Roots Run Deep: The Soil That Made Me
- Angela
- 5 days ago
- 7 min read
I was raised between two worlds: the modern one that praised convenience, and the old Croatian one that cherished nature and respected survival. A world where food wasn’t bought, it was grown. Where we fermented for the winter, pulled bread from our ovens, and trusted the land to sustain us. What once felt ordinary is now my greatest inheritance — and the heartbeat of Rawsome. And that inheritance still breathes through my aunts, uncles, cousins, and neighbors in Croatia who keep the old ways alive — tending vines, pressing olives, raising animals with the same respect my grandparents taught.
At school, I never pulled out neat PB&Js or tidy bologna sandwiches. My lunches were jars of fermented cabbage, smoked meats, pickled vegetables, dark breads — foods that carried the scent of soil, brine, and smoke. Foods grown, preserved, and prepared by my parents’ hands.
To me, it was normal. To others, it was "stinky". I was ridiculed for being different, mocked for being “foreign.” Few even knew where Croatia was, let alone why my family lived this way.
But my parents told me, “One day you’ll miss this.”
I didn’t believe them.
Now, I know they were right.
The Old Way Was Survival
In Croatia, we didn’t talk about “sustainability.” We didn’t ferment because it was fashionable or garden because it was wholesome. We did it because there was no other way. When the harvests faded and the soil rested, survival meant living off what was preserved. Food didn’t appear shrink-wrapped on shelves. Every jar of sauerkraut, every slab of dried meat, every crock bubbling in the cellar was resilience.
Most people today can’t spend hours fermenting or raising animals — I get it. Modern life doesn’t leave space for cellars and smokehouses. But that doesn’t mean we can’t bring the same wisdom into our lives. That’s why Rawsome exists — to carry those old-world practices forward in a way that fits into today’s kitchens, fridges, and routines.
That way of life was laughed at when I was a child. Yet now? The world stumbles over itself to repackage the same wisdom as “modern sustainability” — but with a twist of plastic packaging and a carbon footprint that stretches across oceans.
What we called survival, today’s society calls “progress.” But strip away the labels and you’ll see the truth: it’s not progress at all. It’s backwards.
When Beauty Meets Blindness
Visit a Croatian island and you’ll see what I mean. God’s own masterpiece — fertile soil, figs splitting with sweetness, grapes heavy on the vine, salt air carrying life into every root and leaf.
Here, my cousins still harvest grapes their fathers planted, still press olive oil with hands stained by soil. They live in rhythm with abundance, proof that the land gives everything …if you honor it!
Even in this paradise, trucks roll in carrying half-rotting fruit, while supermarkets stack tasteless imports wrapped in plastic.
That is not progress.
That is not advancement.
That is blindness.
That is greed.
That is the slow fall of society.
The world is so drunk on convenience, so desperate for plastic-wrapped solutions, that it cannot see the gold it is standing on.
Soil and Soul: The Truth We’ve Forgotten
The soil beneath our feet is not dirt. It is alive. A vast network of microbes, fungi, minerals, and memory. It feeds the plants. The plants feed us. And in that exchange, our bodies are calibrated to the exact environment we live in.
Just one teaspoon of healthy soil holds more living organisms than there are people on Earth. These unseen workers break down organic matter, release minerals, and produce compounds that echo the very messengers in our own bodies — neurotransmitters that calm the nervous system, immune signals that fight disease, enzymes that keep everything in balance. When we eat food born of this soil, those signals become part of us. Our gut microbes respond. Our immune systems strengthen. Even our moods shift. The soil literally speaks to our bodies.
When we eat locally, we sync with our land. Our immune system strengthens in the exact environment we live in. Our resilience grows. Our vitality reflects the soil we walk on.
But when food is imported, stripped, and shipped across oceans, that connection dies. Dead soil grows plants that may look the same but are hollow of vitality. Nutrient content plummets. The living “language” of the soil disappears.
What’s left are calories without communication. Healthy soil feeds us information; dead soil feeds us silence.
The belly may be full, but the soul — and the immune system — starves.
Today, researchers confirm exposure to soil microbes builds resilience, lowers allergies, and even reduces anxiety. The soil microbiome is the mirror of our gut microbiome. Heal the earth, and you heal yourself.
You don’t need to be a farmer to eat food grown in living soil. You don’t need to pickle a hundred jars of cabbage like my grandparents did. That’s my family’s gift to me — and Rawsome’s gift to you. We do the hard work of sourcing, fermenting, and preserving so that all you have to do is open the jar, feed the bowl, and taste the difference.
Old Food vs. Modern Food
To understand what’s been lost, just look at two plates side by side:
Imported lettuce: 3,000 miles in transit, chlorine-washed, wrapped in plastic, lifeless in 2 days.
Local cabbage: Fermented in your cellar, alive with probiotics for months, getting more nourishing with time.
One is convenience packaged as progress. The other is true resilience.
Rawsome: Born From This Soil
This is the core of Rawsome. Not trend, not branding, not marketing spin. It is the wisdom of my parents, the soil of my ancestors, and the essence of survival turned into a philosophy for today.
• Heritage Pure Prey = the same respect for whole animals my family practiced, but ready-to-serve for busy pet parents.
• Bone broths = the slow simmered, nutrient-rich brews my grandmother kept on the stove, bottled for convenience.
• Local eggs and dairy = proof you don’t need chickens in your backyard to eat the way our ancestors did.
We’ve taken the best of the old world and stripped away only the inconvenience — not the nutrition, not the integrity.
Just as my family in Croatia live off what the soil gives them, Rawsome stands on the same principle: food that is close, food that is real, food that connects us to our land.
Rawsome is my childhood, once mocked, now reclaimed. It is proof that the way forward isn’t in plastic-wrapped “solutions” — it is in the roots we nearly forgot.
For Pets and People Alike
This truth doesn’t stop with humans. When your dog eats food raised on living soil, their microbiome syncs with the earth just like yours does. Their coat shines, digestion strengthens, energy returns — not because of magic, but because soil life works through every bite. Pets and people thrive on the same foundation: real food, grown in real soil.
And here’s something I’ve noticed while talking with locals in Croatia: dogs here don’t eat the same thing every day. Some may get kibble, many get leftovers, but most get a variety of fresh foods — bits of meat, bones, broth, vegetables. Nothing fancy, just real food. And the dogs? Many of them are well into their teens, with grey muzzles but still chasing tennis balls down the street.
It makes you wonder — why? Could it be that variety matters? Could it be that a body, like soil, thrives on diversity and fresh nourishment instead of monotony? Here, vaccines are minimal — often just the yearly rabies shot — yet vitality is visible everywhere. Perhaps it isn’t pharmaceuticals carrying them into old age, but simple fresh foods raised close to home, tied to the same soil that sustains their humans….
This is where Rawsome shines. We know not every family can simmer broths for hours, source pasture-raised meats, or rotate proteins the way old-world families do. Life is busy. But your pets shouldn’t lose out because of that. Rawsome makes old-world feeding possible in a modern world: ready-to-serve meals, seasonal broths, microgreen blends, and real variety built right in. It’s the same principle I see thriving here in Croatia — made accessible, convenient, and trustworthy for your home.
Full Circle
Yes, my lunches embarrassed me once. But today, they empower me.
Because true nourishment is never sealed in plastic or stamped “organic” after traveling 4,000 miles. True nourishment is alive with the microbes of your own land. It is grown by your neighbor. It is pulled from your garden. It is what you taste in a jar of local raw honey, a carton of our fresh eggs, our cream-on-top milk from Amish Country Dairy, or a Rawsome meal that nourishes both pets and people — products born of the same soil that raised me.
The world may call it old. I call it wisdom.
The world may call it simple. I call it survival.
The world may call it backwards. I call it the only way forward.
My parents were right. One day I would miss it. One day I would see it for what it was. And that day is today.
This is my past. My essence. The soil beneath my feet.
This is where Rawsome was born.
And to my family in Croatia — who still pull bread from their ovens, still gather figs from the trees, still fill their cellars with the gifts of the land — I owe everything.
And to those who walk this path with us — thank you.
Every choice to support Rawsome is more than a meal.
It is a thread tying us back to the hands of our ancestors.
It is the wisdom of the soil beneath our feet.
It is the farmers still carrying that torch today.
Together, we are not just feeding bodies —
we are restoring memory,
we are tending the earth,
we are keeping alive a way of nourishment the world almost forgot.
The way forward is the way back.
Back to the soil.
Back to the wisdom of our ancestors.
Back to food that keeps us alive in body and in soul.
The soil beneath our feet is not just earth —
it is memory,
it is medicine,
it is miracle.
And when we return to it, we don’t just nourish our bodies…
we awaken our souls.
The world may call it old.
We know it is eternal.
Together we rise —
rooted in the soil,
guided by the ancestors,
alive with a nourishment the world almost forgot…
but will never lose again.
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