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 →

Interview With “Wild Man” Steve Brills

~ Nicholas Tippins
Steve and Violet Brills harvesting burdock root.
Steve and Violet Brills harvesting burdock root 4 years ago.

“Wild Man” Steve Brills and his daughter Violet lead educational foraging tours throughout the greater New York tri-state area, including in Central Park. Steve was arrested 30 years ago in Central Park by undercover agents on charges of criminal mischief for eating a dandelion. “That got me so much publicity that they dropped the charges, and the parks department hired me to teach foraging,” he says.

When not teaching about wild foods, Steve can often be found foraging and cooking wild meals with his eleven-year-old daughter. Violet started foraging at the age of two months and, according to her father, “knows the ins and outs of every single plant.”

I reached Steve and Violet by Skype at their home in upstate New York. They had just come in from a walk in which they found Artist’s Mushrooms and enjoyed a late first snow. They regaled me with jokes, skits, and stories as we talked. 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 →

Dangers of the Raw Food Diet

~ Nicholas Tippins ~ 1 Comment
Photo by Leonie Wise

This is a guest post by my mother, Prudence Tippins.

 Nicholas asked recently why I’m no longer a raw vegan.  It’s a complicated subject for me, and one I’m hesitant to summarize simply.  I loved eating raw food.  I did it exclusively for almost ten years.  There were so many benefits, which I feel compelled to list here again:

  • a hugely improved immune system
  • lowered cholesterol for my husband, Steve (95 points, which kept him off Lipitor)
  • brighter eyes, shinier hair, clearer skin
  • automatic weight control (not too fat, not too thin)
  • a feeling of being close to God
  • a consistent feeling of happiness and good will

But, as it turns out, it stopped working for me right around the decade mark. 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 →

The Missing Ingredient in our Food

~ Nicholas Tippins

By Nicholas Tippins

Three jars of superfoods sit on my shelf. Dark bottles, carrying ancient medicine. I dip my spoon into the jar of Spirulina, and draw out a green so dark it I could be looking at it in the bottom of the ocean. The next one is brighter, like grass sprinkled with emeralds. The third is brown, the color of root and bark. They contain nearly all the vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and adaptogens that my body needs.

What is the missing ingredient in our food?
What is the missing ingredient in our food?

I can see my ancestors harvesting these sacred foods, making medicinal meals from them. Continue reading →