health and wellbeing

Almonds are booming. World production is for the first time bursting through the one million tons mark and the global appetite for this super nut seems insatiable. 

The trouble with fibre is that it sounds so dull. It has all the glamour and excitement of packaging material. And is usually only spoken about in connection with bowel movements. But the truth is that dietary fibre can be a lifesaver.

You have probably never given much consideration to what quantity of potassium you eat every day. Or selenium or magnesium for that matter. Perhaps you should. Because these are three minerals that have vital roles to play in our nutrition and our health. And yet millions of us in Britain simply do not consume enough of them.

Can the stress of modern life be beaten by the taste of ancient herbs and spices? The question has been posed by two of our major newspapers because of a surge of interest in plants from around the globe that have been called adaptogens. They are all said to control stress by regulating the release of the hormone cortisol from the adrenal gland.

In the looming technological battle to land humans on Mars there is one extraordinary ingredient... The reason is that one of the major hazards faced by space travellers is bone loss.

The Brazil nut has an interesting background story, as it is a natural uncultivated product that is collected from the wild on the banks of the Amazon river. The production relies on the crop that the trees in the rain forest provide. Whatever level of volume comes out of the forest, that is what can be processed, while conserving the rain forest and providing for the communities living in the forest.

Yet another major study has shown how eating nuts can protect us from heart disease and stroke. This time US researchers in Harvard University's T.H.Chan School of Public Health analysed data from 210,000 health professionals over more than 30 years.