Zoopharmacognosy and Supplementation
Zoopharmacognosy is the science of how animals naturally self-medicate in the wild. Animals under human care have an innate ability to do this, but they are just not given the opportunity. Best care practices start with recognizing the importance of zoopharmacognosy; “zoo-” meaning encompassing all animals, “pharma” meaning medicine, and “-cognosy” meaning knowing. Animals have the “-cognosy”, or the knowing, of their natural roots of self-medicating from nature's ground and in the ocean.
Along the road of evolution, through trial and error, animals have used their natural instinct to learn which of nature's bounty could heal them. This was not really used until 30 years ago when Dr. Eloy Rodriguez, a biochemist and professor at Cornell University coined the term “zoopharmacognosy”. Dr. Pestano, Dr. Jo’s mom, studied and researched with him in the Peruvian Amazon, which helped her education into becoming an orthomolecular nutritionist, who now for over 40 years has formulated her own supplements for humans while always going back to her roots of zoopharmacognosy.
