S9 56: Working Moms Incorporating Sustainability Into Family Life with Daniela Kratz & Shirin Aryanpour
“Simplicity was something I learned from my family and grew up with. The fact is, you do not need fancy food, you do not need a huge variety of food. You can have some potatoes, and you can have one vegetable, and you make a brothy sauce with the vegetables, and you pour it over the freshly cooked potatoes. It can be so comforting and nourishing. So simplicity is something that is important for us to understand.” —Daniela Kratz
“I grew up in a household where we cooked together. Cooking was a way of connecting for us. Culturally, food is a language of love, poetry, and respect for nature. We grew up and used everything that was available; nothing went to waste. So for my kids it was important to pass that on.” —Shirin Gonili Aryanpour
What if the most radical act of sustainability isn’t what you buy, but how you gather your family around the table?
In a world that tells working moms to do it all, the real challenge is weaving mindful choices into the chaos of daily life without losing the joy, the flavor, or the connection. If you’ve ever wondered how to nurture your kids, your career, and the planet—without burning out—this conversation is for you.
Meet Shirin Aryanpour, a mom and former physical therapist who transformed her family’s kitchen into a hub of love, culture, and zero-waste creativity, and Daniela Kratz, founder of Farmhouse Lab, who brings the wisdom of generations and the simplicity of real food to her own children. Together, they share honest stories of juggling work, family, and the pursuit of a sustainable lifestyle, offering practical rituals, cultural insights, and the reassurance that perfection isn’t the goal.
Tune in as Justine, Shirin, and Daniela explore how food rituals, cultural traditions, and open-door community spirit can empower working moms to teach their kids about conscious choices, nurture respect for nature, balance busy schedules, and celebrate the beauty of imperfection.
Connect with Daniela:
A SF Bay Area-based mom of two, Daniela Kratz, the mastermind behind Farmhouse Lab’s high-quality specialty dressings, which she launched in 2016, shifted from a sustainability leadership role with a large global corporation to focus on what inspired her most — directly helping individuals make healthier, more locally-driven and sustainable food choices.
Daniela’s inspiration for creating high-quality, sustainably sourced, delicious dressings originated from her realization that the majority of dressings on the shelves contain emulsifiers, preservatives, artificial flavors, and/or refined sugars. And what was easy for her to whip up in the kitchen wasn’t so simple for many on-the-go parents and professionals. With the start of her own family, combined with her love of entertaining and passion for sustainability, it was a natural for Daniela to create a business designed to promote a healthy lifestyle.
Connect with Shirin:
Shirin Gonili Aryanpour is a passionate leader, healer, and advocate for women's empowerment. She is the founder of Illuminate Her Path, a transformative digital community that blends wellness, education, spiritual connection, and collective growth. With over 16 years of experience as a physical therapist and a decade of humanitarian work through Operation Smile (co-founder of Northern California Chapter), Shirin has long been devoted to healing and service.
Her journey as a two-time breast cancer thriver revealed the critical gaps in women's healthcare and ignited her mission to create spaces where women can thrive. Through curated events, sacred women’s circles, and evidence-based wellness resources, Shirin cultivates environments where women can share their stories, access healing, and build lasting connections. She believes in the power of community to create a more equitable and balanced world—one heart at a time.
Episode Highlights:
02:16 Cultural and Family Cooking Practices
06:32 Teaching Kids to Cook
10:01 Community and Shared Meals
13:35 Educating Kids on Food Choices.
17:27 Regenerative Agriculture and Sustainable Living
20:27 Non-Negotiables in Family Food Practices
Tweets:
Juggling work, kids, and dinner? Tune in to learn how even the busiest moms can raise eco-smart families—right in the middle of real life as @justine.reichman interviews supermoms @farmhouse_lab founder, Daniela Kratz and @illuminate_her_path founder, Shirin Aryanpour. #podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredients #Season9 #FamilyLife #WorkingMoms #Wellness #FoodCulture #SustainableLiving #MomLife #Community #HealthyHabits #EcoParentingTips
Inspirational Quotes:
02:15 “I grew up in a household where you cook together. Cooking was a way of connecting for us. Culturally, food is a language of love, poetry, and respect for nature. We grew up and used everything that was available; nothing went to waste. So for my kids it was important to pass that on.” —Shirin Gonili Aryanpour
04:41 “Simplicity was something I learned from my family and grew up with. The fact is, you do not need fancy food, you do not need a huge variety of food. You can have some potatoes, and you can have one vegetable, and you make a brothy sauce with the vegetables, and you pour it over the freshly cooked potatoes. It can be so comforting and nourishing. So simplicity is something that is important for us to understand.” —Daniela Kratz
07:14 “It doesn't have to be perfect, it has to be your version of it, and what you get from your family, and that's what we bring to the next generation and their version of it.” —Justine Reichman
08:29 “You crack that one egg, but your door is always open to share that one egg. .. The community building that I do through the work that I do is actually through food.” —Shirin Aryanpour
09:21 “It's beyond food. It's about love. It's about connection. It's about passing that wisdom, and then you make it yours.” —Shirin Aryanpour
10:04 “Everybody is born and grows up in different experiences.” —Justine Reichman
10:23 “When you bring a diverse group of people around the table, it's a feeling of love, connection, and community.” —Shirin Aryanpour
11:30 “True holistic nourishing is not just nourishing of the body, it's the nourishment of the soul and the mind.” —Daniela Kratz
12:17 “If it becomes your family ritual of value, and you do it over and over. It's just something. We just do it without even saying it. It's not something you have to do. It's more thing you would want to do, because you care about your family. ” —Shirin Aryanpour
17:16 “I always emphasize independence and freedom. So if my son says he's gonna go source his meat, I’ll let him.” —Daniela Kratz
20:22 “My non-negotiables are that we always have a connection to our food. I do want to know where the food is coming from. I do want to know how it has grown and how it nourishes us.” —Daniela Kratz
21:26 “Sharing is caring and always bridging the culture with the food. For me, that's really important. It's non negotiable in terms that I take pride in my culture and roots.” —Shirin Aryanpour
Transcription:
Justine Reichman: Good morning, friends. Welcome to Essential Ingredients. I'm so excited to be here today. It's a really fun episode we're gonna have, and this one's focused on summer, on moms, on food. And making sure that in these fun times when we're footloose and fancy free and our kids are running around, that we still make sure to include in there the good food, the fun food that our kids are going to want to eat, but they'll also really have a healthy mindset around food and what they're taking in. So you're not going to want to miss this episode because it really does give you those takeaways, those ideas to inspire good food in the home with your kids. So today with me, I have Shirin and Daniela. Shirin is a mom. She's a former physical therapist, and she had her own health issues that really led her to be mindful about the food that she serves in her house, to herself, and to her family. And she's made food one of her love languages, and likes to incorporate healthy, better for you foods with her kids, and make sure to include that in their value system. Daniela, as well, has made food part of her life. She has a company called Farmhouse Lab, and she makes amazing dressings and different salts, all with really good ingredients. But the question is, how does this translate to your kids, to her kids, and supporting better free food and a healthy lifestyle? You're not going to want to miss this episode, because we're going to talk about that there. We're going to talk about family values and the role that food plays. We're going to talk about bringing your kids into the kitchen, and how to make sure that there's a balance. So please stay with us. You're not going to want to miss this. What role does food play in the impact of our future, health, lifestyle, beauty, fashion, all these things, and the planet? And I'm wondering from you guys, how do you thread that through your lives to build a more sustainable life for you and your children? Maybe Shirin, you want to kick it off. Tell us what you think.
Shirin Aryanpour: From my background, I grew up till I was 14 in Iran. I grew up in a household where you just cook together. Cooking was a way of connecting for us. Culturally, food is a language of love, poetry and respect for nature, and all of that. So I wanted to for my kids, I wanted to bring that in. And we grew up in a way where we used everything that was in the households, nothing goes to waste. I can give you little examples of that. If you have leftover rice, we turn it into tahdig. What is tahdig? It's a crispy rice under the bottom of the pot. It's delicious, and it doesn't go to waste. If you have leftover meat, you turn into (inaudible). You grind the meat and whipped potato, and make delicious patties, delicious. You have leftover herbs, anything we have, you turn into things. I make tons of different remedies, teas, anything left over, we get creative. It's a joy. It's a celebration. And I asked my kids to participate. So that's something in our household. It's more of a celebration than a chore.
Justine Reichman: It sounds amazing. Shirin, I want to join your family. Even just for information and education, all of it just inspires me. You have a little bit of rice, fry it up in a pan. If you have meat, put it with potatoes.
“I grew up in a household where you cook together. Cooking was a way of connecting for us. Culturally, food is a language of love, poetry, and respect for nature. We grew up and used everything that was available; nothing went to waste. So for my kids it was important to pass that on.” —Shirin Gonili Aryanpour
Daniela Kratz: First of all, the entire beginning of what Shirin shared, I couldn't agree more. 100%, very similar to how I grew up. I'm from Germany, originally, born and raised. And moved here to the United States when I was 29. Everything I learned about cooking, the way I grew up with food happened in Germany. Both my parents were working full time, but they were lucky. My grandmother was living next door so she would cook for my sister and myself, and for my parents too when they came back from work, and we learned a lot from her. And I think it's important to mention also that she, of course, lived through the Second World War, and my parents were the generation after. I feel like both generations learned to cook with very minimal produce, and the simplicity was something I always learned from my family and grew up with, the fact that you do not need fancy food. You do not need a huge variety of food. You can have some potatoes, and you can have one vegetable, and you make a brothy, buttery sauce with the vegetables, and you pour it over the freshly cooked potatoes. It can be so comforting, nourishing and freshly cooked by grandmothers, served and eaten with your family. So simplicity, I think, is something that is important for us to understand. It doesn't need to be like three or five different ingredients with special sauces, although I find them very interesting. Just implicitly is interesting.
Justine Reichman: Daniela, as you're sitting there saying, it can be very simple. I'm imagining that simple salad. But with that salt, with the flowers in it. So for those listening and tuning in today that are not familiar, although you might have met her before through some of the other podcasts and videos that we've done, Daniela has a brand that makes salad dressing and some beautiful salts. And we'll add a link to it so you can also see it. But it's called Farmhouse Lab. And so as you're making these simple things, we also know in the back, I'm imagining she's drizzling some of this on there to add a little sparkle. That's right, am I right?
Daniela Kratz: Interesting. Just in addition to that and everything that Shirin said, the act of eating together and the sharing of the food, I think that that is also something that I grew up with, that I definitely want to transfer to the generation of my children and their children.
Justine Reichman: Thank you, Daniela, for that. I wanted to circle back to a conversation that I had with Shirin that I thought was super interesting. So when we were talking about the podcast upcoming, and she was talking about how her son came to her and shrink, chime in if I'm misquoting or miss stating. Her son was like, it's going to end with you, mom. All these recipes, all these ways of doing things and integrating our culture into our lives because you make it, you know how to do it. And Shirin, I think said, and I hate to quote because I butcher words all the time. But the essence of it was, honey, you're in the kitchen with me all the time. We cook together. You see what we're doing. I think the idea is that it doesn't have to be perfect, it has to be your version of it, and what you get from your family, and that's what we bring to the next generation and their version of it.
“Simplicity was something I learned from my family and grew up with. The fact is, you do not need fancy food, you do not need a huge variety of food. You can have some potatoes, and you can have one vegetable, and you make a brothy sauce with the vegetables, and you pour it over the freshly cooked potatoes. It can be so comforting and nourishing. So simplicity is something that is important for us to understand.” —Daniela Kratz
Shirin Aryanpour: I do now have a son who's just finished first year in college, just to put perspective for the listeners, and I have a daughter who's a rising junior in high school. So I'm dealing with teenagers who all their life grew up in a household where the center of our conversation was always around food, and a culture where their grandparents were around celebration togetherness. And I'll just walk you back a little bit why Cameron made that, and it kind of felt sad about it because we emphasize food and music celebration so much that he almost has this sadness. Is it gonna end with us? These kids have it. It's like, well, we're always singing and playing music in the background, and grandma's walking in with food. We all share it. And I'll walk you through this part. I grew up in a house during the war that my dad, bless his soul, and I could literally cry a bucket now because I reflect back to what he always said to me. You crack that one egg, but your door is always open to share that one egg. I'm crying thinking about it, and I don't know how that made me think of that moment. I carry that in my heart, and I really hope Cameron carries that in his heart, seeing how much I share, and the community building that I do through the work that I do is actually through food. And there's a lot of times when we came to this neighborhood, I would take leftover food to my neighbors. And a few neighbors were like, why are you on my door? And I'm like, that's how I grew up. We share food. So back to your question about Cameron and it ends with us. I said, no, because I am modeling, and my parents model, and I hope that you understand that it's beyond food. It's about love. It's about connection. It's about passing that wisdom, and then you make it yours. And to go back to this part, how is this going to go? I'm actually working on a sustainability cookbook, my version, and with recipes and tips that are going to be passed down through the generations. And I think that's my way of saying, okay, at least my kids and grandkids are going to remember their grandma in a way that is beautiful.
Justine Reichman: But I think what's amazing about that is that he's so interested in maintaining that. Integrating that as he develops his own life. Because everybody comes born and grows up in different experiences.
Shirin Aryanpour: That's what it's all about. So when that indoor policy and what they spread in, we call it sofreh, that sofreh or spread is you connect to hearts through that. When you bring a diverse group of people around the table, it's a feeling of love, connection and community.
Justine Reichman: You do a lot with food and community, and your family is not necessarily local, so what does it look like for you?
Daniela Kratz: You both said things that really rang true to me as well. My husband and I were both from Germany. So all of our family is in Germany. We don't have them around, but we have our chosen family around us, and we have the same open door policy. We always share our food, and we cook together with our friends and the kids. Our kids grew up with this. So while it does not always look the same as where the grandmother, the grandfather, the grandchildren and everybody sits at a table like some of us grew up, luckily, you can have that in different forms. So that is one thing. I couldn't agree more. And then I just wanted to elaborate on what Shirin already said, true holistic nourishment is not just nourishment of the body, it's the nourishment of the soul and the mind. And I have a background in Ayurveda because I find this so fascinating. And there's like 10 Rules that you should follow eating, and one is you serve someone before you serve yourself.
“It doesn't have to be perfect, it has to be your version of it, and what you get from your family, and that's what we bring to the next generation and their version of it.” —Justine Reichman
Justine Reichman: So Sherin, I'm really curious, kids have the attention span of what a net when they're young, right? Even as an adult, I don't always have the greatest attention span. But equally, my point is the values that you're trying to incorporate. Do you necessarily need to verbalize that? Or is that something that's part of your action that is understood?
Shirin Aryanpour: I think both. Like you said, if it's a ritual, if it becomes something that it's your family ritual of value and you do it over and over, we just do it without even saying it. There are times that I'm like, who wants to set the table? Who wants to clean up? Who wants to just kind of have this be a ritual rather than, it's not something you have to do. It's more something you would want to do because you care about your family.
Justine Reichman: How are you going to be with your children as they grow up and they're still at home during the summer thread that enters your lives.
Daniela Kratz: I think it's free flow during the day. But again, dinner is always something that's happening, and that could be in the summer. Oftentimes, we meet with friends on a Tuesday evening if the weather is nice, not only on the weekends and just the other day, like a bunch of my daughter's friends were here, and we're cooking together and making it a thing. So there's definitely a less ritual daily routine in it, but I would say there's always dinner.
Justine Reichman: You have your son and your daughter both home this summer?
Shirin Aryanpour: Yes, only because our time with them has become more precious since Cameron's now in college. So again, in our household with older kids and teens, they're working, they're doing internships, so the day is actually up to them. Now I'm lucky if I catch them with breakfast and we share breakfast. What Daniela said, it is more unstructured like, lastTuesday, we did family dinner with another family, and it was super fun. But yes, there's always dinner. So even if I'm not going to be home, I make an effort to ask, would you like me to cook something for you guys? Or you want to create or make dinner yourselves? They're old enough now, they make wise choices.
Justine Reichman: So Shirin, as you were talking and you were saying that your kids go to the store, what's their education on how to choose a product? What are they pulling from? What's that conversation like in your house?
“True holistic nourishing is not just nourishing of the body, it's the nourishment of the soul and the mind.” —Daniela Kratz
Shirin Aryanpour: I think by now, they just know to look for organic food, or they look at labels. Again, it depends. Our household is gluten free, so they look for gluten free crackers. After following me around the supermarket for so long, for example, I care about honey, local honey. And being in a household, we have allergy issues. I care about local honey because of the health benefits. Again, my kids know to look at how to read labels, how to look at ingredients and its benefits. And then don't forget, they still love their fun food aisle. Those kids are running around and they still want their specific, let's say chips and cheese puffs. But now I tell them, look at the ingredients in cheese puffs. What company is it? Because they are companies we won't name that have carcinogenic ingredients versus the same flavor as a cheese puff, but it's naturally made. So yes, they're aware of reading labels to make sure that it's not harmful, and they're making good choices.
Justine Reichman: Daniela, I'm curious about you. I've seen those salads you made. They're gorgeous. In fact, I've had one at my house. And that beet hummus, I've never had a more beautiful hummus in my life. So does that translate to your kids. And if your kids are going out to the store, what are some of the tools or the questions that you've posed to them that they should consider when looking to buy the right items?
Daniela Kratz: Of course, it translated. But for them, I'm like the health nut in the house. Of course, they're making fun of me. But I know it translated. Both my kids love to cook. My son is 17. He's actually really, really good. And I stopped eating meat when I was 16, and I just don't like it. Maybe because of that, but also because he loves to eat meat, he became so good at preparing meat. But I am not the only person who influences him. They get information from so many sources, thankfully, friends, family members, their travels, also social media. Not everything is bad about social media. They came up with some great recipe ideas actually because I am doing a lot on this end, and they're taking part in what I do for my work. They already know a lot, but I do always emphasize independence and freedom. So if my son says he's gonna go source his meat, I let him.
Justine Reichman: So in the conversations with your family, your children, your friends and just life, what role does regenerative play for you guys, as you choose your food, as you tend to your gardens, if you have one? And how much conversation is around regenerative with your friends, your family and your children? Is that integral to living a sustainable life?
Daniela Kratz: Very much. I do know a lot about it because of the work that I do. Regenerative agriculture is what I focus on when I source my suppliers, my sources for the ingredients of the products that I make. And yes, we do have a vegetable garden in our backyard, and the kids have been tending to it, and working with me since they're little. And I also think every summer, we go back to Europe and not just Germany if we can. We like to travel to other countries like Italy, Spain, Greece. Whenever we have an opportunity, we stop at a local farmer, we learn from them, we participate in activities around that, and we make it a fun cultural experience.
“If it becomes your family ritual of value, and you do it over and over. It's just something. We just do it without even saying it. It's not something you have to do. It's more thing you would want to do, because you care about your family. ” —Shirin Aryanpour
Justine Reichman: So to go to you, Shirin, I want to bring you into the fold. What role does regenerative play for you in your house, as it relates to the food that you bring into it, that you encourage your children to eat, and the conversations you have?
Shirin Aryanpour: Similar to Daniela. We have a small garden, and each kid has a pot that belongs to them, and they plant their own stuff. And just to be honest, that's more of a respect for nature. But the regenerative part of it, I love for it to form in the world, but we the population as much as it's growing. Sadly, like Daniela said, to feed the number of people, and depending on the country, that's why GMO is playing a big role. They're just worried about feeding people. Cameron, when he was little, he would say, can we come up with a pill that ends hunger? And it's interesting, I always think of him when he was little because my kids went to school that they had access to, but not everybody does. They grew up in a school where there were multiple gardens, and they went and did gardening. They were taught since they were little kids that you respect Earth, and Earth will feed you.
Justine Reichman: I just kind of wanted to come full circle and go back to where we were originally talking about. Living a sustainable life, the role that food plays in it for us, and what are the non-negotiables for you, Daniela, when you think about that, and when you raise your family.
Daniela Kratz: My non-negotiables are that we always have a connection to our food. I do want to know where the food is coming from. I do want to know how it has grown and how it nourishes us. I do want to enjoy food as an experience, ideally with family and friends. I hope I will always be able to share food to give the gift of love to others. And I don't want to ever miss enjoying making food. As I mentioned earlier, I'd rather skip that one day if I'm too stressed out or too worked up, and then come back to it the next day.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. Thank you. Daniela. How about you, Shirin?
Shirin Aryanpour: Again, it goes back to my dad and the one egg, cracking the egg, being able to share enough, able to share even as little or as much, because sharing is caring. And always bridging the culture with the food, for me, that's really important. It's non-negotiable in terms that I take pride in my culture and its roots. It's about connectivity, and I want this to be something that gets carried down in past systems.
Justine Reichman: Awesome, ladies. So for those of you that want to hear more from Daniela about her food and what she has, we're going to throw it in the show notes. But Farmhouse Lab is where it's at. So Daniela, what's the best way to find a little bit more about you, and even check out some of those things that you have at Farmhouse Lab?
Daniela Kratz: The easiest, if you have an Instagram account, is to browse my feed. I literally post everything that I make in my kitchen or wherever I am, and that gives you a good overview of ideas of my products. What they are, what to do with it, and hopefully a lot of inspiration on what to do in your own kitchen.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. And Shirin has this amazing platform that she is the ultimate connector, connecting people through food. So for those folks that want to learn more about you, how to either participate or just get educated on your platform, what would be the best way to go about doing that?
Shirin Aryanpour: Similar to Daniela, I have a platform called Illuminate Her Path. It's all about community building and shining the light on women doers like you, amazing women today, and it's all about everything that benefits women, and about wellness and just being present. So I hope you guys can follow us on that and help one another to build a gender balanced community.
Justine Reichman: Awesome, ladies. Thank you so much for your time, for your commitment and the conversation. And for those that are tuning in for the first time, whether you're watching the video cast or you're listening to the podcast, don't forget our channel on YouTube is essential.ingredients, and you can download us on podcast wherever you do. Listen to Essential Ingredients with Justine. If you just want to follow me, see what I'm up to and see when things are coming down the pipeline on Instagram, while our Instagram is at essential.ingredients, mine is at justine.reichman. I hope to hear from you guys soon.
