The other day I found myself in an unusually bad mood. It was witching hour in my house – the time when I try to cook my family dinner while my “threenager” toddler is whining, my 8-week-old baby is in need of a cuddle before taking a nap, and I’m feeling ravenous. I usually approach this time of day as a lively challenge and I enjoy coming up with novel ways to handle it, but on this occasion it was all too much. I was overwhelmed, anxious and snappy.   One explanation for my moodiness is that I had a... Read full article »

I recently found myself in a health food store handing over my credit card to buy over a hundred dollars worth of supplements and food products promising to boost the health of my gut microbiome. In my basket was kombucha (fermented tea), kimchi (fermented cabbage) and a jar of probiotics promising ‘a range of health benefits supporting overall health and wellbeing'.   I had been reading about the amazing highly complex, highly diverse community of microorganisms that make the human body their habitat. The tiny critters living in our gut have been shown to play a key role helping us... Read full article »