The human microbiome—that 3½ to 4 pounds of bacteria, bacteriophage, fungi, protozoa, and viruses that live on and in us, primarily in our intestines, is finally getting the attention it deserves, and it’s now recognized how much these microbes, which number in the trillions, contribute to our health.They help us digest and absorb food, synthesize vitamins, produce amino acids, secrete mucus, prevent constipation by increasing motility, create food for intestinal cells, and, perhaps most importantly, partner with our immune system—60-80% of which is located in the intestines—by degrading toxins and competing with and killing off infectious bacteria and yeasts.However most of our microbiomes are in pretty bad shape, and in a recent article in the Townsend Letter, pharmacist Ross Pelton, who is also a nutritionist with a Ph.D. in psychology and holistic health, explains why.He compares the situation to a “perfect storm” of factors that have conspired to assault and damage…

According to our friends at Beyond Pesticides, food insecurity how affects 54 million people in the United States! And with the continued surge in COVID cases, the problem promises to become worse before it gets better.Our current food system, which has become increasingly dominated by fewer and fewer mammoth multinational corporations, has been criticized by leading scientists and economists for some time as being neither environmentally, nutritionally, socially nor economically sustainable. In our current pandemic crisis, this food system has proved to be cumbersome and inflexible, with farmers being forced to dump products and kill their livestock due to supply-chain disruptions and lack of access to markets at the same time that 15% of our population is in dire need of food and we continue to import food from overseas. Even before the current crisis, scholar-activist Raj Patel had pointed out that worldwide while 800 million people starved, over a billion were becoming obese on…