What Your Food Ate

David Montgomery

$34.99

 Keynote speakers at the 2022 Eco-Ag Conference & Trade Show! Click here to learn how to see them live this December. 

David R. Montgomery and Anne Biklé take us far beyond the well-worn adage to deliver a new truth: the roots of good health start on farms. What Your Food Ate marshals evidence from recent and forgotten science to illustrate how the health of the soil ripples through to that of crops, livestock, and ultimately us.

The long-running partnerships through which crops and soil life nourish one another suffuse plant and animal foods in the human diet with an array of compounds and nutrients our bodies need to protect us from pathogens and chronic ailments. Unfortunately, conventional agricultural practices unravel these vital partnerships and thereby undercut our well-being. Can farmers and ranchers produce enough nutrient-dense food to feed us all? Can we have quality and quantity?

With their trademark thoroughness and knack for integrating information across numerous scientific fields, Montgomery and Biklé chart the way forward. Navigating discoveries and epiphanies about the world beneath our feet, they reveal why regenerative farming practices hold the key to healing sick soil and untapped potential for improving human health.

Humanity’s hallmark endeavors of agriculture and medicine emerged from our understanding of the natural world—and still depend on it. Montgomery and Biklé eloquently update this fundamental reality and show us why what’s good for the land is good for us, too. What Your Food Ate is a must-read for farmers, eaters, chefs, doctors, and anyone concerned with reversing the modern epidemic of chronic diseases and mitigating climate change.

SKU 7741. Copyright 2022, hardcover, 380.

Listen to an Acres U.S.A. Tractor Time podcast with David Montgomery and Anne Biklé, recorded Sept. 26, 2022. Click here to listen on Apple.

About the Authors 

Anne Biklé

Anne Biklé is an author and public speaker. Her writing explores humanity’s tangled relationship with nature through the lens of agriculture, medicine, and microbiomes. She finds the botanical world particularly enthralling and has coaxed many a plant into rambunctious growth or nursed them back from the edge of death with her regenerative gardening practices.

David R. Montgomery

David R. Montgomery studied geology at Stanford University before earning his Ph.D. in geomorphology at UC Berkeley. He teaches at the University of Washington where he studies the evolution of topography and how geological processes shape landscapes and influence ecological systems. He loved maps as a kid and now writes about the relationship of people to their environment, regenerative agriculture, and other things that interest him. In 2008 he was named a MacArthur Fellow. He lives with his wife Anne Biklé live in Seattle, Washington.

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