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.
Category: Sensitivities
3 Easy Non-Toxic Living Changes to Adopt Today
Has something happened to you that makes the world seem full of toxic traps that might cause cancer? Are you overwhelmed and don’t know where to start? I’m here to make it easier for you. First I’m going to tell you my background and explain why I think you should take my advice anyway, and…
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…
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…
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?…
Are Plants Trying to Kill Us? A Look at Oxalates
It can be easy to forget that a plant has a point of view. We tend to not see them doing much, so we think that they aren’t very much like us. We are constantly busy – moving, and making noise. Plants on the other hand, just sit there. At least, it can seem so…
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.)…
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…
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…
First Steps to Reducing EMFs
I’m going to give you a primer on the first steps you can take at home to reduce your exposure to EMFs – no meter required! First, though, I thought it might be useful to review why anybody would want to do such a thing in the first place. A Low-EMF Environment is What Nature…
Food Sensitivities: What’s Causing Them
You’re here because you are interested in upping your chance of surviving to a ripe old age. Well, you can’t survive if you don’t know what you can – safely – eat. If you suffer from food sensitivities – like I do – it can be extremely helpful to have a big picture view of…
Food Issues: When Food Was Making Me Sick
About 15 years ago, things were bad. I’d come home after work nearly every day holding my stomach, collapse on the bed, and writhe in pain. When my stomach wasn’t bothering me, I might be having a migraine, the storm taking its merry time to pass through my head. One night I woke up in…
The Truth about Being a Building Biologist
How I became a Building Biologist, a niche profession focused on some contentious environmental health issues.
Travel: Driving through Nebraska
Driving through Nebraska brought some very Nebraska-esque sites, like covered wagons. And then there was the Great Platte River Road Archway Monument. Quite a surprise when you’re not expecting a giant archway over the interstate!
Health: Questioning the Logic of the “Nocebo effect”
If you aren’t familiar with the term, while a placebo is an inert source (such as a pill) that causes a positive health outcome, the term “nocebo” is often used to describe an “inert” source that produces a negative health outcome. In other words, it’s all in your head. The nocebo effect is sometimes used to…
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