Health

Simple Herbal Tonics: Brews for Beginners

Plants have been powerful allies for health and healing for as long as humans have lived. Herbal medicines can be effective remedies for ills as anyone who’s sipped on ginger tea for a stomachache can attest. They can also be powerful tonics for everyday health.

Many common plants are full of vitamins, minerals, proteins, antioxidants, essential fatty acids, and other nutrients. When you prepare them the right way, they’re transformed into nutrient-rich tonics, which boost health and well being. When I drink herbal tonics daily, my hair and skin shine and I feel calmer and more grounded.

Nourishing Herbal Tonics

If you’re new to using herbs, congratulations! Learning about herbalism is an amazing way to take charge of your health and form a deeper connection to nature. Check out my post Herbs Made Easy to learn more about the benefits.

I make herbal tonics using herbalist Susun Weed’s method. She advocates the art of simpling, which means using a single herb to make an infusion.

“In The Herbal Home Remedy Book, Joyce Wardwell lays out the four elements of simpling as follows:

Use mild herbs. These plants are commonly used as foods, safe for small children and the elderly, and they enhance the body’s capacity for healing.
Use large doses. Brew strong infusions, and drink them often.
Use the herbs that grow near you. The herbs that grown in your climate are the best adapted for the stresses the climate puts on your body.
Be patient. You’ll probably see some effects within three days or so, but sometimes it takes longer.

Pick an Herb to Infuse

Like Warwell, I’m a huge believer in consuming the plants that grow near you to help your body adapt to the environment and optimize your health. (You can learn more about the benefits of a local diet in my post Local, Seasonal Foods are Superfoods.)

Though a plant grows in your area, even outside your back door, it’s usually safer and easier for beginners to buy good-quality dried herb at a local health food or herb store. You can learn to harvest herbs later if you wish. (Check out my article Eating the Wild Plants in Your Backyard for a primer.)

Herbs are usually inexpensive by bulk. Look for herbs supplied by local organic growers or reputable wildcrafters, and make sure the store cleans and changes their jars or bins frequently. If you can’t get dried herbs where you live, mail-order them from Mountain Rose Herbs or another bulk herb company.

According to Weed, the following plants are highly nutritious, and side effects from consuming them are rare:

Alfalfa
Astragalus
Calendula flowers
Chickweed
Comfrey leaves
Dandelion
Honeysuckle flowers
Lamb’s quarter
Marshmallow
Oatstraw
Plantain (leaves and seeds)
Purslane
Red clover blossoms
Siberian ginseng
Slippery elm
Stinging nettle
Violet leaves

I usually stick to a few nutrient-rich herbs for my daily tonics, including:

Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica)

Weed calls nettles “one of the finest nourishing tonics known” and contends that “the list of vitamins and minerals in this herb includes nearly every one known to be necessary for human health and growth.”

According to Weed, nettle infusions supply calcium, phosphorus, and vitamins A and D, and they are in a readily assimilated form. Nettles also contain iron and vitamin C, and the vitamin C ensures the iron is well-absorbed by the body, making nettles an excellent remedy for anemia. Nettles are also high in protein. Their high vitamin and mineral content make nettles an excellent all-around tonic.

Nettles are also used to encourage the flow of breast milk in nursing women, lower blood sugar levels, slow profuse menstrual bleeding, treat eczema, heal arthritis and gout, and cure hay-fever allergy symptoms. Externally, nettle compresses can stop bleeding or heal hemorrhoids, eliminate dandruff, and slow hair loss. Does that sound like a lot of uses for one plant? Well, that’s far from all. Check out the book 101 Uses for Stinging Nettles by Piers Warren for more.

Alfalfa (Medicago sativa)

According to herbalist Michael Tierra, alfalfa means “father” in Arabic, perhaps referring to the plant’s “function as a superlative restorative tonic.” Alfalfa leaves are highly nutritious, containing vitamins C, D, E, and K, calcium, potassium, iron, phosphorus, manganese, and protein.

Alfalfa’s historically been used to restore vitality and increase appetite in both horses and people. It’s also used to treat cystitis, prostatitis, peptic ulcers, fever, insomnia, inflammation, and arthritis, as well as to increase the flow of breast milk in nursing women, reduce inflammation, and regulate the bowels.

Oatstraw (Avena sativa)

Oats are rich in silica, magnesium, phosphorus, chromium, iron, calcium, alkaloids, protein, the vitamin B complex, and vitamins A and C . Oat straw, the stem of the plant, nourishes the bones, endocrine system, immune system, and nerve cells and helps the body cope with insomnia, anxiety, and nerve disorders.

How to make a nourishing herbal tonic

Here is Susan Weed’s infusion method:

Place one ounce of dried herb (about a cup) in a quart jar.
Fill the jar to the top with boiling water
Put the lid on tightly and steep for four to 10 hours. (I usually let it steep overnight.)
Strain and pour a cup, and store the rest in the refrigerator.
Drink two to four cups a day.
Drink the entire infusion within 36 hours or until it spoils. (You’ll be able to tell by the smell.)
Use whatever remains to water house plants, or pour over your hair after conditioning as a final rinse.

If you don’t love the taste of the infusion but want to reap the benefits, try adding a tablespoon of dried mint to the herb before you infuse it.

Nettles, alfalfa, and oat straw are mild herbs that have been ingested for thousands of years with excellent safety records, however they may not be for everyone. If you have a medical condition or take any medications, check with your doctor, an herbalist, or a pharmacist first.

It’s a good idea for everyone to be cautious about what goes into your body. Read about the herbs you plan to take, and be alert to the rare potential for an allergic reaction or side effects. But don’t forget to enjoy yourself! Nutritious herbal tonics are amazing additions to a healthy and happy life.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Load up on vitamins without supplements by making simple, restorative herbal tonics. #health #herbs” quote=”Load up on vitamins without supplements by making restorative herbal tonics.” theme=”style1″]

Sources:
The New Age Herbalist by Richard Mabey
The Herbal Home Remedy Book by Joyce A. Warwell
The Way of Herbs by Michael Tierra
Herbal for the Childbearing Year by Susan Weed
The Herb Book by John Lust

If you liked this post, you may enjoy these related articles:

[Editor’s Note: This is an updated and revamped version of a post originally published on June 3, 2009, Photo credit: Caitlin Regan, modified]

Save

12 Easy Ways To Use Less Plastic

By Abby Quillen

We live in a plastic world. It’s hard to believe the substance only came on the scene about 155 years ago when Alexander Parkes, an Englishman, mixed collodion, camphor, and ethanol together in 1862. Then in 1907 Leo Baekeland created an entirely synthetic plastic from phenol and formaldahyde and coined it Bakelite. Its chemical name is harder to pronounce: polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride.

Imagine how novel this cheap, light, colorful material was to people accustomed to glass, clay, and cast iron, and it’s easy to appreciate the zeal for plastic in the last century. Think of sixties housewives furnishing their homes with fiberglass tables and chairs, donning polyester dresses, and hosting Tupperware parties on the weekends. Plastic wasn’t just for adornment either. It brought real progress – film, vinyl records, cassette tapes, compact discs, computers, artificial heart valves, prosthetic body parts, contact lenses, and more.

Recently, however, the fervor for plastic has given way to anxiety. Why?

Health concerns

People began questioning what’s in the long chains of unpronounceable chemicals filling our homes. What are our babies sucking on when we hand them a pacifier, bottle, or teething ring?

Bisphenol A, a chemical used in polycarbonate plastics – including pipes, dental fillings, water bottles, canned food, and many food wrappers – has come under fire. Bisphenol A is a “xenoestrogen” – a known endocrine disruptor. Numerous animal studies have found effects on fetuses and newborns exposed to it. Nearly everyone in the U.S. is exposed to it because polycarbonate plastic breaks down over time and leaches BPA into our bodies. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) found detectable levels of BPA in the urine of 93% of people they tested.

In 2007, 38 experts agreed that the average levels of BPA in people are above those known to cause harm to animals. A panel convened by the U.S. National Institutes of Health stated there’s “some concern” about BPA’s effects on fetal and infant brain development.

Manufacturers rushed to take BPA out of water and baby bottles. But in 2013, scientists discovered Bisphenol S (BPS) and Bisphenol F (BPF), the substances manufacturers used to replace BPA in products, also break down, leach into the body, and may damage human cells. BPS was found in 81 percent of random urine samples.

And those aren’t the only chemicals known to be toxic. In 1999, the European Union banned all pthalates, chemicals used to soften plastic, in childrens’ toys because they can leach out of plastic when chewed or sucked and may cause cancer, mutations, and reproductive damage. The U.S. didn’t follow the EU’s lead in banning pthalates in children’s toys until 2017, so pacifiers and teething rings manufactured before then may contain them.

Even if we stop eating off or chewing on plastic, the plastic manufacturing process has health implications. When Formosa Plastics Corp. built a factory in southeast Texas, ranchers noticed their steers losing weight, cows miscarrying more frequently, and calves being born with birth defects or stillborn. Texas A & M researchers discovered DNA damage in the cows living near the factory. The cattle downwind had the most damage.

Planetary Waste Crisis

Every time someone eats a tub of salsa, drinks a Styrofoam cup of coffee, sips on a bottle of Aquafina, or says yes to a plastic bag at the supermarket, a plastic container gets dumped. Plastic recycling rates have been dismal and stand to get much worse. Until 2017, only about nine percent of the plastic consumed in the U.S. was recycled, including about 23 percent of all plastic bottles, 12 percent of bottled water containers, and 1 to 3 percent of plastic bags.

To make things worse, in 2017, China announced it would no longer accept most of the U.S.’s recycled plastic because of public health concerns. The U.S. was exporting a third of its recycled plastics to other countries for processing, and half of that was shipped to China. China’s announcement led many U.S. municipalities to halt plastics recycling, forcing consumers to throw plastic waste in the garbage.

Scientists estimate it will take between 400 and a million years for most plastic products to biodegrade. Plastic is littering our roadways, filling our landfills, mucking up our waterways, and killing marine life.

A huge soup of plastic waste in the Pacific Ocean is estimated to be somewhere between the size of Texas to twice the size of the continental United States. According to one estimate, over a million seabirds and more than 100,000 marine mammals die every year from ingesting plastic debris.

A non-renewable resource

Plastic is a petroleum by-product, and more Americans are looking critically at our reliance on petroleum products. We had a devastating look at the downsides of petroleum extraction and distribution when thousands of gallons of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico after BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in 2009.

And it’s not just massive oil spills that pollute our environment. Minor petroleum leaks and spills contaminate soils or wash into storm drains and pollute waterways.

Petroleum extraction is also responsible for a myriad of social and political troubles around the world.

Is it time to part with polymers?

Americans throw away 60 million plastic bottles every day according to the Clean Air Council, and many of us are looking for ways to generate less waste.

Here are 12 easy ways to use less plastic:

Carry a stainless steel coffee mug or water bottle.
Factor packaging into your decision-making. If you can afford to buy the glass jar of tomato sauce instead of a can or plastic bottle, consider whether it’s worth a little extra cash to you. (Cans are lined with plastic, and 40 percent still contain BPA.)
Bring reusable bags to the store. Keep some in your car or bike basket so you don’t forget them. Transport produce in reusable bags or a basket.
Just say no to straws. Americans throw away 500 million straws per day.
Buy food from the bulk section when possible. Refill glass jars with syrup, cooking oil, nut butters, shampoo, etc at a local health food store. Ask the checkout person to weigh your jars before you fill them and write the tare weight on the lid.
Store food in jars or cloth bags. You can freeze leftovers, breast milk, or baby food in jars if you leave a little room at the top and thaw them slowly.
Cook from scratch. Processed food, take-out containers, and to-go beverages are usually packaged in plastic, styrofoam, or plastic-lined materials.
Use cloth diapers and/or reusable menstrual products.
Use a Bento lunchbox.
Make your own detergents, cleaners, and toiletries, such as deodorant, bath salts, and shampoo and conditioner.
Buy products in larger quantities to reduce packaging waste. For instance, get the largest sizes of detergent and bath tissue.
Avoid buying flimsy plastic toys and trinkets that you’ll throw away quickly. Keep plastic away from babies or toddlers who will chew on it.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Depressed about throwing plastic in the garbage? Check out these 12 Easy Ways to Use Less Plastic. #plasticfree” quote=”Depressed about throwing plastic in the garbage? Check out these 12 Easy Ways to Use Less Plastic.” theme=”style1″]

Reduce and Reuse

Scientists, governments, and consumers are just beginning to reckon with the planetary crisis of plastics pollution. We need large-scale solutions to address the problem. However, in the meantime, it’s up to all of us to use less plastic.

[Editor’s note: This is an updated and revamped version of a blog post originally published on June 19, 2009.]

Are you finding ways to use less plastic? I’d love to hear your ideas in the comments!

If you liked this post, you may like these related posts:

Save

Struggling to Keep a Resolution? Try This.

By Abby Quillen

Do you make New Year’s resolutions? If so, you’re in good company. In surveys, nearly half of people say they usually do. The most common resolutions are to lose weight, exercise more, quit smoking, reduce debt, and manage money better.

Do you keep your resolutions? Unfortunately, if you’re like 92 percent of resolution makers, you may struggle to follow through.

Here’s why: Intention is important, but there’s a far more powerful step to making a change in your life. Design a system that supports your desired habit.

Keep reading to learn why designing a system is a crucial (but sometimes forgotten) part of changing a habit. Then discover how to create effective systems to:

Get out of debt
Save money
Eat healthier
Get fit

How to Change a Habit

Why does it usually feel so difficult to change a habit? You can blame your highly efficient brain. A habit has three parts: a trigger, a response, and a reward.

When you repeat the same trigger, response, and reward for about 60 days, your brain identifies it as a habit and moves it to the basal ganglia, deep brain structures responsible for unconscious motor behaviors.

After this, when you notice the trigger, your pre-frontal cortex prompts the basal ganglia to automatically initiate the response. That’s why it feels like you’re not in control of your habits — and why it can feel difficult to change them.

Here’s the good news: You can change a habit, and it doesn’t need to be that hard. But it pays to understand systems thinking, which is how structure helps create the conditions we face.

Because we like to think we’re in control of our habits, we often underestimate how much the design of the environment impacts our lives.

Systems Matter

For instance, you may think your health is in your own hands and determined by whether you decide to hit the salad bar or lace up your running shoes. But the design of your environment has a big impact on your actions.

Did you know the more intersections there are in your city, the less likely you are to suffer from obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, or heart disease? That’s because you’re more likely to walk or bike when your city’s infrastructure is designed for it.

The same thing is true of the infrastructure of your house. In cultures where people don’t have furniture and need to squat on the floor to sit and prepare food, people tend to stay agile into old age.

Here’s the bottom line: If you want to change something about your life, think about which structures are in place to support your old habit.

Unfortunately, the larger culture may be working against your healthy intentions. According to a recent study, only 3 percent of Americans have a healthy lifestyle, and the obesity rate is now up to 35 percent. We could clearly use some new society-wide systems.

But chances are, you can design a personal system to support your new habit. And when you do, you’ll be far more likely to follow through on your resolution. Here are some specific examples.

Design Your Life for Financial Security

Do you want to pay off debt, save money, or invest more? Here’s a surefire system to get on track. Set up your bill payments, savings deposits, and investment deposits to happen automatically. I resisted doing this for years, but once I did, my family’s finances improved dramatically.

You’ll need to set aside time to make a budget and then connect your accounts to your checking account or a credit card. If you have an employer, you may be able to also automatically divert some of your paycheck into savings and an investment account every time you get paid.

Don’t take an out-of-sight out-of-mind approach though. Sign up for alerts to find out what’s being withdrawn from your account. Then keep an eye on your account to make sure the appropriate amounts come in and out.

A company could accidentally overcharge you, although I haven’t had a problem in five plus years of automatically paying our bills.

Once a year, go through your bills to determine if you still need the service or can get a better deal with a different plan or company.

Design a Better Diet

If your resolution is to eat healthier, here are three systems to help you eat better:

Grow a vegetable garden
Join a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program
Plan your meals.

When you garden or join a CSA (a weekly box of produce bought directly from a local farm), you increase your consumption of fruits and veggies and build your meals around the freshest, most nutritious produce available. (Check out this article to learn more reasons Local, Seasonal Foods are Superfoods.)

People who cook their meals at home also eat healthier without even trying. Planning meals makes cooking easier because it prevents the horrible feeling of staring into an empty fridge with no idea what to make when you’re hungry. If you’ve never planned your meals, it’s simple. For inspiration and ideas, check out this article I wrote on the subject for Fix.com.

Design Your Life for Fitness

Want to get in shape this year (without buying an expensive gym membership)? Here are four ways to design your life for more physical activity:

Walk, bike, or ride public transit to work

Active commuting is a powerful way to improve your health. Regular walking is the best thing you can do to maintain a healthy weight, according to a British study. Cycling to work can decrease your risk of getting cancer by 45 percent and heart disease by 46 percent, according to another study. And in a different study, public transit riders were the healthiest of all commuters, probably because they ended up walking most. Bonus: This change is also good for the environment, and it may help you save money.

Exchange a car trip per day for a walking or bike trip

Not everyone loves going for a walk. Just ask my kids. But walking to do an errand feels more authentic than going for an aimless walk. Make it a regular errand, and you’ll build regular exercise into your life. Aim for a 20 to 30 minute walk a day to meet the government’s health recommendations.

Remodel your house with health in mind

Most people’s houses are designed for sitting, but there’s no reason you can’t redesign your home for better health. Some people are outfitting their houses with monkey bars, mini trampolines, pull up bars, or climbing walls, and even transitioning to furniture-free living.

Redesigning your kitchen in subtle ways can make a big difference as well. Did you know you’re likely to eat about 13 percent less food if you use a small plate? You’ll also eat less food if the color of your food contrasts with the color of the plate.

Join a fitness streaming membership

Whether you love pilates, yoga, qigong, tai chi, barre 3, or any other type of workout, chances are you can stream unlimited videos in your living room affordably. That means you’ll know exactly where to go when it’s time to work out, which can help cut the paralysis from having too many choices. I love Essentrics and YoQi, which are each $15 a month. And there are many, many more options.

Conclusion

Old habits can be hard to break. Set yourself up for success by designing a system to make your resolution a reality.

If you liked this post, you may enjoy these similar posts:

Save

Try This Before Eliminating a Food Group

By Abby Quillen

Most women I know have cut out dairy, gluten, grains, legumes, or soy or experimented with a diet that eliminates a food group, such as Paleo, Keto, or Whole 30. Some men I know have too. I’ve been there as well. (More on my story below.)

Here’s what I wish I could tell my younger self: A restrictive elimination diet may not be the only or best answer. There’s another approach to vibrant health, one that your grandmother probably knew, and one that’s emphasized by many traditional healing practices, including Traditional Chinese Medicine and Ayurveda. It’s called nourishment, and your body, mind, and spirit may be craving it.

Are you well nourished? Even asking yourself the question is a little radical. Our culture doesn’t put much value on nourishment. Doctors, workplaces, therapists, schools, and the media rarely mention it. But it may be time to put more of your focus on nourishing yourself, especially if you’re struggling with your mental or physical health.

My Elimination Diet

When I was 20 and in college, I developed digestive issues and broke out in rashes. My doctor suggested I eliminate dairy from my diet. I followed his advice and felt better. His theory was that I’d developed an allergy to a dairy protein and may outgrow the allergy at some point. Over the next decade, I tried eating dairy a few times and experienced the same symptoms.

Then, at age 32, between my two pregnancies, I tried dairy again. This time, I had zero reactions, and I’ve eaten it ever since. In hindsight, though, I don’t think I outgrew my allergy. At 20, I ate a lot of processed, fake, “fat-free,” and junk foods. But by my thirties, I ate a healthy diet of real food, including plenty of fruits and vegetables, grains, and meat. I was nourishing my body better, and while I was at it, I was nourishing vast ecosystems inside my body.

Science Catches Up With Traditional Wisdom

Scientists sequenced the DNA of the human gastrointestinal microbiome in 2012 and discovered we share our bodies with trillions of microscopic organisms, which are organized into ecosystems that resemble forest ecosystems.

The balance of predators and prey determine the health of an ecosystem. In a 1966 experiment, scientists removed the purple starfish from the Washington coast, and the population of mussels (the purple starfish’s food source) exploded and crowded out all other plant life. When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone Park, they regulated the elk population, which triggered a bioligical cascade that increased the number of willow, aspens, beetles, beavers, ravens, eagles, magpies, coyotes, bears, lynxes, and wolverines. Something similar can happen in your interior wilderness based on what you eat.

When the predators and prey in your microbiome are unbalanced, it’s called dysbiosis. This can result from taking antibiotics or using antiseptics, and it can also be caused by diet. Many conditions we once attributed to other causes have now been linked to diet-induced dysbiosis. The composition of your intestinal microbiota can influence your susceptibility to:

Ulcerative colitis
Crohn’s disease
Celiac disease
Irritable bowel syndrome
Obesity
Type 1 diabetes
Type 2 diabetes
Autoimmune diseases
Arthritis and other inflammatory condition
Food allergies

The Downside of Elimination Diets

Approximately 20 percent of the population have food allergies or sensitivities. Many more people try restrictive diets for other reasons, such as to lose weight, have more energy, or improve general health. But, just as with medications, strict diets can have unintended side effects.

First of all, diets that ban whole, nutrient-dense foods (such as dairy) may encourage people to reach for heavily processed alternatives.

Furthermore, restrictive diets impact social relationships, which are incredibly important for health and happiness. Humans have been gathering together to break bread for at least three centuries, and food is one of the primary ways we connect. Not being able to enjoy food with other people can be isolating and lonely. Restrictive diets also make travel more difficult, especially to foreign locales. Restrictive diets can have even more damaging effects for children. Childhood food allergies are linked with anxiety, compulsive behaviors, and eating disorders.

Please don’t feel bad or guilty if you’re on an elimination diet or if you’ve put your kid on one. Remember, I was on one for years. I only want to mention that there’s an alternate approach that may be just as healing. If you’re in search of better health, clearer skin, or more energy, or if you’d like to relieve gastrointestinal symptoms (that are not severe or life threatening), you may want to first try healing your gut with better nourishment. There are zero down sides to adopting a more nourishing diet. If you’re on an elimination diet and need to stay on one, you could probably also benefit from putting more focus on nourishment.

A Nourishment Crisis

Although Americans eat enough calories, 85 percent of us do not consume the recommended daily intake of the most important vitamins and minerals necessary for health.

The reasons are many fold. Seventy percent of the American diet is processed, and we tend to choose less nutritious foods over nutrient-dense whole foods. We eat almost no wild foods, which usually contain far more nutrients than their cultivated counterparts. Moreover, our crops are less nutritious than they were fifty years ago because industrial agriculture prizes shelf life over nutrition. The protein, calcium, potassium, iron, and vitamins B2 and C in our food supply are declining.

Not Just About Food

Moreover, nourishment is not just about food. Americans are chronically undernourished in two other key ways that have an impact on our nutrient levels: physical activity and relaxation.

Frequent movement is what circulates nutrients to our bones, joints, ligaments, connective tissue, and organs. However, 80 percent of Americans do not exercise, and we walk about half as many steps as health experts recommend.

Americans are also under constant stress, which floods our bodies with hormones that deplete certain nutrients and trigger the gut microbiota to behave erratically. We can be nourished by long walks, time outdoors, time with friends, meditation, or time alone. What would your life look like if you put your focus on nourishing yourself?

A Recipe for Better Nourishment

1. Eat real food

As Americans have transitioned to a diet of mostly processed foods, the above illnesses linked with gut dysbiosis have become epidemic. You don’t need to worry about measuring micro-nutrients to nourish your microbiome. Simply eat a wide variety of minimally processed, colorful, nutritious foods, such as:

Leafy greens
Seaweed
Fish, meats, and organ meats
Whole grains
Legumes
Vegetables
Fruits and berries
Nuts and seeds
Fermented vegetables and dairy
Full fat dairy products

2. Go wild

Wild foods are usually far more nutritious than their cultivated counterparts. Humans once had a 100 percent wild diet and now we eat almost none. It’s easy to learn how to identify, forage, and prepare a few wild foods, some of which may be growing in your backyard:

Dandelion greens
Watercress
Purslane
Miner’s lettuce
Nettles
Wild mustard
Blackberries
Wild strawberries
Elderberries

3. Eat local and seasonal.

Industrial crop types are chosen for shelf life, not nutrient levels. Local and seasonal foods are usually fresher and more nutritious. (Learn more about the benefits of seasonal eating in my blog post Local, Seasonal Foods Are Superfoods).

4. Cook

Preparing whole foods from scratch is the most nourishing way to eat. According to research conducted at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, people who frequently cook meals at home eat healthier than those who cook less without even trying.

5. Stop the war on germs

Once you understand that you’re tending an internal ecosystem that’s vital to your health and well-being, it makes no sense to use products that claim to kill “99.9 percent of the germs” on your skin or in your mouth. Avoid antibiotics and antiseptics, including chlorinated tap water whenever possible. Also, limit your intake of processed foods, including sugar, high fructose corn syrup, artificial sweeteners, and food additives, which can contribute to dysbiosis when eaten in excess.

6. Move (a lot)

Just as a multivitamin doesn’t stand in for real food, a burst of “exercise” doesn’t stand in for frequent all-day movement. Here are some ways to make sure you’re nourishing every part of your body with frequent movement:

Set a pomodoro timer, and get up every 30 minutes to move around for five minutes.
Replace car trips with walking. Aim for 10,000 steps a day.
Vary your sitting positions, and alternate sitting with standing.
Nourish your cells with nutrients by doing full-body tasks, such as housework, cooking, yard work, and gardening.
Try a full-body movement practice, such as Restorative Exercise, Essentrics, Dance, Qigong, Tai Chi, Yoga, or Pilates.

7. Relax

Chronic stress is damaging to your body and microbiome. Here are some ways to turn on your body’s relaxation response, also called the “rest and digest” mode, and help your body absorb nutrients better:

Learn to breathe slowly
Turn off distractions when you’re eating.
Do a mindfulness practice.
Go for a walk everyday.

Focus on Nourishment

Elimination and cleansing diets are popular, but there may be another way to heal yourself. As many of our grandmothers knew, nourishment is the foundation for vibrant health and well-being.

If you liked this post, you may enjoy these related posts:

Save

Is Tap Water Disrupting Your Microbiome?

By Abby Quillen

Until recently, I didn’t filter my family’s water. This meant the water we drank, cooked with, showered with, bathed in, and used to water indoor and outdoor plants contained a small amount (up to four parts per million) of chlorine.

Of course, I would have preferred to drink water without chlorine. In fact, I would have preferred to drink pristine water from a high-mountain spring. But I accepted drinking a small amount of chlorine as an imperfect necessity, similar to breathing in automobile pollutants outdoors. I grew up drinking unfiltered water and swimming in a chlorinated pool, so chlorine didn’t feel like a huge health threat. Moreover, the Environmental Protection Agency contends water chlorination is unlikely to cause harm to human health.

But one day as I was feeding my sourdough starter, I had a revelation. I’m careful to boil and cool tap water for my starter because chlorine is toxic to microflora. (That’s why it’s added to tap water after all.) So why would I subject the microbiome in my mouth and gut and on my skin to it?

Befriending Bacteria

We’re in the midst of an exciting scientific paradigm shift. Scientists mapped the genome of the human microbiome in 2012 and discovered we have trillions of microbes living with us. If that discovery makes you want to reach for an antimicrobial agent, don’t do it! It would be impossible to wipe out your microflora. And when we disrupt it, we risk harm to ourselves. Research indicates microbes are critical to our health in amazing and surprising ways. They’re integral to the functioning of the gastrointestinal and immune systems, they help the body metabolize environmental pollutants, and they produce vitamins B, B12, K, thiamin, and riboflavin, which coagulate the blood.

Numerous conditions are linked to dysbiosis (an imbalance in microbiota), including inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, autism, cancer, gum disease, depression, acne, and other skin disorders. We don’t know if dysbiosis causes these disorders. But it’s notable that many of these disorders were uncommon until the last century, when we started waging a war on germs.

It’s now widely understood that antibiotics should only be prescribed when absolutely necessary. (In one study, a week-long course of antibiotics changed participants’ gut microbiota for up to a year.) It’s acknowledged that the antimicrobial agent Triclosan does more harm than good. Researchers are raising questions about the antiseptic mouthwash chlorohexidine, which dentists prescribe for gum disease. It’s linked to increased blood pressure because it kills beneficial bacteria in the mouth that help the body regulate blood pressure. (Moreover, it’s implicated in the growth of antibiotic-resistant superbugs.)

But what about chlorinated water? How does it affect our microflora?

“It’s something I’ve discussed with a number of other microbiologists,” Jeff Leach, a leading microbiome researcher, told Josh Harkinson for an article in Mother Jones. “In short, nobody has done the research, but we are certain that there is an impact.”

Caring for the Ecosystems Within

The human microbiome consists of vast ecosystems of species. They’re not random collections of floating microbes. They’re organized and structured and function like forest ecosystems.

If you’ve studied wildlife management, you know human actions can have hugely negative impacts on an ecosystem. For example, when scientists remove predators in an ecosystem, they can unwittingly transform a biodiverse habitat into a monoculture. In a 1966 experiment, scientists removed the purple starfish from the Washington coast. The population of mussels (the purple starfish’s food source) exploded and crowded out algae and other plant life.

If you’re a gardener, you’re probably more familiar with what happens when you clear the plants in a garden and leave behind bare soil. Weeds are usually eager to invade.

So what happens when we potentially restructure our inner ecosystems every time we take a sip of water? Are we wiping out beneficial microbes that keep pathogens in check? Could this help to explain why up to 75 percent of Americans have some form of gum disease (compared to 5 percent of people found in an ancient burial site)? Could it help to explain why inflammatory bowel diseases are now epidemic? We don’t know, but I’d like to see more research on the topic.

Public Health Concern

According to the majority of public health experts, chlorinated water is a triumph that has saved lives and dramatically decreased cholera, typhoid fever, and other deadly illnesses. This may be so. However, public health interventions must be routinely assessed. We need to weigh negative and positive implications in light of new understandings about human health. This is particularity true in the case of chlorination, which researchers have linked to higher incidences of bladder, rectal, and breast cancers. Chlorine is not considered a carcinogen. However, trihalomethanes and other organic compounds, which are byproducts of chlorination, are carcinogens.

Water chlorination started in 1908, and there may now be better ways to keep our water supply safe today, such as ozonation (used in Las Vegas, Canada, and Europe), ultraviolet light, or treating water with beneficial bacteria. While we wait for more research and new technology, though, you’ll need to take measures to remove the chlorine in your water if you don’t desire to drink it.

Conclusion

We are on the frontier of understanding how the health of the microbiome impacts human health. As more research accumulates, public health measures, medical practices, and self-care recommendations are likely to change. For now, it’s up to us to weigh the research and decide how to care for our bodies and the microbes that share them.

Photo credit: Steve Johnson

3 Powerful Reasons to Plant Flowers

By Abby Quillen

Whether they’re in the ground, in window boxes, in pots, or in a vase on your living room table, there’s such a thing as flower power.

Often the way our environment looks gets pushed to the bottom of our to-do lists. Yes, it would be nice to add a little beauty to our homes or yards, but there are more practical things to take care of, such as procuring food and keeping the children alive. For that reason, flowers once ranked low on my gardening to-do list. But I’ve changed my mind, and here’s why.

Flowers are Healing
[clickToTweet tweet=”Flower power is real. Indoor flowers are linked with health, energy, happiness, and compassion.” quote=”Flower power is real. Indoor flowers are linked with health, energy, happiness, and compassion.” theme=”style1″]

In one study, people who have flowers in their living area reported less anxiety and worry, more energy and happiness at work, and more feelings of compassion toward others. In another study, surgical patients with flowers or potted plants in their environment had lower blood pressure and reported less need for pain medication, better moods, and less anxiety and tiredness than patients without flowers.

Flowers Breed Biodiversity

Moreover, planting flowers is a small way to begin to change the devastating story of species loss.

What do flowers have to do with species loss?

We’re currently in a biodiversity crisis. (Biodiversity is the term scientists use to describe the abundant variety of life on Earth.) Alarmingly, the International Union for Conservation of Nature warns nearly a third of known species are threatened with extinction.

The culprit?

Us.

Especially our cities.

Urban sprawl is one of the leading causes of species endangerment; it contributes to the collapse of honey bee populations and the dramatic decline in Monarch butterfly colonies.

We need biodiversity. Plants and animals clean the air and water, create soil, pollinate crops, and recycle waste. It’s our life support system.

Feeling hopeless yet?

Don’t worry, I’m getting to the hopeful part.

A big part of the problem is that our cities are remarkably homogeneous. Ever wondered why nearly every city in the U.S. is covered in Kentucky bluegrass, even in the desert Southwest? We’ve transformed wide swaths of our country into relatively lifeless corridors, and pollinators have dwindling places to live, eat, and drink.

But we can make a difference. The Biodiversity in Urban Gardens (BUG) research project, a large-scale, eight-year British study, indicates what we plant in our yards and gardens can significantly impact the biodiversity of a city. By designing outdoor spaces to attract and accommodate birds, bats, bees, butterflies, beetles, and other small animals, we can create safe corridors for wildlife and protect endangered species.

Biodiversity depends on bugs.

Insects are food for a large number of species, including amphibians, reptiles, rodents, spiders, and birds. Plus, insects are pollinators, so they’re necessary for plant biodiversity.

How do you feed and attract insects? First, put the pesticides away! Then, plant flowers!

That’s right, those very same lifeforms that are healing to us can turn a lifeless lawn into a humming, buzzing, biodiverse place of life.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Don’t underestimate flowers. They’re powerful, healing, and essential for healthy ecosystems.” quote=”Don’t underestimate flowers. They’re powerful, healing, and essential for healthy ecosystems.” theme=”style1″]

Flowers Help Your Vegetable Garden Thrive

If you have a vegetable garden and you’re thinking the last thing you want to do is welcome more insects into your life, I can relate. But trust me, you want to plant flowers. Flowers have been shown to increase veggie yields and minimize pest damage because they attract beneficial pollinators and predators. In one study, farmers reduced cereal-leaf beetle damage in winter wheat fields by 62 percent by planting flower strips within rows of wheat. In another, farmers increased mango harvests by 40 percent when they planted native flowers nearby.

Flowers are Good for Everyone

When we plant flowers, everyone wins.

Humans have a disastrous track record when it comes to the environment, and it’s natural to feel paralyzed, grief-stricken, and angry about it.

Meanwhile, let’s plant flowers!

Welcoming biodiversity into yards and cities creates a welcoming space for all life.

If you liked this post check out these related posts:

Do you have a flower garden? What kind of insects and wildlife do you see in your yard?

Save

« Previous Page

Health

Before Footer

Ready to ramp up your content and see results? Drop me an email, and we'll find a time to chat.

Footer