Quality nutrition is so important for healing and maintaining our physical body. Embracing this stewardship is my passion as a nutritional therapist. However, when quality nutrition also builds community and local economy, holistic health is truly cultivated.This makes me even more ecstatic! Therefore, this will be my first of many articles spotlighting what our local community has to offer--which I will share from time to time! This last week, my diet was exotically broadene

How often have you thought that the health or disease you experience is based upon your parents’ health (your genetics) rather than your own dietary choices? Well, the reality is, it’s a combination of the two—which should leave us both sober and hopeful. Even though we reap the consequences of the previous generation we still have the responsibility to take care of our own health and the health of the generations after us. This principle was powerfully revealed through the r

Observation: an act or instance of regarding attentively; something that is learned in the course of observing things How often do we go through life doing, caught up in the busyness and demands of the day but never taking time to be attentive and learn. When this becomes the life-long pattern of an entire culture, we risk the danger of being subject to unhealthy routines--unobservant of a decay of standards in function. However, when we take time to reflect and process our “

In a time of crisis, when livelihoods are threatened, the routines which maintain our health are often compromised. This is typically unavoidable and necessary. However, after the crisis is dispelled, it is vital that we re-establish healthy lifestyles rather than settling into a lower standard. Unfortunately, this is exactly what we did not do after the major changes which occurred in our food system during the era of the Second World War. The year was 1940. The United State

There once was a day when the producer and consumer of a food product were one in the same. Or, at the least, the producer and the consumer interacted at the point of sale and were likely part of the same community. Food was simply food, rather than a box of ingredients. When this simplicity was lost with the advent of the industrial revolution and food giants (discussed in previous articles), a need for government regulation of food arose. This week I want to take a brief lo

Although scientific advancements will often lead a shift in culture, as we saw through the Industrial Revolution, more often than not, there are also other influencing factors centered around personal profit and the dominance of individual companies. This is what we will discover today as we evaluate some of the products produced by the “food giants” who began to shape our food industry around the turn of the 20th century. First of all, who are the food giants? Companies like

The creativity and innovation of mankind can produce incredible and rapid change. Through periods of history, this is evident as lifestyles transformed due to the modern inventions of the day. However, often times there were negative consequences that resulted from these modernizations. This is what we will evaluate today as we discuss the impacts which the Industrial Revolution had upon our food system. Before the age of the 1700’s, most people lived on farms and were thus s

Without receiving a great exhortation about the negative impact of sugar on our health, most individuals would agree that the average American should consume less sugar. However, despite this acknowledgement, sugar consumption continues. This can be contributed to two primary factors: first, sugar is in SO MANY common foods and secondly, sugar is highly addictive. Has this delicious, but drug-like ingredient always been an issue? Join me for our first investigation into the h

“If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree.“ ~Michael Crichton When the history of food is forgotten- the traditions of agriculture, manufacturing and processing to which thriving cultures adhered for centuries- our understanding of nourishment and maintaining health is blurred. If we will investigate and dig into our history now, it will benefit our health moving forward. Perspective is thus the tool we ne