In the arena of natural health we are currently experiencing a double renaissance of sorts, functional mushrooms and the microbiome and health. While mushrooms have been utilized traditionally in some cases for thousands of years it has only been in the last decade or so that the West has started to take them seriously, consumers, practitioners, and researchers have all…

Three hearts? How can this be? “I may not have paid much attention in high school biology but I’m pretty sure there is only one heart.” Well, you’re right… and not right. There’s the first heart, the one we are all familiar with, the four chambered organ in our chest that is responsible for pumping blood throughout the body. Next…

Welcome to part 4 in our series on how to get, maintain, and maximize your immune health. Part 4 is probably the section that most folks have been looking for, actual supplements that can support and benefit your immune system. In previous posts we looked at the importance and impact of what we eat, the rest we get, stress, and…

The original intent of this “addendum” to our immune series was to solely focus on the challenge that added sugars pose to our immune system. As I delved deeper and deeper into the research on added sugar’s impact on our immune system it became clear that it made the most sense to expand the effects of sugar to our overall…

While the majority of articles about supporting a healthy immune function tend to focus on nutrients and botanicals that directly affect the immune system, what is often overlooked is the significant impact that immune stressors have on immunity. Immune stressors are lifestyles or foods that interfere or suppress a healthy and balanced immune response. In part II we went into…

The U.S spends more on “health care” per capita than any other country, and yet, out of eleven economically advanced countries examined, the health-adjusted life expectancy for the U.S. comes in last. Clearly something is not working with our current system and perspective. As I mentioned in Part I, the most promising approach to health, vitality, and particularly immune health…

There’s a saying, “May you live in interesting times”. The message behind this is that while it looks like it is something of a blessing, it turns out to not actually be well wishes, rather it’s something of a curse. While it is said to have originated in ancient China, it turns out it is a modern contrivance, regardless, it…

We all want and expect quality products. If it says vitamin C on the label, we want it to be vitamin C in the product. If it says Echinacea flower then it should be Echinacea flower, not root or anything else. And the same of course goes for mushrooms, if the product says it is Reishi mushroom then it should…

Ever wonder how our long-ago ancestors knew what herbs were safe to use? Or what they were good for? There are several theories, watching animals, looking at how and where they grow (doctrine of signatures), or even trial-and-error. None of these seem to explain it all. For instance, estimates have been made that the trial-and-error method simply doesn’t make sense…

Webster’s defines “extract” as “to draw forth”, or “to pull out”, and this is precisely what we are trying to do when extracting our mushrooms. The goal is to draw forth as many of the mushroom’s “goodies” (bio-active constituents) as we can with the process. Extraction is simply the process of freeing up the active compounds from the inert structural…