People often ask me if meat is good or bad and if grass-fed meat is really better than non-grass-fed meat. There is a lot of confusing and conflicting information and science out there about this topic. But something that is rarely considered is how the diet of the animal affects how healthy its meat is. I'm joined by Fred Provenza on The Doctor’s Farmacy to discuss how mono diets, or eating one type of food, isn’t a way to produce healthy meat (though it’s what conventional animal operations follow - i.e. corn). Animals that are free to forage over diverse land, though, get an abundance of nutrients that they pass on to us. Unfortunately, most studies on meat aren’t looking at animals who had this type of diet.
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.
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