What Your Food Ate

Finalist for the 2023 IACP Award for Food Issues & Matters
Are you really what you eat? 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.

David R. Montgomery is a professor of Earth and space sciences at the University of Washington. He studies the evolution of topography and the influence of geomorphological processes on ecological systems and human societies. He received a BS from Stanford University (1984, geology) and a PhD from UC Berkeley (1991, geomorphology). His field studies have included projects in the Philippines, eastern Tibet, South America, California, and the Pacific Northwest of North America. He is an elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and has received many awards throughout his career, including a MacArthur Fellowship and the Vega Medal. His books Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations, King of Fish: The Thousand-Year Run of Salmon, and The Rocks Don't Lie: A Geologist Investigates Noah's Flood have all won the Washington State Book Award in General Nonfiction. Montgomery's Growing a Revolution: Bringing Our Soil Back to Life was a finalist for the PEN/E. O. Wilson Award for Literary Science Writing. He also coauthored with Anne Biklé The Hidden Half of Nature and, most recently, What Your Food Ate: How to Heal Our Land and Reclaim Our Health. His books have been translated into ten languages. He is also a coauthor of the new textbook Essentials of Physical Geography with W. W. Norton.