Kristen began questioning where her food comes from at the early age of 14 when she became vegetarian as a rejection of the animal cruelty and pollution/deforestation inherent in modern animal agriculture. Steele spent her teen years as the only vegetarian in her class adopting a vegan diet at age 17 which she found impossible to maintain in college and later due to lack of vegan food options and social support. She maintained her passion for researching the food system, environmental science, and health while attending the College of Charleston in Charleston, SC where she volunteered weekly with FoodNotBombs preparing and serving vegan meals to homeless people. She also organized Earth Day celebrations promoting vegan foods and waste-free vegetarian Thanksgiving dinners on campus. In 2002, at age 20, Steele helped start a community garden and became passionate about growing her own food whenever she could. From 2004-2012 Steele worked as a professional biking and walking advocacy writer and researcher.

Steele first encountered natural food forests while staying in Costa Rica in 2002, before ever hearing of permaculture. In 2009 she discovered Gaia's Garden which provided a theoretical framework to what she had experienced and fueled her interest in food forests as the solution to all the worlds problems. In May 2009 she took her first natural building course with CobWorks. In 2010 she moved from San Francisco, CA to rural Humboldt County where she experimented with growing a food forest on a 2-acre property with an existing apple orchard and with building a home of natural earth materials. During these two years she hosted over 100 volunteers, two natural building workshops, and local school field trips introducing students to natural building. She also maintained a blog at muddyhands.typepad.com documenting the building project. Over the years Steele has faced the challenges of being a landless renter and homeless single mother for a period where she was unable to grow her own or access quality organic produce.

In 2013 Steele began organizing in Southern Oregon to plant a network of community food forests where anyone can freely harvest fruits and vegetables. She has spoken at numerous community events delivering a presentation on the growing movement for community food forests and distributing books and materials promoting food forestry. Recently Steele has combined her passion for food forests, positive activism, and media into the mission-driven startup Eden Regeneration Alliance (ERA). Under ERA she has worked to develop a technology platform and media campaign to promote hyper-local food forestry and bridge the knowledge divide that prevents more people from accessing these systems. In 2015 she moved to Los Angeles to pursue development of this venture to assist more people in growing food forests where they live, work, and play.

Connect with Kristen Reya Steele on:
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristenreyasteele
Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/Kristen-Steele/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kristenreya.steele
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/@KristenReya