If you imagine stepping from a freezing December day into a sweltering July day, you can only marvel at the body’s ability to adjust to new seasons. Beneath the surface, your body works hard to transition to new seasonal conditions. More than 5,000 genes change their expression from one season to the next, according to…
Most adults catch between two and four colds a year and the average infant or child catches from six to ten colds a year. That means, in our lifetimes, most of us will have a cold or flu for between two and three years. That’s a lot of Kleenex. Immune Boosters The good news…
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,…
It’s spring and it’s gardening time again! It was the shortest winter in history (although I perhaps would not have said that mid-January). I planted a few of our beds a couple of weeks ago. It’s our seventh gardening season in our backyard, and I actually sort of know what I’m doing now. It helps…
Your mouth probably puckers at the thought of eating something bitter. But according to many experts, including clinical herbalist Guido Masé and integrative physician Tiearona Low Dog, a small dose of bitter can prevent and cure a litany of complaints. Why do we need bitter foods? Masé explains that plants developed bitter compounds to stop…
Cough, cough, cough. Cough, cough, cough. That’s how our household sounds this week. So it was with interest that I read that infused Douglas-fir needles are a traditional cough remedy. Douglas-fir needles? They’re everywhere here; they dust the sky and litter the ground. And yet I’d never thought to ingest them. According to botanist and…