Empowering Self-Reliance and Sustainable Living & Microbiomes
Empowering Self-Reliance and Sustainable Living & Microbiomes
Articles about minerals, nutrient balance, food quality, absorption and the relationship between soil fertility and human nutrition. These pieces often follow nutrients from the soil, into plants and food, and finally into human physiology.
I was reading about the latest dietary trend called “fiber maxxing,” where people deliberately try to push their fiber intake higher and higher, sometimes to 50 or 60 grams a day. I am certainly in favor of eating more fiber, especially when modern diets contain so little of it, but …
I have never been one for protocols, which is a little ironic because protocols are part of my work. I understand why people need them. I create recommendations, work with herbs, tinctures, minerals and food, and spend a lot of time looking at the terrain of the body. Personally, though, …
Magnesium is a funny mineral. It does not get the attention that calcium gets, and it certainly is not as glamorous as some of the supplements that come and go in popularity, yet quietly behind the scenes magnesium is involved in an extraordinary amount of what keeps us alive and …
I often see what I recognize as uric acid crystals when I am looking at live blood under the microscope. Sometimes there are only a few, and other times there are many scattered throughout the plasma. It is something I have seen often enough over the years that I recognize …
Every meal sets in motion a carefully coordinated process involving the liver, gallbladder, pancreas, intestines, microbiome, and the production, storage, release, and transformation of bile. The liver produces much of the cholesterol the body needs by assembling it from nutrients and smaller compounds created during the metabolism of fats, carbohydrates, …
What if I told you that your brain isn’t the only brain making decisions inside your body? It sounds impossible, yet hidden within the walls of your digestive tract is an intricate nervous system that is constantly gathering information, making adjustments, and communicating with your brain. Add trillions of microorganisms, …
One of the things I enjoy most about working with clients is that every person teaches me something new. Each case encourages me to ask more questions, read more research, and continue learning. I have never believed that we know everything there is to know about the human body. In …
I often wonder where my fascination with gardens, herbs, and growing food really began. Looking back, I think it started in my mother’s rose garden. I didn’t realize it then, but perhaps that was also the beginning of learning about self-reliance. As a little girl in England, I decided I …
This is a long article and was inspired because I was working with some workshop participants and friends and I wanted to go deeper into understanding the thyroid and most especially, Hashimotos. Over the years I have worked with many people diagnosed with Hashimoto’s thyroiditis and I did not have …
The body is always in motion. Blood moves through the arteries and veins, nutrients travel into the cells, waste products move out of the tissues, and the lymphatic system quietly gathers what needs to be cleared, recycled, or carried away. Beneath the skin there is a whole living landscape of …