Farming for Health Podcast #19: Dr. Michelle Perro

Dr. Michelle Perro has one overwhelming drive in her life: to combat childhood injustice. She believes that we should treat children superlatively, and she has dedicated her professional life to this pursuit. She began her medical career in pediatric emergency care, and this type of acute care was her passion. 

Life then went “off kilter,” though, when her son began experiencing health challenges. In a moment described as “serendipitous,” she encountered the concept of homeopathic medicine. Although she didn’t know about this form of medicine (yet!), her medical training and mom’s intuition told her it was the right path to take for her son—and it worked. 

What arose next? Anger. Anger at the medical establishment that had, since 1910, suppressed the spreading of this knowledge that had already been around for centuries. In response, Dr. Perro trained in homeopathy and left emergency medicine. She was also part of a group that advocated for the stop of the toxic insecticides being sprayed in California. 

Then came the moment, in the early 2000s, where Dr. Perro’s “whole world flipped.” She learned about GMOs, which helped to explain the uptick in chronic childhood diseases that she began to notice in 2000. This led to her incorporation of environmental health into her medical practice and the creation of a whole new field: integrative urgent care medicine. 

Dr. Perro authored the book What’s Making Our Children Sick and serves as the executive director of GMOScience, the non-profit scientific-based website. Current initiatives include the non-profit-based group, Regeneration Health International, which focuses on holistic health—including food as medicine. Plus, her second book should be out next summer: Making Our Children Well. 

Dr. Perro emphasizes the importance of being open to the possibilities as we address the root causes of children’s sicknesses. We know what’s going on, she says. Now, let’s fix it.

Here’s where you can find the rest of Dr. Michelle Perro’s story in episode #19 of our Farming for Health podcast: Childhood Injustice, Soil Health, and Relationship with Nature.

Past Episodes of our Farming for Health Podcast

If you’ve missed any of our previous episodes, you can find them here:

• Episode One: Keto, Cruciferous Vegetables, Salt and Your Mindset
• Episode Two: Cooking, Conviviality, and Preserving the Harvest
• Episode Three: Ferments, Food Insecurity, and Wasted Food
• Episode Four: Anti-Cancer Diet, Food as Medicine, and Vegetables
• Episode Five: Plants, Happiness and Mindful Neglect.
• Episode Six: Whole 30, Sustainable Habits, and Loving Vegetables
• Episode Seven: Iodine, Egg Yolk Enzymes, and Miso
• Episode Eight: Fungi, Bitter Foods, and Food Extinction
• Episode Nine: Understanding Food, Nutritional Healing and Farming
• Episode Ten: Enjoying the Process, Connection and Soup
• Episode Eleven: Monica Geller, Community and Limiting Salads 
• Episode Twelve: Nourishment, Creativity, and Full-Spectrum Health
• Episode Thirteen: The Joy of Cooking, Fermentation, and Seasonality 
• Episode Fourteen: Cauliflower, Potlucks, and the Joy of Food
• Episode Fifteen: Time Savers, Pickled Raisins and Cooking With Creativity
• Episode Sixteen: Romanticizing Food, Seasonal Eating, and Shamed Spinach
• Episode Seventeen: Being Present, The Eat In Method and Food as Fuel
• Episode Eighteen: Regenerative Grazing, Monarchs and Voting with Your Dollar