Food and Health

Conventional, modern medicine handles acute illness and physical trauma brilliantly. But it doesn’t always cut it when it comes to prevention of chronic disease. Many people who are in constant pain, or who are suffering in other ways, become frustrated with the mainstream medical industry’s tendency to treat symptoms rather than addressing root causes. As a result, more and more people are turning to natural approaches in complement to the mainstream medical model. Here are six helpful resources to get you started with utilizing the power of natural medicine on your own health journey.

The Annals of Internal Medicine has published what many are calling the “red meat papers”, advising Americans that there’s no need to cut down on consumption of red and processed meats. But in reality, the red-meat papers are not a breakthrough study. In fact, they didn’t study anything at all. They merely re-examined the data using a tool that was designed for measuring the efficacy of pharmaceutical drugs, not lifestyle interventions. Then they declared that decades of research, regulations by international bodies, and common sense were wrong. If you want the facts, here’s what you need to know.

Maca root has gained popularity in the supplement aisle, but where does it come from, and what exactly is this vegetable? Does maca have any health benefits, and if so, are they worth giving it a try? Are there any reasons to avoid maca? Here’s what the current research says about maca root — and some easy ways to incorporate it into your diet if you want to do so.

Compost is nature’s ultimate closed-loop system, turning one generation of waste into the next generation of food. It’s good for the planet, it’s good for your conscience, and it can be a great way to replenish your soil, too! But if you don’t know what you’re doing, home composting can also turn into a great big pile of stinky mess. It can offend the neighbors, attract pests, and smell up your yard. What to do? Ask master gardener, Stacey Murphy, of course!

Pesticides are so widely used in our food system that it’s easy to assume that they must be safe. Unfortunately, that’s not always true. So what’s the truth about pesticides in food? Are any safe for you? Which ones are most dangerous to you and the environment? And what can you do to reduce your exposure?

School lunches programs provide critical nutrition for more than 30 million children in the United States and hundreds of millions worldwide. Yet they face deep challenges, and often set children on a path of lifelong addiction to unhealthy foods. Want to know the whole story, and find out how you can protect your family, and the next generation? Read on!

I always considered celery a pretty benign vegetable, but it seems most people either can’t get enough of it or can’t stand it. Either way, did you know that it actually has a lot of health benefits? Here are some reasons you may want to grab a stalk to munch on, as well as some new ways to give celery a shot.

School lunches don’t exactly have the best reputation. But for millions of kids, they are a critical source of nutrition and sometimes the only truly reliable meal of the day. And while there are some subsidy programs in place, many poor families are winding up in ever-deepening cycles of school lunch debt. Why is this happening? And what can we do about it?

According to the late comedian, George Carlin, the worst thing that can happen when you’re cleaning out the refrigerator is coming across something that you can’t identify: “Could be meat, could be cake. I’ve never seen anything like it. It looks like meat-cake.” Nobody likes throwing away food. Whether you tossed it into your fridge and forgot about it, or bought a fruit or vegetable on a whim and didn’t get around to preparing it before it went rotten, wasting food feels bad. The good news is that there are many ways to preserve and store produce that increase shelf life and increase the likelihood that you’ll use it. Not only that, but food storage done properly is good for your wallet, saves you time, and can even add flavor and nutritional value to your food.

Rates of type 2 diabetes have skyrocketed since the 1950s. But did you know that most cases can be prevented, and many can be reversed, with simple changes to diet and lifestyle? If you or anyone you love is concerned about diabetes or prediabetes, here are six resources you should know about.

Many foods sold in the United States are banned or fiercely regulated in other countries due to harmful additives, growth promoters, genetically engineered ingredients, herbicides, or other dangerous practices. Does this concern you? It should!

Is your cookware safe? Or is it off-gassing toxic chemicals that get into your food and body? This article examines the options out there so that you can make the best purchases for your health, the environment, and your cooking needs.