Often, when we are depressed or stressed out, we crave comfort foods, foods that are high in fat and sugar, thinking they will make us feel better. Actually, the opposite it true. Just like how diet effects our physical body, what we eat effects out mental well being too.

Those comfort foods might make you feel better for the brief moment, but they don’t do anything to promote good mental health in the long run. Whole foods, such as vegetables, fruit, nuts and seeds, beans, legumes and fermented foods like yogurt and sauerkraut help to promote a healthy gut, which in turn communicates with the brain through what is known as the gut-brain axis. Microbes in the gut produce neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine, which regulate our mood and emotions, and effects our mental well-being. “A growing body of literature shows that the gut microbiome plays a shaping role in a variety of psychiatric disorders, including major depressive disorder,” a team of scientists wrote in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry last year.

Check out this article in the NY Times!

A Court Order for EPA to Ban Chlorpyrifos

Last week, a court ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to look at the facts, to follow the science, and to get the pesticide, chlorpyrifos, off the market! This is great news! We have been signing petitions for years, and it finally looks like it will happen!

This has been a long road. PAN (Pesticide Action Network),  NRDC (The Natural Resources Defense Council ) and other grassroots organizations sued the EPA in 2007, using scientific studies that showed how even low levels of the pesticide in early life can lead to increased risk of learning disabilities, including reductions in IQ, developmental delay, and ADHD. And of course it mostly impacts rural children and farmworkers who live in marginalized communities who work on the farms and live near these toxic plants.

Watch Storyteller and Musician, Heather Forest’s Tribute to Mother Earth in her Debut Performance of Earthsong!

If you missed Storyteller and Musician, Heather Forest‘s performance of Earthsong, in honor of Mother Earth on Mother’s Day, don’t fret, you can watch her debut here!

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