Holistic Health and Wellness, H H & W, LLC

04/18/2022

The Dynamic Dandelion…❤️☀️👏🏾
🌼💛 “Hello, I'm a dandelion.
A lot of people call me a w**d but I'm a friend and come to help you!
When you see me, remember that I'm the ONLY one who wants and can grow in that particular spot. Because:
Either the soil is too compact / hard / stomped and I want to loosen it for you with my roots.
Or there is too little calcium in the soil - don't worry, I will replenish that for you with the dying of my leaves.
Or the soil is too acidic. But I will also improve that for you if you give me the chance.
Or a mixture of the above reasons, of course. 😊
I'm here because your soil needs my help so best you let me grow without disturbing me! When everything is fixed, I will disappear again, I promise!
Are you trying to remove me prematurely with my root? However meticulous you are, I will return 2x as strong! Just until your soil is improved.
You can even tell by my growth at which stage my help is at. If my leaves are flat on the ground then I'm far from ready but if they all reach up then I'm already a long way on my way.
Something completely different is that I am 1 of the first bloomers in spring so I will announce spring / summer for you.
During the day when it's hot, I open my flowers but in the evening when it cools off I close them again quickly. In fact, if it's not hot enough during the day I won't open them at all!
My flowers are the first food for insects after hibernation and unlike most other plants, I have pollen AND nectar, not merely one OR the other! And I am generous with them! 🤪😉
My flowers are even delicious for you people by the way, did you know? I used to be called ′′honey (or gold) of the poor′′ because my flowers are so sweet in e.g. jam, sauce or salad! The internet is full of recipes - check them out.
But wait until the end of May or later before you start picking and even then, don't pick everything yet! The biodiversity and bees will be very grateful!”

04/13/2022

FOOD IS MEDICINE

One of the oldest medical texts in the world is the Ebers Papyrus, a 110-page-long compilation of treatments and cures written in around 1500 BC. The text, found between the legs of a mummified body in an Egyptian tomb, has instructions on which plants to consume to treat various diseases, giving 811 prescriptions for a wide range of disorders from mental illnesses to crocodile bites.

Later came "the Hippocratic Corpus" often attributed to the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, who is widely regarded as the father of modern Western medicine (although scholars today think the collection was written by numerous healers who followed Hippocrates). Remedies included honey to treat insomnia and infected wounds, winter cherry to improve eyesight and cure toothache, basil used to soften the bowel and help with inflammation, and gum arabic for birth control. In total, 40% of the remedies in the collection were made from 44 plants – 34 of which were also consumed as food.

The use of foods to help ensure a long life has been addressed in traditional Chinese, Mediterranean and Ayurvedic medicine and many more ancient texts. Even today, these continue to inspire contemporary wellness trends. And in some parts of the world, indigenous people and tribal communities continue to utilise hundreds of edible plants as medicine by including them in their diet.

The majority of the world's population, however, rely on modern healthcare systems in which food has a relatively small role to play in treating or preventing disease. Instead, food has been largely vilified as an underlying cause of metabolic and cardiovascular diseases through overconsumption and poor diet. But there is now growing consensus that a healthy diet may not only be a way of staving off these health problems, it has the power to treat diseases too.

How can we improve the diets of people around the world to prevent disease? Might food once again be used as medicine?

Many everyday edible plants have inspired medicines that you might find at home. Their abilities to synthesise compounds that are useful to us make them helpful chemistry aides. "Plants are actually brilliant chemists, they've already done much of the work for humans," says Melanie-Jayne Howes, a research leader in phytochemistry.

Rather than having to start from scratch to synthesise a new drug, which can involve a lot of time and effort, and a lot of chemical resources, it can be more efficient to use a plant chemical as the starting material to design and develop a drug, because the steps involved to produce that particular drug may be reduced," adds Howes.

The first discoveries of certain chemicals in edible plants that inspired the development of new drugs might have been accidental or serendipitous in some cases, or based on how those plants were used traditionally, but their occurrence in widely grown edible crops can help scientists source them more easily.

Below you will see some examples of common crops and the medicines that are derived or inspired by their chemistry.

(The information provided below is intended for general interest and is not intended to be used as medical advice. If you have a medical condition listed below, always consult your doctor.)

05/29/2021

“Good health is your greatest wealth” ☀️❤️🫐

08/13/2018

100% Organic-

08/13/2018