Supermarkets and Medicine Cabinets: What Fred Provenza Taught Me About Nutritional Wisdom
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 29 minutes ago
I’ve known Dr. Fred Provenza for several years now. We were introduced by a mutual friend, Michael Hall, and from the very beginning, Fred opened my eyes to a way of thinking about animals—and land—that I hadn’t fully appreciated before.
It started with a simple but profound idea: nutritional wisdom.
Not just what animals eat, but how they know what to eat—and how that knowing connects directly to the health of rangelands, livestock, and ultimately, ourselves.
After reading his book, Nourishment, and spending time in conversation with Fred, our team videographer/photographer Joe Dickie and I knew this was something we needed to explore more deeply. So we arranged to meet him in Colorado, near Salida—where his journey began, working for a rancher named Henry DeLuca.
That landscape, and those early experiences, shaped much of what Fred would go on to study for the next forty years.
It’s Not All in the Genes
One of the first things Fred challenged was the idea that animal behavior is mostly instinct—that animals “just know” what to eat.
That assumption runs deep. We tend to think that if an animal survives, it must be because its genes have programmed it correctly.
But Fred’s work points in another direction.
Animals don’t just know. They learn.
They learn from their mothers, from their peers, and from the consequences of their own experiences. What they eat, where they go, how they move across a landscape—these are not fixed traits. They are shaped over time.
That shift—from instinct to learning—may sound small, but it changes everything.
Some years ago, Michael shared something Fred had said to him during a course back in 1992:
“I wouldn’t have seen it if I had not believed it.”
That line has stuck with me.
At first glance, it sounds backwards. We tend to think we see something first and then believe it.
But what Fred was getting at—and what I’ve come to appreciate—is that sometimes the opposite is true.
If you don’t have the framework to look for something, you can miss what’s right in front of you.
Two people can look at the same pasture, the same animals, the same data—and come away with completely different conclusions.
That’s not because one is right and the other is wrong. It’s because they’re seeing through different lenses.
And in many ways, that’s what this idea of nutritional wisdom requires—a shift in how we look.
And once you start looking for it, you begin to see it everywhere on a working ranch—animals that settle in quickly versus those that don’t, cattle that know where to go versus those that seem to drift or bunch.
Knowing the Range
Back on DeLuca’s ranch, Fred began to notice something that didn’t fit the conventional model.
Cattle weren’t simply grazing whatever was in front of them. They moved with purpose. They formed small groups. They spread out across large landscapes.
And especially in the summer, those larger herds would naturally break into smaller bands.
What struck me—and what Fred’s work confirms—is that these groups are not random. In many cases, they are led by older females—the cows that know the country. And when ranchers like Henry DeLuca keep their own replacement heifers, over time they create extended families lead by a matriarch. In wildlife systems with herbivores like elephants, it’s often postmenopausal females that lead. They carry memory: where to find water, which plants are safe, how to move safely through the terrain.
Most folks who’ve spent time around cattle have seen this, even if they haven’t put a name to it.
You’ll have certain cows that just seem to know where to be—and others that follow.
That knowledge is invaluable.
But it’s not a one-way street.
The younger animals play a different role. They are more exploratory. They try things. Sometimes that leads to discomfort—a quick lesson in what not to eat. But sometimes they find something new—something useful.
And when they do, that knowledge can move back through the group.
So what you have is not just teaching from mother to offspring, but a back-and-forth between experience and curiosity—the older animals anchoring the herd, and the younger ones testing the edges.
Animals as Nutritional Decision-Makers
If animals are learning, then what exactly are they learning?
Fred’s research shows that animals are not passive eaters. They are constantly making decisions—balancing energy, protein, and a wide array of compounds that affect how they feel.
Given a diverse landscape, they mix and match plants to meet their needs.
They are, in a very real sense, managing their own nutrition.
And you can see the flip side of this as well.
When animals are put into environments with very limited choice—whether that’s a monoculture pasture or a feed ration that doesn’t vary much—you often see it in their performance, their health, or their behavior.
That’s not theory. That shows up in the real world.
The Landscape as a Supermarket and a Medicine Cabinet
Fred often says that the land is doing something remarkable.
Through sunlight, water, soil, and plant diversity, landscapes transform raw elements into something far more complex.
They become, in his words, grocery stores and pharmacies.
A diverse rangeland—one with dozens of grasses, forbs, and shrubs—is not just producing forage. It’s offering animals a wide array of choices:
foods that provide energy
foods that supply protein
plants that support digestion
others that help animals cope with stress, parasites, or imbalance
others that are antioxidants, anti-inflammatory, and immune-boosting
In some systems, you might find 50 or 60 different plant species or more.
That diversity is not noise. Its function.
It allows animals to adjust intake day by day, even hour by hour, depending on what they need. You may also notice that no two individuals select the same combinations of plants and that no individual selects the same combinations of plants from day to day.
And if you’ve ever watched cattle spend time selecting different plants rather than just hammering one area, you start to see this playing out.
Once you begin to see the land this way, the goal shifts.
It’s no longer just about how much forage you can grow.
It’s about how many options you can provide.
Innovation in the Herd
Another insight that stayed with me is how behavior spreads.
One animal tries something new. Others observe. They follow.
What begins as individual exploration can become group behavior.
Most producers have seen some version of this—whether it’s cattle learning a new water point, figuring out a gate, or starting to use a part of the pasture they’d ignored before.
It doesn’t take long.
Innovation doesn’t just happen in people. It happens in herds.
A Broader Realization
Joe and I went to Colorado to talk about animals but came away with something broader: if animals can learn, adapt, and manage their own nutrition, then our role is less about control and more about creating the conditions where that intelligence can work. And as we’ll see next, that simple idea opens into much bigger questions—about economics, human health, and the future of ranching.
Visit these “Growing Resilience Through Our Soils” information pages:
1. Podcast page for drought planning fact sheets, Q&As, news, podcasts, and more.
2. Video page to watch videos of other ranchers’ journeys toward improved rangeland/pasture.
3. Follow Growing Resilience on social media:
4. Our homepage: www.growingresiliencesd.com