Feeling flat? Unmotivated? Struggling to think clearly? Can’t sleep at night? Modern life has a lot to answer for when it comes to low mood and sluggish brain function. Every day, we’re exposed to harmful oxidative stress that can wreak havoc on our cells - especially our brain cells. This damage can lead to depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue, and “brain fog”. Over the last decade, numerous studies have demonstrated that oxidative stress and chronic, low-grade inflammation are major risk factors in brain ageing. Neuroinflammation is now increasingly recognised as a risk factor and a key aspect in the pathophysiology of...

A few decades ago, people ate mostly whole foods: grains, fruits, and vegetables grown seasonally and naturally. These foods were a crucial source of nutrition, and widely believed to assist in the prevention of chronic disease.Today, manufacturing processes have completely changed this. Fresh produce is treated with chemicals, stored, processed, and treated again. Many other food “products” on our shelves are also laden with chemicals. Unsurprisingly, the incidence of chronic diseases such as obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and cancer is higher than ever.  This decline in our health is at least partly related to the loss of...

Has anyone noticed that you can’t buy grapefruit in the supermarket anymore? And what about the apples, don’t they seem to be getting sweeter and sweeter? This is actually a conscious decision by the supermarket buyers in response to the public wanting sweeter foods. Growers now breed the bitter compounds out. A wild species of tomato found in Peru contained 166 times as much bitter tomatine as the mild varieties found now. Manufactures also remove the bitter compounds after picking to make them more palatable in a process called de-bittering. Citrus juices get passed through a bead-like resin that filters...

There is a lot of talk about beef bone broth at the moment. So, is it the nutrient dense liquor that it is purported to be? (You can read more of this article @The Daily Mail Online: published 3 March 2015, updated 25 May 2015). There is no doubt that stock has been used in traditional cooking in many cultures for thousands of years, but modern science is struggling to explain the nutritional benefits of this culinary staple. Gelatin is a protein-rich food, and it comes out of bones when they are boiled. Bones also contain minerals which are essential to good...