the average fastball in the MLB is about 93 Yeah, you know Tim Wakefield through whose knuckleball 65 mm-hmm Phil necro even slower So if you spin that thing and it doesn't have that random movement Well, that's gonna that's gonna get launched into orbit and that's another nerve-wracking thing about the

You know about being a knuckleball picture because you can't make you you can't make all of them right and You know to see that thing spinning and going toward the plate with a guy with with a big guy with a big bat can be a little harrowing

Who is pictured on the cover of the book school of hard knocks?

That is Ben Ben's my youngest He was

You know a really good athlete in in school now when I say really good.

I'm not comparing him to Bo Jackson or Bryce Harper and He Dedicated himself to throwing this But what happened was actually we were out there and we were talking to a minor Lager who named Chris Nolan who Organizes clinics and you know his kind I call him the Johnny Apple seed of the knuckleball.

He's trying to

you know, get the word out to kids and to give them tips.

And he pulled me aside.

He said, listen, when Ben was, I think about 13, he said, I think I know every kid throwing the knuckleball in the country or in the world.

They all send me their videos and Ben's the best I've ever seen.

So that was kind of where

I really had to engage and say, how far, and what am I willing to do to see how far this kid could go?

Now, I'm not thinking major leagues, but if he wanted to play in college, how do I help him do that?

So he worked hard at it, and it was mostly him and his willingness to throw and throw and throw, but I did what I could, and he

I think he grabbed the brass ring.

He's playing at a school called Westmont College in Santa Barbara, beautiful Santa Barbara.

It is one of the top 20 D2 schools for baseball.

It's a Christian college and he absolutely loves the school and loves his teammates and is getting to play baseball and throw this thing at a very high level.

It's very exciting.

What a proud moment for a dad.

to be sure.

School of Hard Nucks.

My Three Sons and Baseball's wildest pitch.

Brian Gaffney, the author, Post Hill Press, the publisher.

It comes out two weeks from today.

Pre-order now at Amazon or wherever you get your good books.

And for the audience's benefit, the first contact I had with Mr. Gaffney was some years ago with regard

to

a documentary on the Iowa caucuses.

So when I saw that this was what you were doing these days, in addition to all your great work at Fox, I was so pleased and look forward to taking a look at the book when it comes out.

Mr. Gaffney,

thank

you so much for the time and oh, in the Wall Street Journal today, Knuckleball Dreams, the piece that he authored.

Thanks so much for this time and hopefully get a chance to do it again.

Well, I thank you and I look forward to talking to you again.

Thank you.

Love your show.

I'll take good care now.

Appreciate it.

And Mr. Gaffney joined us live on the news line on News Talk 1540KXEL, where Iowa comes to talk School of Heart Knucks for the Knuckleball, My Three Sons and Baseball's wildest pitch, the new book.

If you're like me, you have enjoyed and appreciated the work done by our next guest.

He is Ben Bergquam, Mr. Bergquam.

You see his work on Real America's Voice.

He's the host of Law and Border on that network.

What you may not know is the background, and that is a story he tells in a brand new book released just a week ago.

Step into Fear, A Journey from Addiction to Courage and Purpose.

Ben Bergquam, good morning, and thank you for taking the time, sir.

Good morning.

Great to be with you.

This is a book, thanks to the good folks at Sky Horse Publishing and their imprint, War Room Books.

Stephen K. Bannon wrote the foreword for this book.

Again, many of us have appreciated the work that you have done fearlessly, if I may say, in some hostile areas.

The background, the story that took you to where you were to this point, that's the topic of the book.

Why share that with us at this point?

Well first to address the the statement you just made and I it's partly why I wrote the book and the main reason for the title of the book step into fear because I hear people say that all the time the word fearless and I want to Correct the record in that sense almost everything I do in this journey or along this journey has had some degree of fear Some more than others, but the most significant parts of my life the most significant

Periods that that propelled me to where I am today had the highest levels of fear and so I wanted to write it as a Partly as a memoir to my journey from crack addiction ten years ago I'm coming up on the 10-year anniversary actually next month in October But then also as an encouragement to others out there patriots out there Some who are just getting started don't know where to start some who have been in it and or you know like me

have gone through periods of extreme anxiety, and depression, and fear, and just not knowing where to go, and wilderness periods, and doubt, and all of that.

And so that was really the catalyst for it, was to tell the story.

Again, coming up on 10 years, I was a crack addict, set free in an instant.

It was miraculous.

10 years ago, God broke the chains of crack addiction, alcohol, and tobacco all in one night.

And so I wanted to tell that story because most people don't know it.

Some people know bits and pieces of it.

Even people I was close to at the time knew something was wrong, but a lot of them didn't know the extent that I was living a double life for three years.

And so it's partly just my story, but it's also really an encouragement to anyone out there who's facing any sort of trauma, any sort of poor decisions in their life to realize that God has a purpose for you.

But it's up to you to call that purpose and to choose that purpose.

And it's not about being fearless.

It's about having courage in the face of fear and being willing to step out when others don't.

And so that's really all 15 chapters deal with one level of that fear that I've overcome or still in battling to another ending with my relationship with Charlie Kirk in chapter 15 and where we go from here.

And so it's kind of a, you know, it's a

It's a memoir.

It's also what's really cool, Jeff, is that I don't know anyone else who has done this.

It's kind of the way I do my presentations, my speeches.

I call it show and tell.

And so every chapter almost has QR codes that you can scan and then watch the videos that I'm talking about in the chapter.

So you can experience that all in one place.

So 10 years, actually, and then some back to my college days, all put into one book.

to get people up to speed on where I am and really ultimately to see where we go from here.

That is such a great message in terms of the step into fear part because again, I just tossed off the phrase fearless because what I see as a viewer is you're in places that it takes an awful lot of guts to go.

And so there's the presumption and I didn't want to imply it, but you know, well, you know, this guy will do anything, right?

But the point is,

The life lesson is, you step into it and you embrace the challenge.

That's the lesson of it all, is it not?

That's really it.

I mean, in a nutshell, not to say you don't have to read the book, but...

Heavens, no.

We'll

get the book, people.

Come on.

But that's really it.

We all... I think there's this...

This misconception by some people out there when they see people that are in their eyes successful or doing things that they see as fearless or courageous or whatever the term might be, that somehow it's beyond their reach.

And I wanted to create this book in part to walk people through my process and going back even to where I first started, my first speech at Fresno State in college.

During the tea party and and how scared I was I mean I was scared to death Ironically, you know, it's funny when they do they do studies on people's anxiety and fear and what are the top things that drive fear in people and the Most years the number one fear for people is public speaking followed closely by death Which is you know, it's kind of shocking when you think about it, but it's one of those things I experienced that I went through that where I was like man, I can't go in front of this stage I can't go talk to these people I can't

do this, and all of a sudden once I did it, it was like something unlocked inside of me.

And each time you do that, and that's, you know, one of the chapters I really focus on is taking it step by step.

You don't have to have it all together.

The first step is getting a relationship with the Lord.

I don't think you can do anything of any really note or purpose in life until you know why you're here to begin with, and then you follow that.

And every step along the way, one of the cool things is you don't have to have it all together.

You don't have to know exactly where you're going.

You just have to be willing to step out and say, Lord, use me.

You know, I'm willing.

And each step leads you to the next.

And so, you know, one of the things I think people look at my journey and they see where I'm at now, but they assume that it just kind of happened

or

I just, you know, I was given it or.

or they don't really know what got me there and so I want to walk them through the two years of no income after coming clean to my wife about the addiction and then having her trust me to go for two years with no income saying God's going to provide for us and how that walk looked and then you know the seasons of uncertainty and the seasons of one of the most important are the seasons of difficulty.

I go through a whole story on COVID and how that really launched my career because as other people were

we're sliding backwards or walking in fear, that was actually what propelled me in a lot of ways because I saw through it and was able to walk through it.

And so, you know, it's kind of all of that, but it's ultimately what you said.

Everything comes down to how we deal with that fear, that anxiety, those difficulties in our lives.

And hopefully I do it in a way that's compelling enough to get the, in particular to young people, because I look at where we're at today, again, going back to COVID.

My kids went through that.

We were in California.

And the level of self-doubt, the level of insecurity, and just social anxiety and the disconnect from what I grew up with.

I mean, I was taught as a kid to take risks.

And now it's like, man, you put a mask on and you just go shut up and live your life and don't ruffle feathers.

I want to dispel that and really raise up the next generation of conservative, Christian, courageous lawyers.

And hopefully this book helps you that

by the way if you go to frontline america.com that is Ben's website frontline america.com and the book we're discussing is step into fear a journey from addiction to courage and purpose Ben Bergquam is the author and our guest on KXEL.

What were you doing for a living?

at the point that this slide into addiction became so bad.

I had just finished what started it.

I had gone through a few difficult periods of my life.

I dealt with exhaustion, physical exhaustion, contracted mono during a period of time where I had worked like 21 days straight during campaign season in college.

I'd finished my MBA in that process.

I'd been involved in a fatal accident that just weighed on me.

And I'd smoked crack once in high school.

I remember how good it made me feel.

And one night, I was walking alone on the south side of Fresno.

And I thought, well, what can I get to self-medicate to get rid of this anxiety, this exhaustion, and just all of these thoughts in my head?

And I found a guy that was selling crack.

And it was, I mean, it was that choice that night.

Right after I'd finished my MBA, it started a downward slide.

I was a professional at the time.

I was working at Target.

I was an operations manager.

And then ultimately started at my own fitness company, went back to work in politics throughout all of this.

What started as every few months turned every few weeks.

And ultimately by the end of it, I was working in synthetic grass, sports turf, and landscape turf doing installations.

and sales and I was smoking crack every day and at the end of the day thinking about, you know, all day thinking about where I was going to get my next hit.

Living a double life, my wife didn't know.

We had a six year old daughter.

We had one on the way.

I mean it was just this, what started as once turned into an all consuming devil in my life, pure darkness and I was at a place where all I could see was I was either going to end up in prison or dead.

My world was coming in around me.

Everyone knew something was wrong, but they didn't know exactly what.

My wife even confronted me on a couple occasions and said, you know, something's off.

You know, what's going on?

And I just kept making excuses.

I'm tired.

You know, whatever it was to kind of deflect what was happening.

And it was one night I came clean to my wife.

She had found a bottle of beer.

She was going to use for a recipe that I had replaced with water the night before.

And so that let her know I was drinking again.

And that night was the opening that God gave me to come clean.

I kept praying during that whole time that God would break the chains, but that my wife wouldn't find out about it.

And the night that I came clean to my wife, I heard the Lord say, you kept praying that she wouldn't know when she's the only one that needs to.

Your chains are broken, you're set free.

And that night, 10 years ago in October, was the last night I smoked track.

But it was just a slow progression that led me to hell.

And what was amazing was immediately, not just over a period of time, immediately when I turned around and I faced the Lord again and said, I confessed and turned back to Him.

He was right there and almost within days I was on this path that I'm on today.

So it's one of those things that when you're in addiction, you can't see the way out.

What's amazing to me, and this is partly why I write it, for people that are in addiction or people that have loved ones that are in addiction, all you have to do is step out of it.

As soon as you're out of it, your life starts again.

And whatever those hopes and dreams that God had on your heart before, or maybe you don't have them yet, you'll find them as soon as you step out of it.

And I'm a living witness to

it.

with God's grace, you make it to that 10 years and then the next day, the next day, the next day.

And what you're doing now with Real America's voice with frontlineamerica.com, it seems so different from what you did before.

And I'm just wondering

Connect how that happened the role that Steve Bannon has played in in your life and and Because again and This is a compliment when we're watching you on TV I don't think we get anything of what you just described We don't know that backstory necessarily and so how did how did you get to where you are at this point?

Well, again, it was a step at a time.

As soon as I got turned my life around, I got back into it.

I was in California at the time.

We've since escaped, moved back to America.

We live in Arkansas now.

I jokingly say we're refugees from California.

But I just started going out.

I saw a vacuum for activism, conservative activism in the state that we're driving our state into hell, pushing more addiction.

letting criminals out, inviting illegals in, pushing, at that time it was just the debauchery, homosexuality, LGBT, it didn't have all the QXYZ stuff anymore yet, but it was everything in California was going the wrong way, and so I just started going and covering these stories that no one else was covering, I started confronting politicians, and through that, my focus was God's Family Country, but in that process I met some angel moms,

And that was Agnes Gibney and Angie Morphine and then hundreds more after that.

And I realized what a tragedy the open borders had been to our country and what a lack of sovereignty meant to the future of this nation.

And so that was the catalyst that led me to cover the border.

No one else was doing it really.

I got involved with the Minutemen, Kim Donnelly out in California, and then ultimately became the border guy.

It wasn't what I planned to do, but it's also what I write about in the book, just being malleable enough to have God turn your focus and redirect you where he wants you to go.

That led me to actually, and I talked about this in the book, a chance encounter at CPAC in Washington, D.C.

I bumped into this guy.

He saw my cross pin on my jacket.

We prayed together two weeks later.

One of the guys he worked with said he got to check this border guy out.

He's like, that's the guy I bumped into in the restroom and we prayed together.

He happened to be the owner of real America's voice news.

He

got me on the phone within days.

I was working with real America's voice news.

Um, and then my relationship with Steve Bannon was kind of similar.

I met him at an event in California and I was just happy to shake his hand and take a picture with him.

And then, you know, five years later I'm working alongside him with the, we built the wall project and now I work with him almost daily.

Um, and it's just, it's one of those amazing things that.

If you get out of the way and are willing to just follow God's process in your life and continue to step forward and not get distracted by division and all the other things that are going on around you, and you just continue to persevere, that's where you go.

You just go to the places that you're meant to be.

And what was incredible, that's really the book's journey.

The arc of the book is from addiction.

It starts in the shootout in the jungles of Panama.

crossing the Darian gap which we cross four times then back tracks to the addiction and then brings it full circle to where we are today and and that's kind of the point of the book is to show you that again you just don't have to have it all figured out just you have to be willing and and you step and you step and you step and all of a sudden you're standing here talking to you talking about this book talking about my journey working with an amazing company working with amazing guys

that I've looked up to for so long like Steve Bannon and it just happened.

I had a vision, I had a direction, but I didn't have the full picture.

Now, in hindsight, you get to see how it all played out.

That's one of the coolest parts about life is you don't have to have it all figured out, but you look back and you realize how God's hand was through it all, leading you to where you are.

Without question, Step Into Fear, a journey from addiction to courage and purpose, the new book by Ben Bergquam and again, FrontlineAmerica.com, his website.

Congratulations on the journey, most importantly.

Congratulations on this book and thank you for sharing this time and I hope we do it again.

It's my pleasure and huge shout out to my friend who actually is in Quad City, Iowa, Jeremy Harrell, who's been a big part of the journey as well.

Fantastic.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

It's an honor to be with you, and I just, I pray it impacts people's lives.

Absolutely.

Take good care now.

And Mr. Bergquam, kind enough to join us live on the news line on News Talk 1540KXEL, where Iowa comes to talk.

News Talk 1540 KXCL where Iowa comes to talk September is healthy aging month.

If you remember that song with the lyric, I hope I die before I get old.

You've probably already begun to reassess that sentiment and with good reason.

There are opportunities to live a full active life even as an older American.

Let's talk about that now with Dr. Sarah Francis, who is professor of food science and human nutrition at Iowa State University.

Good morning.

Thanks for being with us.

Morning.

Thank you for inviting me.

So, healthy aging starts with access to nutritious food.

That's sort of the key takeaway and starting point from some of what you bring to your work.

It sounds simple.

What makes it maybe just a little bit more difficult than it sounds?

Nutrition is important to healthy aging.

Nutrition is one of the trickiest things, right?

We all know that we need to eat, but eating is much more than just the nutrition that we get.

It's the socializing.

It's the culture.

It's the family histories.

And so there's a lot more that goes into it.

And I think that while many of us, if I did a poll of 100 people in the room, I would say like.

99 of them would say like there's a lot more that goes into my food decisions than what I should eat, what's healthy.

And so I think that's important to recognize that we all have different factors coming into what we choose to eat and we can still eat healthfully without sacrificing our flavor, our culture, and you know our food preferences.

So healthy is a big term and it's a squishy term as well.

When it comes to healthy eating, could you talk a little bit more about what you see being some of the key ways to be healthy?

Right.

You bring up a really good point in my research.

When we asked people what was healthy, it was whatever diet they were on at that point, right, as to what they were restricting.

And really, I think that

In today's society, we think of healthy as being restrictive and it really isn't.

And so when we're thinking about healthy eating, we want those nutrient-rich foods.

And so that means that all food groups are nutrient-rich.

And so we're wanting to choose those five servings of fruits and vegetables a day.

That can be fresh frozen or canned.

You know, a lot of people think that only fresh...

produce counts as healthy and it's not true.

You can get a lot of frozen vegetables and fruits without added sugar, added salt that are actually in my opinion much easier to work with especially as you're getting older and maybe having arthritis or joint issues, lack of time, lack of

cooking equipment and so having those frozen you can just toss them in a microwave the portion that you want they last a lot longer than fresh and same with canned if you're having chewing difficulties canned fruits and vegetables are much softer and just as nutrient rich as those fresh and frozen.

If you're worried about sodium or sugar, you can always drain and rinse those if you can't afford the non-sodium or non-sugar options.

Lean meats, all meats can be healthy.

You just want to choose those lean ones.

It's the fatty meats that are shown to increase our cholesterol levels.

So you're wanting to choose those lean cuts of beef, those lean cuts of pork, poultry, fish is a really good source of those healthy fats.

We want to choose whole grains more often than refined grains, but

mix is okay as well and we want to limit our fats and sugars.

Which is true for anybody and it's those added sugars.

It's not so much limiting fruit It's limiting that Snickers bar or those hard candies and with Halloween just around the corner, right?

those grocery aisles a little bit more tempting but Nutrient rich it does not exclude any food groups It's just really looking for the ones that are going to provide you with the the energy that you need to do your activities of daily living That are providing you with fiber that providing you with healthy fats and providing you with the essential vitamins and minerals like

your body needs to stay strong and healthy.

September is healthy aging month.

We're talking about it with Dr. Sarah Francis Professor of Food Science and Human Nutrition at Iowa State University and Iowa State University Extension.

And let me ask about that social aspect of nutrition that you made reference to right off the bat.

And why is that important?

How is that important when it's done well?

Well, socializing is a key part to healthy living regardless of your age.

But what research is indicating is that as we grow older, we may become more isolated, meaning that we might be losing our spouses, our friends may be passing away, family members may be moving away, and our circle of socializations keeps getting smaller and smaller.

Research has indicated that loneliness has negative health impacts almost in line with what smoking can do.

is really finding that way to socialize.

And, you know, luckily in Iowa, we have a really strong Iowa Department of Health and Human Services senior nutrition program that's run through our area agencies on aging.

And so there's every region in Iowa has an area agency on aging that offers a senior lunch program.

And so like that would be a great way to, if you're 60 and older, to go have a nutrient rich meal and have

friends to talk to, planning meals with your friends or neighbors, just that time to go out and be around people, eating out, even if you eat alone, interacting with that server is going to provide you with some of that socialization that you need and looking at other ways just to be out in your community.

socializing and if you're homebound looking at the resources in your community that may offer you transportation you know to those senior sites or even home delivered meals, meals on wheels offers that socialization aspect but it's really important for people to be able to interact with one another because we're humans and we need that interaction with one another.

So you provided a stat that there are 10,000 people who turn 65 each day in America right now.

Are you optimistic that there's some strengthened numbers, that some of these things, whether that's the interaction, whether that's the nutritious choices, or some of the other things that can help people age better, will be improved with, frankly, with strengthened numbers?

I do.

The literature that I read...

Each generation has their way of interacting with healthcare.

And so like those 85 and older have tended to do what their doctor says.

They don't really question what their healthcare provider is telling them.

Then we have the baby boomers who are more of a mix.

Some are, you tell me what to do, but others are becoming more of an advocate for themselves and or their family member, especially those of us who may be in that sandwich generation where we have older parents.

and younger kids we're learning to question we're learning to advocate and I think that that's where we're going to start seeing a shift because for many

who might be in their like 50s and 60s, we recognize like these aches and pains are not normal.

Just because I'm getting older doesn't mean that I should be having these aches and pains and we'll question and we'll look at the research.

And in this day and age of social media and the internet, we're able to get more of those answers.

And so I think that that strengthened number as, you know, we continued as a society, we're gonna continue to grow older and eight years, we're gonna outnumber

the younger adults the youth in this country for the first time ever and I think that we're going to start seeing I hope we're going to start seeing changes in policies we're going to start seeing changes in medical education where they're going to talk about healthy aging and not all the negatives that could be associated with aging but really helping train our healthcare professionals to be this you know aches and pains are not normal aging these are the steps that you should go through to help advocate for your older

patients.

And so I'm hoping we'll see those policy changes.

I'm hoping that we'll start seeing some funding opportunities in the research sphere to see how we can better support older adults aging in place.

So we're not reliant on skilled nursing facilities and family, you know, and in that non paid family caregiver.

Just I'm very hopeful that we will have power in those numbers.

We're talking with

Dr. Sarah Francis of Iowa State University Food Science and Human Nutrition Professor there.

And with September as healthy aging month, what other tips and suggestions do you have for people to try to make the most of this time to think about aging in a healthy way?

I think the first thing is to recognize that all of us are aging every single day and that our goal isn't to just expand our lifespan, it's to add quality to that lifespan.

And so there's five tips that I would say.

The first is to consume 90 grams of protein or higher a day and that's to help maintain our muscle mass because if we start losing muscle mass, that's when we start losing our ability to do our activities at daily living.

And research is showing that 90 grams a day

is that key threshold that we need to maintain our muscle mass.

Aiming for five servings of fruits and vegetables a day, as I talked about earlier, doesn't matter if they're fresh frozen or canned.

150 minutes of physical activity a week.

So that's like 30 minutes, five days a week.

You want to include that strength training again.

We really want our muscles to be able to support our bones.

We want our muscles to be able to maintain strong so we're preventing falling and such.

Aiming for seven to nine hours of quality sleep as our hormones level starts changing with aging that can adversely impact our sleep and so really aiming for that quality of sleep and working with the healthcare professional if you're not getting that to make sure that you're you're doing that because not at having adequate sleep can actually have harmful effects on

your heart and your brain function it causes that brain fog that you hear about and again socializing making sure that we're staying connected to our communities and staying involved.

I suspect everybody listening can

think about that list and think, well, there are a couple of things there that I do well.

There's probably a couple of things there that I don't do well.

Just with a final word, Dr. Francis, could you share some thoughts on how people can take that list and adapt to it to make changes and to maybe spurn that old cliche about not being able to teach an old dog new tricks?

Oh, we can teach dogs tricks at any age, right?

I think that my best advice would be take one change at a time.

You're not going to be able to change everything.

So focus on one thing.

One thing that you're motivated about.

For instance, if you're not a runner, don't make a plan to run 30 minutes a day.

It's not going to happen.

But if you like walking your dog, be like, well, I'm going to take the dog out for three 10-minute walks.

And that will get you those 30 minutes.