Clients are often surprised at the high levels of Vitamin D3 that  I recommend: new research has shown that the 400 iu available in most vitamins is far too low and children today, indoors or covered with sunscreen, are getting rickets. If you were uncovered at noon in the equatorial regions where we evolved, you would get 25,000 iu of Vitamin D in a couple of hours. So unless you work out of doors in the South, don’t wear sunscreen and only wash with water (soap within 48 hours interferes with the body’s manufacture of Vitamin D), you aren’t getting enough from the sun.  (See my last post where people living in Hawaii exposed to the sun were not getting enough.)

And if you go to the Vitamin D Council website, you will see ample discussion of the new recommendations.  I personally take 10,000 iu daily, which is the minimum to raise your blood levels and a level that is reasonable to avoid toxicity Continue reading Vitamin D, Health and the Flu

Today a nature story. My sister and her husband rescued a golden lab/Rhodesian ridgeback. Jake had been abused and slowly has begun his resocialization process. They usually walk Jake in the wooded parks north of Seattle where tall cedars grow densely and birds nest. One day last week my brother in law Ed was walking the dog when Jake came upon two fledgling crows on the forest floor, and quickly dispached them. Immediately the canopy came alive with screeching crows. The crows dive bombed the dog and Ed, then chased them all the way home where they squawked in protest until the woodpeckers ran them off. In the ensuing days they started screeching at Jake and anyone who walks him- my sister, the neighbor, or my nephew. Even if they avoid the park the birds will try to run them off. None of Jake’s people are welcome in the woods any more, even without the dog. Crows remember and they hold grudges.

Several years ago I attended an herbal conference, the Green Nation’s Gathering where the Wisconsin ethnobotanist Keewaydinoquay Peschel spoke about her years as a medicine woman.  Specifically she spoke about  how she used plantain to

One story she told stands out among all others.  She had been lecturing about plantain to her ethnobotany class, and the mother of one of her students sat in on the class. Three years later she received a box from Florida. “I don’t know anyone in Florida she said.” The box was a present from the mother of the student. She had been gardening with her friends and all three had been bitten by a spider. Continue reading Plantain: A Weedy Life-Saver