Are superfoods a thing? I spent a sunny Sunday morning going down the rabbit hole of food-nutrition research. Why? Because someone on the internet said something … with which I disagreed. A friend posted a short piece about the value of goji berries — a small Asian...
Portlanders are a pretty food-savvy bunch. We know what to ask about the provenance of our food. We pay attention to ingredients, to gluten, to dairy, to grass-fed/free-range/high-omega-3/sustainability parameters (except when we just go for a donut.) So it sometimes...
After 2020’s apocalyptic wildfires, clean air has never felt more important. While the smoke was still thick, I spent days researching air-purification options. Which air filter you choose depends on a couple of factors: what you need to filter, how big an area...
In late July 2020, a friend invited me to pick newly ripened elderberries in her Portland yard. She’s got two — just two! — of the shrubs growing, and she can’t keep up. Knowing how coveted they are as medicine, she didn’t want them going to waste. I eagerly...
Working in Oregon and Alaska, I see a lot of patients who have issues with seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Most people understand SAD as a depression response to the short, dark days of winter. And indeed, that is the most common form. But summer SAD is also truly...