Wheatgrass is a gluten-free food prepared from the young shoots of the wheat plant, Triticum aestivum, which grows in temperate regions throughout Europe and the United States. Consumption of wheatgrass only became popular in the Western world in the 1930s, when an American chemist, Charles L. Schnabel (now known as the “father of wheatgrass”), began to popularize it. Schnabel became well-known in the 1940s for stating that “fifteen pounds of wheatgrass is equal in overall…
Along with coconut oil, eggs were one of the biggest victims of Dr. Ancel Keys’s popular “lipid hypothesis” of the 1950s, which claimed a link between high fat consumption and heart disease. A decade thereafter, the humble egg shifted from being a staple breakfast item of Westerners to public enemy number #1 – a food so radiant with Lovecraftian malevolence that even being in the same room as one could induce atherosclerosis by proxy. Okay,…
“Vitamin E” is an umbrella term for a group of 8 fat-soluble compounds that are found in a wide variety of whole foods. These compounds, of which alpha-Tocopherol is the most biologically active, have a large number of functions in the body. This article takes a closer look at those functions and provides information on how much of the vitamin our bodies need daily. What Vitamin E Does for Us Antioxidant properties – Like vitamins…
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…
Vitamin K is a group of fat-soluble vitamins that are primary found in leafy green vegetables. Within this group are three naturally-occurring forms of the vitamin: vitamin K1 and vitamin K2. In medicine, K1 (which is synthesized by plants) is the preferred form of vitamin K because it is more potent, less toxic, works faster, and works better at treating certain conditions than K2. However, vitamin K2 (which is produced by the intestinal bacteria of…
