The Nutritional Wisdom of Plants and Animals

Meat That Is Good For You And The Planet with Fred Provenza | This episode is brought to you by Thrive Market, Joovv, and chili

Eating a variety of phytonutrients is a powerful way to support optimal health, from things like colorful fruits and veggies. Another really cool side of phytonutrients is the impact they have on making animals healthier, too. In fact, animals who graze on a diverse variety of pasture, with lots of different kinds of wild plants, get an incredible array of phytonutrients. They will even intuitively mix and match their nutritional needs to what plants are available, making sure they get the right balance of vitamins and minerals. Animals who’ve been able to graze like this provide much healthier meat that passes more nutritional benefits along to us. Plus they get to live happier, more natural lives! Today on The Doctor’s Farmacy, I talk to Fred Provenza about the amazing world of phytochemicals and what they can do for animals and our own bodies. 

Fred grew up in Salida, Colorado, working on a ranch and attending school in Wildlife

Biology at Colorado State University. He is professor emeritus of Behavioral Ecology in the

Department of Wildland Resources at Utah State University where he worked for 35 years,

directing an award-winning research group that pioneered an understanding of how learning

influences foraging behavior and how behavior links soil, plants, herbivores, and humans.

He is the author of three books, including Nourishment: What Animals Can Teach Us About

Rediscovering Our Nutritional Wisdom; Foraging Behavior: Managing to Survive in a World of

Change; and The Art & Science of Shepherding: Tapping the Wisdom of French Herders (co-authored with Michel Meuret). He has also published over 300 research papers in a wide variety of scientific journals.

This episode was sponsored by Thrive Market, Joovv, and chili.

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Here are more of the details from our interview: 

• How Fred started thinking about the relationship between phytochemicals, plant diversity, and animal health (8:08)

• Nutrient deficiencies in animals and in humans that have resulted from industrial agriculture and mono diets (13:32)

• How animals naturally meet their nutritional requirements by eating a diversity of plants (17:58)

• How palatability illustrates our innate nutritional wisdom, and the innate nutritional wisdom of animals (23:40)

• What animals in feedlots are fed (30:50)

• The four reasons why food quality has declined from our modern agricultural practices (34:10)

• Is eating grass-fed meat better for our health, and is all grass-fed meat created equal? (41:39)

• Would it be better for the environment if humans stopped eating meat altogether? (52:43)

• Are we eating too much meat? (1:05:58)

• What you eat with meat, and spices may influence the effects of meat on our health (1:11:45)

• Flavor is developed in utero and early in life (1:19:02)

Get Fred’s book, Nourishment: What Animals Can Teach Us about Rediscovering Our Nutritional Wisdom via Chelsea Green here, at Barnes & Noble here, and via Amazon here

Find Fred’s paper, “Is Grassfed Meat and Dairy Better for Human and Environmental Health?” here

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