This simple, but amazingly effective traditional remedy is easily made from common household ingredients and will reduce bruising, inflammation, boils, abscesses, sprains and tension headaches.

Cut brown paper up into fat strips. The size will depend on what area needs the poultice. An ingrown nail, for example will only need very small strips, and a sprained ankle will need longer strips. Bruise whole fresh sage leaves (use around 5-10 large leaves) by pounding them lightly in a mortar and pestle or using a rolling pin to flatten them. Do your best not to break or tear the leaves.

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The Internet Celebrities bring you the amazing Bronx bodega and how to get a full three-four course meal for $1.25! One of them even keeps within the ‘yellow food group’ and they release a whole new food pyramid for bodega shoppers (by the way you can buy a t-shirt with this food pyramid on it here–I want one!). Take a second and check out this amazing video…

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This last weekend I discovered some disgusting brown turd looking stuff on my towels in the shelf by the bathroom. Looking at the shelf above I found an old can of corned beef someone had ‘donated’ to us when we first moved to Vancouver and could barely pay rent. I guess the seal had broken a bit and the juices were ooozing out everywhere. Yuck! These days we don’t often get to see bad food as the food industry has gotten everything wrapped up so tight in plastic and irradiation to death to try to convince us it is somehow better. But I have been documenting some bad food for a few years now and it is time for me to share my photos.

If you ever get a can that is swollen like this can of tomato paste I discovered in the pantry of the British Ambassador to Myanmar — throw it away instantly. This is most likely caused by botulism which is very deadly and likes to grow in anaerobic conditions.

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One of the things that I have developed over the years after working so long in the food industry around heavy duty oven and floor cleaners and whatnot, I have developed a chemical sensitivity. Doing the GAPS/SCD diet has made me more aware of what is affecting my body in adverse ways. I have also become increasingly frustrated for how much money I have to spend for a bottle of shampoo and conditioner that doesn’t have a zillion names I can’t pronounce included in the list of ingredients. Anyway it turns out you can just use baking soda and vinegar very successfully as a shampoo and conditioner.

There are various other ingredients you can add to these basics, I have tried a few. My first attempt washing my hair with my own shampoo was with bentonite clay and marshmallow root, I think I also used soapnut detergent in that. I didn’t really like the results for that, as my hair is quite fine and the bentonite dried it out too much. I haven’t tried adding marshmallow to the shampoo since then, if I do, I’ll let you know.

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It is very easy to make liquid soap from soapnuts. I use it for my dishes, the floor, cleaning the bathroom and washing delicate items. Very handy to have around the house. It also can be used as a shampoo.

• 100g soapnuts
• 3 quarts (litres) water

Method: Add the soapnuts to the water. Bring the water to a boil. Turn down the heat to a low simmer for at least 30 minutes.

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I am reposting this rather militant article I wrote last year for a local magazine in Los Angeles which has now gone under. Although it was written a while ago, I have to say that I still agree, but now I think that many ’sleeper agents’ are already awake – watch out multinational corporations!

Printed in Far West Almanac May 2009

To organize work in such a manner that it becomes meaningless, boring, stultifying, or nerve-racking for the worker would be little short of criminal; it would indicate a greater concern with goods than with people, an evil lack of compassion and a soul-destroying degree of attachment to the most primitive side of this worldly existence.

‘Buddhist Economics‘ by E.F. Schumacher in Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered.

One of the tactics of the Nazis to keep people thinking they had control in the face of tyranny was to give them a nonsensical choice. When faced with two choices, we have three possible actions. Choose one or the other or none at all.

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“Primum est nil nocere” (‘It is most important that treatment does no harm’ an essential part of the Hippocratic oath)

Note that information offered on this site is not offered as a miracle cure, but as a supportive means of assisting our bodies own inherent healing forces. Once we become more and more in tune with our bodies and our individual needs, we gain confidence in our own ability to protect ourselves from the pathogens and toxins that surround us in our daily lives.

This information is aimed at helping us to make responsible choices to nourish our bodies. Every individual’s response to specific foods, herbs and spices is extremely different, depending on factors such as individual nutritional requirements, age, health, inherited weaknesses, ability to assimilate nutrients, emotional health, the level of environmental stresses, and so on.

Therefore it is important for all of us to be aware of and communicate with our bodies, in order to nourish them in the manner that is the most supportive for them. Our Earth has provided us with many treats for the wide variety of tastes. For anyone with medical conditions, please consult a licensed health care practitioner before making sudden and drastic alterations in your diet. While it is important to be aware of what you are putting into your body and the effect it has on you, it can take some time to learn the body’s language and your specific requirements. The body is a complex system which still contains many mysteries even for those who have been studying it all their lives, so be sure you pay close attention to the signs it gives you.

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The 17th of April is the International Day of Peasant Struggle. On April 17 1997, after three months of protest for the defense of Mother Earth and for the cultivation of the coca leaf in Bolivia, seven indigenous peasants, including a child and its mother, were massacred. Today is the day, around the world people come together to network on how we can intensify the mobilization for the rights of peasants everywhere. This post is offered in memory of those who have and who are struggling for access to land.

I recently read On Guerrilla Gardening: The Why, What and How of Cultivating Neglected Public Space by Richard Reynolds. It is a beautiful book full of fantastic photos of guerrilla gardening around the world. There are a lot of helpful and practical hints, tips and suggestions as well as the history of guerrilla gardening around the world. This book is a great resource as well as a fun coffee-table book, not often do you find a practical coffee-table book like this one, I highly recommend you read the whole thing, but just to get you started here are some of my favorite passages from this fantastic book:

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It is interesting to see over the past decade or so, as countries such as India and Thailand are putting more and more pressure on their street vendors to shut them down, that illegal street vendors are springing up all over North America — San Francisco, New York, Washington D.C., Los Angeles…the small guy is back. All over the world, sometimes this is the only way a family can make a dollar.

Last year in Los Angeles there was a crack down on street vendors, supposedly people were worried about the health safety of the vendors, but it may have been motivated more by racism. These days it is clear we need to be more concerned about food coming from the industrial-agriculture food sector, and not waste resources hassling street vendors. Most small-scale street vendors are very conscious of where their food is coming from and how they process it, they often know their customers in fact, their personal livelihood depends on their repeat business. They also take pride in their creation. Some of the new movement of pavement culinary artists may have even wild-harvested their ingredients!

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Taking a bath regularly for the first two months of the GAPS diet has been the only way we have survived the first stages of this diet. Two weeks into the diet I went back to work for a couple weeks. I hadn’t been able to work for the previous three years after getting a serious case of typhoid that completely destroyed my intestinal lining. The diet finally gave me enough energy to be able to spend 8 hours standing and cooking all day again. But I was tired and came home and got right in the bath every night.

My favourite bath at the moment consists of approximately:

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