Modern Health

A Better Banana? Organic vs Non-Organic Bananas.

~ Nicholas Tippins
real banana with seeds
Real Banana

This is a real banana. Two weeks ago, I stood on top of a truck with a machete in the rain, intent on harvesting a bunch of wild bananas I’d found on a back road. A few swings, and slice! The bunch fell to the ground like a crashed spaceship. My friends and I gathered them quickly (not wanting to get drenched), so we barely noticed that there was something odd about them. When I sliced one open, however, I noticed a great difference from the bananas I was used to eating: it was filled with pea-sized black seeds. “Aha!” Axel said. “This is a real banana.”

As it turns out, the tree we’d found was a direct descendent of the first wild bananas human beings ate. Continue reading →

Food Nannying For the Poor? Restrictions on Organic and Healthy Food in Food Assistance

~ Nicholas Tippins ~ 2 Comments
wisconsin organic food choices restricted for WIC and food assistance.
Food assistance program. Photo by USDA.

Wisconsin’s Women, Infants and Children’s Program “Approved Foods” brochure is cheerfully decorated with stock photos of vegetables and smiling children. Inside is a well-intentioned (or well lobbied) and utterly misguided attempt to… what? Help people? Make sure those in food assistance programs eat healthy food? Or cheaper food? Continue reading →

Wild Food for Busy People: Easy Ways To Include Wild Food In Your Diet

~ Nicholas Tippins

Walking into the field with a shovel. Cold hands on the smooth wooden handle. You are warmed by the smell of earth as you dig. Hands plunge into chill earth, searching with strong fingers. Finally, you clutch the wise burdock root, and you feel somehow compelled to bow.

Easy Ways to Add Wild Food to Your Diet
Salad of Romaine lettuce and wild Toothwort, Purple Dead Nettle and Redbud flowers. Photo by Jay Sturner.

There is something to be said for taking one’s time with plants. They offer so much more to our psyches than most of us living a modern lifestyle can comprehend. Watching a plant through all of its seasons, befriending the little star lady Chickweed and allying yourself with Burdock’s ancient wisdom. There is nothing to describe the joy. It is something like coming home.

But not everyone is up for harvesting burdock, or even devoting much of their busy lives to foraging. Continue reading →

Misleading Food Labels and Their Villainous Henchmen

~ Nicholas Tippins ~ 3 Comments
Photo by Mike Mozart. Misleading food labels.
Misleading Food Labels. Photo by Mike Mozart

The food industry uses all sorts of chemicals in the pursuit of cleanliness. Isn’t it a little ironic that their way of misleading consumers is, well, dirty? Words that mean one thing to the general public often mean something very different to food producers and the USDA. These differences have been deliberately exploited to get you to believe you are making a healthier or more ethical choice by buying a more expensive food product that was made no differently from the rest. Enter misleading food labels. Let’s uncover a few. Continue reading →

Natural High-Energy Foods for Athletes

~ Nicholas Tippins ~ 1 Comment
Goji Berries and Cashews. Photo Credit: Jennifer
Goji Berries and Cashews. Photo Credit: Jennifer

We awoke as the sun began draping light over the jungle hills. It was our day of challenge: to kayak the other side of Lake Arenal and back. We wanted to carry as little as possible and loaded up on energy before we left. We also chose to pack a few high-energy foods so that we could sustain our energy to meet the challenge.

We also didn’t want to consume popular “energy” products that are loaded with preservatives and refined sugar. Continue reading →

The World is Alive!

~ Nicholas Tippins

            “Many Indians have told me that the most basic difference between Western and indigenous ways of being is that Westerners view the world as dead, and not as filled with speaking, thinking, feeling subjects as worthy and valuable as themselves.” 

–Derrick Jensen

The World is Alive! Photo by Michael Fertig.

Isn’t it interesting that as we become more civilized, we surround ourselves with more things that are not alive? Continue reading →

Stop Dieting, Start Nourishing

~ Nicholas Tippins ~ 1 Comment

One of my guilty pleasures on the internet is looking at a particular type of ad.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/130855607@N05/16596216868/in/photolist-rhxX59-7WVpKB-ejbNXs-7wTYFY-egN5vT-egTPSm-egN4fV-egTQ2b-egTQdw-egN626-ej69KV-egTRr7-egN5ik-ej69SH-7wTYFU-egN6KM-egN59e-egTQxL-egTRm5-rXEmtg-egN6Wr-ej6a7F-9AQUnF-ej651X-7RpNqd-86rXCg-pHmBAC-adwaWV-3B9yT8-86v22h-3gpwXi-5MtVey-dzXg6p-dA3JXs-eYVWeE-egTTxU-9uNcaR-7tiHfL-8A8tv6-egN3hi-egTPqQ-egTPxd-6tgHFW-9uRc8Y-99KTGU-egN5Cv-egTNZA-egTPeC-egTQqm-ejbTkA

They’re usually found below news or special-interest articles, and they’re designed to be sensational. I’m sure there’s a guy somewhere whose boss told him, “Say anything you want, just get them to click.”

Continue reading →