Few tropical fruits are as versatile as coconuts. These unique, round drupes, whose name derives from the sixteenth century Spanish word for “head” or “skull,” are processed around the world to make coconut milk, flour, sugar, and butter, countless soap and cosmetic products, and, of course, coconut oil – one of the greatest superfoods on Earth. In fact, coconut products have become so popular in the West that we often overlook the fruit in its…
Spirulina is a type of green algae that grows in fresh water bodies. It is a survivor plant which, unlike most flora, is able to withstand considerable temperature variations and still thrive. It is cultivated worldwide and has been harvested as a food source for thousands of years. According to David Wolfe, author of the excellent book, Superfoods: The Food and Medicine of the Future, spirulina is one of the most nutritious foods in the…
Many cultures throughout history understood that certain colloids – solutions in which one substance is evenly dispersed throughout another substance at the microscopic level – contained important medicinal properties. After all, if a certain substance possessed proven healing properties in its natural state, then its colloid form – which increases its surface area and absorption levels – would naturally intensify those properties. Below is a list of three popular colloids available today and the conditions…
Statistics show that approximately 10 percent of the American population suffers from depression, and that number is on the increase. While most of these people suffer from sporadic bouts of depression, others often endure it their whole lives. Consequently, many of them resort to antidepressants to alleviate their low moods – drugs which have notorious side effects and can, in many cases, render them zombie-like and detached from reality. Fortunately, the natural world is bursting…
The doctrine of signatures is an ancient herbalist philosophy attributed to Paracelsus (1491-1541) and later popularized by the German shoemaker Jakob Bohme (1575-1624). It states that all fruits and vegetables share aesthetic properties or “signatures” with the organ they benefit. While allopathic medicine has attempted to write off the doctrine as superstition, studies have repeatedly shown that its core principles are true. The kidney bean, for example, not only resembles a kidney in shape and…
