The health of livestock, humans, and environments is tied to plant (phytochemical)
diversity. Health is enhanced when livestock forage on phytochemically rich landscapes,
is reduced when livestock forage on low-diversity pastures or eat high-grain rations
in feedlots, and is greatly reduced for people who eat highly processed diets. The
shift away from phytochemically and biochemically rich plant and animal foods to processed
foods enabled 2.1 billion people to become overweight or obese and increased incidence
of diet-related disease.
Circumstantial evidence supports the hypothesis that phytochemical richness of herbivore
diets enhances biochemical richness of meat and dairy, which is linked with human
health. Among many roles they play in health, phytochemicals in herbivore diets protect
meat and dairy from protein oxidation and lipid peroxidation that cause low-grade
systemic inflammation implicated in heart disease and cancer. Yet, epidemiological
studies critical of red meat do not discriminate among meats from livestock fed high-grain
rations as opposed to phytochemically rich diets.
While conventional agriculture adds 25% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, regenerative
agriculture can play a sizeable role in mitigating climate change. Of 80 ways to diminish
these effects, regenerative agriculture—managed grazing, silvopastoralism, agroforestry,
conservation agriculture, and farmland restoration—jointly rank number one as ways
to sequester GHG.
We can enable human and planetary health by forsaking processed foods and by sourcing,
growing, and eating wholesome foods. We must learn we are members of nature’s communities.
What we do to them, we do to ourselves; only by nurturing them can we nurture ourselves.
