| This dissertation explores the lived experience of mothers who engage in a lifestyle based on the assumption that the consequences of an ecologically informed, real food diet deliver whole health and a strong and resilient immune system. Their dietary foundations are based on the nutrient dense and health-promoting principles discovered and practiced by traditional cultures the world over and throughout time, as documented by a decade of research by Dr. Weston A. Price in the 1930s. The study reflects the intersection of maternal autonomy, maternal agency, ecological medicine, and the ecological implications of the restorative and regenerative food and farming movement. The primary inquiry question asks: "What are the lived experiences of mothers who follow the principles of a real food, ancestral diet as informed by the research of Dr. Weston A. Price?" A secondary purpose of this study is to highlight the intersectional space between maternal autonomy and agency, an ecology of care based on eco-spiritual, eco-ethics and eco-feminist values, and a subculture of mothers who are both informed by and inform the evolving narrative of the food and farming movement.;Stories collected are in the form of in-depth interviews, from a small, purposeful sample of mothers who live in the continental United States, all who are or were members of the Weston A. Price FoundationRTM. This inquiry falls within a critical feminist and participatory paradigm; the methodological approach a qualitative narrative inquiry. |
