Articles

Food preservation through fermentation is one of the oldest human traditions, alongside fire and cooking.  Beginning as a survival strategy to preserve food crops for times when nutrition was scarce, the tradition continues to this day throughout almost all human cultures, as the powerful health benefits of carefully curated food fermentation processes became well known.Microbes like bacteria, mold and yeast permeate nature in every form.  This includes our bodies, as well.  Amazingly, microbes are vital to our health, and control many functions in our bodies, especially within our gut microbiome.  The microbiome is our microbial genome, containing hundreds of times...

According to historical records, the burning of incense began around 6,000 years ago, and is considered to be one of the first fragrant materials to be used intentionally by humans.  It began alongside the uprising of the first great civilizations of Mesopotamia and Egypt, and has been an integral part of most great cultures and religions of the world since that time.  The word incense comes from the Latin word incendere, meaning “to burn”.  Although burning incense has many practical uses, such as repelling insects and acting as an antimicrobial therapeutic agent to assist in the healing of disease, its...

Herbalism is an ancient tradition of wildcrafting, growing, harvesting, processing, utilizing, and consuming plants and substances from nature for the benefit of human health, consciousness, and sustenance. For thousands of years, humans have been looking to the natural world for solutions in regards to health and wellness - long before the advent of modern medicine. Given thousands of years of human consumption, herbs have a verified track record of positive health benefits with an extremely low occurrence of side effects when properly utilized, compared to modern medicines utilizing isolated substances. Our collective understanding of herbs and how to prepare them...

There has been an ongoing debate in recent decades, especially in health conscious communities, about various fat and oil food sources.  Which are healthy and which are harmful?  We know that our ancestors regularly consumed animal fats, and they are said to have thrived on these foods.  Then several decades ago, it was suddenly announced that animal fats are harmful, and the cause of many chronic health issues.  The public was advised to replace animal fats with a new kind of oil that could only be produced in industrial factories.Seed oils, as they are commonly referred to, were proposed as...