All Flesh is Grass
Grass Based Health
My mission through Grass Based Health is to reconnect agriculture, nutrition, medicine, and ecology through science-based education, helping people understand how healthy grasslands and ruminant agriculture contribute to restoring human metabolic health.
"Grass feeds the ox: the ox nourishes man: man dies and goes to grass again; and so the tide of life, with everlasting repetition, in continuous circles, moves endlessly on and upward, and in more senses than one, all flesh is grass.”
“Grass is the forgiveness of nature—her constant benediction. Fields trampled in battle, saturated with blood, torn by the ruts of cannon, grow green again with grass, and carnage is forgotten. Forests decay, harvests perish, flowers vanish, but grass is immortal. Sown by the wind and wandering birds, propagated by the subtle horticulture of the elements, it softens the rude outline of the world. Its tenacious fibres hold the earth in place and prevent its soluble contents from washing into the sea.”
John Ingalls, 1872
The Ruminati
The Ruminati is a wholly fictitious organization devoted to the radical proposition that agriculture, nutrition, medicine, ecology, and history might actually have something to teach one another.
Membership in the Ruminati is open to anyone willing to connect dots that a century of specialization has separated. There are no secret handshakes—only references.
The Creed of the Ruminati
The First Rule of the Ruminati: Read the original papers.
The Second Rule: If agriculture, medicine, ecology, and nutrition disagree, keep reading.
The Third Rule: Healthy soils. Healthy plants. Healthy animals. Healthy people. They're all part of the same system.
The Fourth Rule: There is no conspiracy—only compartmentalization.
The Fifth Rule: The most important discoveries may be hiding between disciplines.
Don Pedro, Sodfather of the Ruminati
Peter Ballerstedt, PhD, is a forage agronomist, ruminant nutritionist, and founder of Grass Based Health. After a career in forage agriculture—and his own encounter with metabolic dysfunction—he began exploring the connections among ruminant agriculture, human nutrition, and metabolic health.
For nearly two decades, Peter has worked to bridge disciplines that too rarely speak to one another. He speaks to agricultural, nutrition, medical, and food-system audiences about the essential role of ruminant animals in human flourishing.
As founder and self-appointed Sodfather of the wholly fictitious Ruminati, his job is simple: connect the dots, read the original papers, and introduce people who ought to know one another.
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