When I started Hearthwilde, my goal was to write about ways to connect to nature in order to heal the many divides that separate us. I didn’t intend to write about my health journey, but after developing Long Covid and debilitating food sensitivities, that is exactly what I needed to write about. Some of you…
Category: gut health
My 30 Plant Foods a Week – And Why I Eat Them
Eating 30 plant foods a week has a healing effect on health, and is even important for those with food sensitivities. Diversity on the plate leads to diversity in the gut. This simple strategy makes a huge difference to your microbiome, gut health, and immune system.
Soaking Rice for Improved Digestion and Nutrition
Dealing with SIBO and food chemical sensitivities, my diet has needed to change frequently over the past few years, but one part of my food prep routine has remained the same – I always soak rice before cooking it. In this blog post I’ll show you how I prepare brown rice prior to cooking, but…
The Cayenne Pepper Salicylate Experiment – Can a Plant Save Me?
I love plants – growing them, learning about them, seeing them in their natural habitats. I also love learning how humans and plants have interacted across time, with humans finding species for food and medicine, and in exchange, helping to spread these species far and wide. Plants were the original medicines, and for the…
My Experience with Gut Dysbiosis
The wind lifts and drops the branches of the box elders outside our kitchen window in front of a dark sky. Rain showers pelt down, and then disappear. The sun appears, seeming to banish the clouds, then rain returns, and the sky darkens again. The patterns of this moody weather are much like the ups…
An Experience with Histamine Intolerance
As I went through our garden and orchard this morning, watering our annuals and fruit trees, I marveled at how much better I felt today than yesterday. It was a reminder that sometimes the signs my body is sending me require a little deeper digging. A few days ago our Russian olive trees started blooming….
My Experience with Food Chemical Intolerance Symptoms
I wrote recently about some of the accomplishments I’m proud of from the last decade. Here’s one I’m less thrilled with: I have become an expert of sorts on food chemical intolerances, having developed four of them. A food chemical intolerance is different than a plain old food intolerance. With food chemical intolerance, rather than…
How SIBO Has Changed Me
Almost a year and a half after my SIBO diagnosis, I realize that dealing with this gut ailment has changed me in many ways. Some of theses changes are ones I’m happy to embrace, others are ones I’m hoping are temporary. Here’s a few ways that Small Intestine Bacteria Overgrowth has changed me: No More…
How I Use a Food Journal for Gut Health
The last few years of my life have been very centered around my gut health and food sensitivities – and I would have been truly lost in this process without keeping a food journal. I’m going to tell you what I include in my food journal and tell you the specific ways it has helped…
My Experience with GABA as a Sleep Aid
Me and my sleep have been through some rough times in the past few years. My troubled sleep has ranged in severity, from months of insomnia so bad that I would go for days without sleeping at all – to waking after just three or four hours and being unable to fall back asleep. For…
How I Discovered My Salicylate Sensitivity
It was summer and the wildfire smoke was at it again. I was feeling miserable, trying to hide indoors with air purifiers on full blast, and meanwhile I was having new food related symptoms. Confusing Symptoms I had already adopted a low histamine diet, reduced my oxalate intake, and was also avoiding FODMAPs for SIBO….
My Experience with Visbiome and SIBO
I was diagnosed with SIBO in late 2020, but believe I’ve been living with this condition for at least a decade and a half. Over the past year I’ve done everything I can to learn about the condition. I’ve also used antimicrobials, adopted a restrictive diet, kept a food journal, tried dynamic neural retraining, and…
Chayotes and Contemplating the Nature of the Self
I could say the past year has been an interesting one for me on an existential level, if I were to put things in a positive light. I keep having major life changes that seem to tell me, “Oh, you think that’s part of your personality, do you? Well what if we take it away?…
The Totally Unexpected Way I Reduced My Inflammation: A Low Oxalate Diet
A year ago today, my body was so inflamed, it seemed like everything hurt: my back and my joints in particular. I felt like my body was attacking itself and wondered if I had developed an autoimmune disease, which is why I tried the AIP diet. (AIP was not what I needed, it turns out.)…
Gut Health and SIBO – How I Finally Got Diagnosed
I’ve struggled with gut issues for over a decade and a half. With hindsight, I believe that I may have had SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth) this entire time without realizing it. I’m going to describe the history of my gut issues and the testing process in case this helps you finally get a diagnosis…
A Low Oxalate Garden
Since I began gardening seriously in 2013, I have always been focused on expansion. How can I grow the most diversity of foods? How can I incorporate perennials, fruit trees, shrubs, and unusual edibles into my landscape? It seemed silly to me that there were so many edible plants out there that were being overlooked…
Peeling the Onion – My Journey Towards Better Health
Have you ever stumbled across one of those blogs, one that has plenty of content and then stops pretty suddenly? This always makes me wonder what’s going on, what has happened in the writer’s life to stop them from writing. Well, it’s been about four months since my last post, and I’m going to tell…
Histamine Intolerance – The Weird Food Intolerance You’ve Probably Never Heard Of
If someone had told me three months ago that the weird constellation of symptoms I was experiencing was all connected and that to reign in my symptoms I would need to avoid eating leftovers, all fermented foods, and things like olives and pickles, I probably would have looked at that person and said, “Is this…
An End to Painful Periods
After years of thinking I’d be suffering from painful periods until menopause delivered me from my monthly cycle, I have found an unexpected release from my monthly pain. If you also suffer from painful periods, read on, this might hold the answer for you too. Ten Years of Suffering About ten years ago I was…
My Experience with Three Elimination Diets for Gut Health and Lowering Inflammation
Over the past year I’ve tried three different diets to help with my gastrointestinal issues and inflammation: the Low FODMAP diet, the Autoimmune Protocol (AIP) diet, and the Low Histamine diet. I kept a food journal while I did this to record my reactions and try to pinpoint which foods seemed to be causing me…
Cure for gluten sensitivity: Let them eat sourdough?
Gluten-free eating may seem to be just the latest diet trend… Yet, I seriously doubt that the many people buying gluten-free products are doing it for insincere reasons. I don’t usually buy or look for gluten-free labels when doing my grocery shopping even though I am conducting my own private gluten-free eating experiment. After noticing…
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