So let’s get off on the right foot. The title, “Top 11 Functional Mushrooms” is a bit of a hyperbole. I keep reading how titles nowadays need to have numbers in them to grab folk’s attention in this world of excessive information. It’s not that these mushrooms aren’t wonderful allies for our health, it’s just that, in all frankness, it’s…

Who wants to get smarter? Students? Yes. Gamers? Yes. Businesspeople? Yes. Older folks? Yes. Pretty much everybody I would think. So what can we do about it? Can we impact our brain health in any significant way? The answer to this is a resounding “YES”. Surveys found that maintaining our mental faculties is a leading health concern as we age…

Anti-oxidants. Free radicals. We’ve heard these mentioned so often over the last few decades, with one side arguing that anti-oxidants are ineffectual, while the other side sings their praises. How can there be such contradictory points of view? Well, for a number of reasons, but first, we need to acknowledge that the research has been quite mixed. One key reason…

The Japanese tea ceremony, known as Chanoyu or Sado, is a cultural practice that emphasizes the preparation and serving of matcha, a powdered form of green tea, in a specific traditional Japanese style. The ceremony is a highly choreographed ritual that has been practiced for centuries, and is often seen as a way to cultivate inner peace, mindfulness, and appreciation…

Seasonal allergies, aka allergic rhinitis, and commonly known as hay fever, affect many people during the spring, summer, and fall months. An allergy is the result of a hypersensitive immune reaction to an antigen. Allergic rhinitis is caused by an allergic response to airborne allergens such as pollen, dust mites, pet dander, and mold spores. When these allergens are inhaled,…

One of the things the last few years has taught us, or at least reinforced, is the importance of maintaining a healthy immune system. But, it’s not just our immune system we need to be attentive to, it’s our fur babies’ immune health as well. Our dog and cat family members are susceptible to immune stresses and strains pretty much…

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…