Healing the Earth by Growing Food as Medicine

Abstract

The idea of food as medicine has been gaining interest in recent years. There are many reasons for this and in this chapter, I hope to review just a few of them. I began my understanding of food as medicine from my firsthand experience in agriculture and food as a dry land farmer specializing in ancient wheat. After receiving degrees in botany and plant pathology at Montana State University and a PhD in plant biochemistry at UC Davis, I returned home in 1978 to our family farm near Big Sandy, Montana which my grandfather had started in 1920. I joined my father growing commodities of wheat and barley in a very industrial way. By 1983, I had started Montana Flour and Grains to help market our wheat directly to whole grain bakers in California and increase the profitability of our farm. Becau