In another case of modern versus older definitions, my household suddenly finds itself questioning historical writings whenever they mention a herb being poisonous. This is due to a little historical digging my daughter was doing around buckbrush/snowball/wild snowball. Going into several old books that she has on her phone, she found an entry where someone had supposedly suffered the worst case of poisoning they'd seen from a herb, even beating out rhus poisoning. This was from a book written in the early 1900's.


However, the word poison had been used to describe not just Rhus or sumac, but also rhubarb leaf AND the reaction this person had to buckbrush. . . . these conflicts of understanding and behaviour seem to centre around the person being able to ingest as much as they want without side effects of any kind. This isn't true of domestically sold foods, so why would it be true of garden or wild-grown foods?


To call a bad allergic reaction a poisoning, that puts a very erroneous spin on things that has coloured our modern understandings of some plants, because we assumed that the word "poison" meant in the past what it means today.


In our house, we like to learn from history, spitting out the bones whenever necessary. It appears we've found a potentially problematic bone, and will be paying closer attention as to whether the ancients described poisoning or allergy/sensitivity instead. This kind of erroneous labelling may be what happened to the rhubarb leaf.


https://naturalhealthgodsway.ca/2026/09/30/rant-poison-i-dont-think-that-word-means-what-they-thought-it-meant/

Canada’s Agri-Food Investment Paradox
More Foreign Owners, Fewer New Plants
by Dr. Sylvain Charlebois
https://agrifoodanalyticslab.substack.com/p/canadas-agri-food-investment-paradox

Pro-Russia Hackers Mocked Canada's Slow Hunt for Them, Widened the Attacks — and a Pro-Palestine Crew Tagged In!
Analysis: A pro-Russia crew filmed itself inside a Quebec water plant. What followed suggests Canada is being tested by more than one adversary at once.
https://www.thebureau.news/p/pro-russia-hackers-mocked-canadas

Dem Cities Offer Interest-Free Loans to Comply with Islamic Sharia Law!
A growing number of Democrat cities are offering interest-free loans to comply with Sharia law – just the latest example of how the radical religious and moral code of Islam is supplanting American law without any input from voters.
By Shane Harris
https://amac.us/newsline/dem-cities-offer-interest-free-loans-to-comply-with-islamic-sharia-law

That mystery package isn’t a gift. It’s a warning about your data.
That unordered package on your porch isn’t a shipping error. It’s proof a scammer already has your name and address, and the new ones ship with a QR code the FBI says can plant malware. Keep the item, skip the code, then lock down your passwords.
By Kim Komando
https://www.komando.com/news/security/that-mystery-package-isnt-a-gift-its-a-warning-about-your-data

Coming up for air as I continue efforts on my textbook before the foraging season kicks into high gear! I realized I haven't posted any new blog articles for literally an entire month! Oops???

This coming weekend, we are at Vernon Shoparama at the Vernon Rec Centre. We will be in the rec centre's gym. In April, we will be back at the rec centre for the Vernon Wellness Fair, and then at Maplefest downtown Kelowna the last saturday of the month.

May's craft fair schedule has run off the rails, BUT. . . we end the month at our very first ever Ren Fair!!! As I type, Ashley is working on a leather corsette belt for me! Comparing apothecary outfits to 1850's bar tenders with the age if piracy, and in all three image searches, it was apparent that as an English rider, Ashley's outfit was prebuilt just riding her horse! She had made herself a waspy corsette a few years ago, and that completes her look. The Penticton Ren Fair is happening May 30th!

Do keep tabs on our 2026 Where We'll Be card, and/or to the website calendar, clickable from the main menu bar across the top of my website.

We've also discovered the wonders of turning pine bark into a spice similar to cinnamon, with a flavour profile similar to cinnamon as well. It lends the same flavour style to things like apple fritters, apple crumble, pumpkin spice blend, etc.

We are changing up the tea packaging by the way! This is more cost effective for us, takes the same length of time to put together as the current packaging, but takes up less space, and is easier to use. Just keep the string for your own storage as you will need it to close the package. Wild Apple Spice is the first tea to use this packaging.

With plants coming to life around the valley, now is the time to be planning for foraging workshops.

It's going to be a knock-em-out year this year (on many levels)! Here's hoping if you live in the Okanagan, to see you around at various fairs we'll be at!

https://naturalhealthgodsway.ca/2026/03/24/coming-up-for-air-update-on-book-efforts-spring-outlook-news/

So I got blocked by someone over at Truth Social who was pushing Amazon products in health groups. First, why anyone still supports a company that refuses to crack down on both plagiarism and digital art theft, amazes me. As an author with friends in the artistic space affected by this behaviour, I left and took my books elsewhere. Second, encouraging people to buy what they can often get for free in their backyard or in wild spaces, also doesn't make sense, because free sources make health and wellness more affordable. It's called foraging.

A recent push for a herbal supplement was for spurilina. The big claim to fame here is the chlorophyll. Dr Mercola, in a 2017 article shared a substitute that only requires gloves and maybe snips to get - stinging nettle:

"Nettles Compared to 'Superfood' Spirulina
Although spirulina technically does grow in 'the States,' it's only one — Hawaii, as well as other exotic areas of the world, so it's understandable that many think of it as not exactly around the corner. But first of all, what is it? If you've heard of blue-green algae, you're halfway there.

Spirulina's deep blue-green color reveals its active ingredient — chlorophyll — clearly. Health . com explains it as one of the oldest life forms on Earth and possibly consumed in Aztec and African diets centuries ago.

Today it's touted for its ability to strengthen the immune system, reduce fatigue and combat allergies. Nettles are another plant with chlorophyll that even rivals the amount found in spirulina, but they're often found in ditch banks, forests and riverbanks.

"Taken over time, nettle will strengthen your circulatory, immune, and endocrine systems to promote peak function. The stronger these systems, the better position our bodies are in to deal with whatever might come our way."

Cooked or dried, though, this pesky stinging problem goes away completely; good thing, too, because this free foraging food is highly nutritious, containing fiber, lecithin, chlorophyll, sodium, iron, phosphorus, sulfur, potassium and vitamins A and C, according to Mother Earth News. It's been used in birth rooms and battlefields to stop bleeding, both internally and externally, and is considered to purify blood, as well. As a tea:

"It has been found to help cure mucus congestion, skin irritations, water retention and diarrhea … stimulate the digestive glands of the stomach, intestines, liver, pancreas and gall bladder. Applied externally, nettle tea … relieves rheumatism in both people and animals, makes a first-class gargle for
mouth and throat infections, helps to clear up acne and eczema and promotes the healing of burns."

My daughter and I began foraging over 10yrs ago, and we will either take the top 8 inches or so, or if the plant insists, the whole thing. We learned how to use gloved/sleeved hands to snap off what we want. The seeds are useful in cooking and tea as a fennel replacement. So we dry both mature and young leaves at all stages of growth.

We all have a sense of smell. Every food has a scent created by a terpene, alcohol, ester or a phenol.

When it comes to wholefood as medicine, one's ability to smell the food aids the mouth in generating intricacies of the salivary amilase. Your saliva is the first step of digestion, telling the stomach what enzymes to call for to digest what is coming down the pipe (literally).

I've created a tool to help identify where your body needs help and why. Not all cravings are due to allergies, bad habits, or marketing influences. When the brain cries out for a given food or drink, stop and assess. What's in that food/drink that the brain is calling for? When we identify that, then ingest a healthier option containing that compound, the brain is often happier and the body responds favourably.

The tool I've created contains 24 tiny herb vials, each containing a wild herb from the Central Okanagan, chosen for it's affinity for a body system or commonly-seen condition. When you tell me what your knee-jerk reaction is to a scent, I'll note it so we can examine what it might mean for your health picture.

There are reasons foods smell, good, bad, nice, awesome, revolting, meh, etc. There are reasons your brain will lung at some scents and recoil at others. While much gentler in scent than EO's, use of the whole plant allows us to get a much more comprehensive smell from which to gather information about what your body needs.

If you'd like to book your Scented Plant-based Health Assessment, be sure to fill out my client intake form either in pdf or digitally signed and once I have that in hand and we've had our first session together (first session is always free), we will book your Scented Plant-based Health Assessment.

For the full write-up, and to see photos, click here:
https://naturalhealthgodsway.ca/2025/12/28/introducing-a-new-non-invasive-health-assessment-tool/

Joly says it’s time to “stop whining” about Stellantis contract!

Industry Minister Mélanie Joly thinks it’s time to “stop whining” about the billions in taxpayer dollars that the Liberals gave to electric vehicle manufacturer Stellantis after the company announced it would move thousands of jobs out of the country to a plant in the United States.

🇨🇦 #MarkCarneyCantBeTrusted 🇨🇦
🇨🇦 #SayingTheQuietPartOutLoud 🇨🇦
🇨🇦 #JustSayNoMore 🇨🇦
🇨🇦 #CarneyLies 🇨🇦

https://truenorthwire.com/2025/12/joly-says-its-time-to-stop-whining-about-stellantis-contract

Liberals cancel failed Trudeau initiative to plant two billion trees!
The "two billion trees in 10 years" program has fallen short, with only 228 million trees planted at a cost of $267.7 million.
🇨🇦#MarkCarneyCantBeTrusted🇨🇦
🇨🇦#SayingTheQuietPartOutLoud🇨🇦
🇨🇦#JustSayNoMore🇨🇦
🇨🇦#CarneyLies🇨🇦
https://wimkin.com/johnburke/?link-id=6210671