beans and oregano.

The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates (460-377 BCE) famously said “Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food.”

Gardeners know the best way to get your veggies is fresh and organic, ideally straight from the farm or garden. But beyond simple nourishment, scientists are finding some foods specifically help prevent or reverse certain diseases. Published research from the past few months alone has shown fruits and veggies protect your heart, brain and eyes, and help fight asthma, cancer, swine flu, Alzheimer’s disease, depression, type 2 diabetes and osteoporosis.

Much of the research looks at isolated constituents in the foods, although of course there’s more to fresh fruits and veggies than the isolated “active ingredients” scientists have identified so far. All the components in the plant work synergistically, and do more than just one thing.

Here’s a short list to get you started.

Eat the rainbow

Maximizing diversity is not only good for native landscapes and gardens, it’s good for your internal ecosystem, too. And it turns out the differently flavonoid colors have different health-promoting strengths. To integrate this wisdom into you diet, remember to “eat the rainbow.”

Some of the most actively healthy bits of foods are flavonoids, which color food naturally: the purple in berries and potatoes, the red in beets and blood oranges, the orange in squash and carrots. Flavonoids generally function as antioxidants, which mitigate the effects of destructive free radicals in your system. This can help protect your heart, your brain, your eyes and reduce the risk of cancer.

To make sure you’re getting enough, work toward filling half your plate with veggies at every meal. Fold them into morning omelettes, fill up the stew pot, blend them into a morning smoothie or try them under sauces instead of pasta.

Beautiful brassicas

The brassica family is a medicinal powerhouse, with members including broccoli, kale, collards, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and mustard greens. Much of the medical research into the family has looked at its ability to regulate hormones that can lead to cancers, but its strengths don’t end there.

Cabbage, specifically as raw juice, is an old-time cure for ulcers in the digestive tract. It works by stimulating protective mucous secretions, and possibly through direct action on the bacterium Helicobacter pylori implicated in many cases. The recommended dose is one cup of fresh, raw juice four times daily for 10-14 days. Some sources suggest the powdered form may also help, but this shortcut doesn’t seem to hold up to scientific or clinical analysis.

Two particular constituents in this family, indole-3-carbinol and diindolylmethane (DIM), both work to balance and promote healthy breakdown and excretion of hormones, especially estrogen. I3C and DIM are prescribed in capsules or as specific measures of cooked vegetables for enlarged prostate glands, uterine fibroids, hair loss, fibrocystic breasts and hormone-sensitive cancers including breast and prostate.

Sulforaphane, especially abundant in broccoli and broccoli sprouts, recently was found to target breast-cancer stem cells. That’s important, because standard chemotherapy drugs can’t reach those earliest cancer cells.

Finally, some of the fibrous component in these vegetables (and many others) are converted by gut bacteria into butyrate, which in turn feeds cells in the colon and reduces the risk of colon cancer. Fiber generally helps reduce cholesterol levels, fights asthma and diabetes, and helps bind toxins and get them out of your body.

Tomatoes:

August's bounty.

There’s not much better than a perfectly ripe tomato plucked from your own garden, still warm from the sun.

Beyond that bliss, the lycopene found in tomatoes reduces natural inflammatory chemicals and circulating immune cells associated with allergies and asthma. Lycopene also can help reduce risk of prostate cancer. And this is one case where processing makes a nutrient more available: Tomato paste has four times more absorbable lycopene than fresh tomatoes.

Lycopene also is found in many red fruits and veggies, including watermelon, sea buckthorn fruit, goji berries, rosehips and red bell peppers. Unfortunately, cherries and strawberries are not good sources.

Grapes and berries

Grapes have much to recommend them from a gardening perspective: Easy and productive, they thrive in poor soils and don’t pull toxics into the fruit. They also contain resveratrol, which supports heart health, lowers inflammation, help fight cancers and may reduce high blood-sugar levels. Resveratrol even helps boost blood flow to the brain — that’s the same way Ginkgo is thought to improve memory.

And, as with all the colorful fruits, grapes are high in antioxidants —in fact, they’re one of the best sources. Trendy Açaî, a berry from Central and South America, get a lot of press for its antioxidant content. Good old red grapes have more than twice the antioxidant anthocyanin content,  and wild blueberries aren’t far behind. Chokeberries and purple corn are the big winners in this category, but even and cherries outpace Açaî.

A version of this story originally appeared in In Good Tilth.

Photo by Oktaviani Marvikasari.

You’ve always heard that fish is brain food. Now, a growing body of research is supporting that contention.

One study published in the February edition of the Archives of General Psychiatry found that fish-oil supplements high in omega-3 fatty acids warded off psychosis in high-risk teens. Study participants received either fish oil or a placebo for 12 weeks. One year later, more of the fish-oil teens were still psychosis free. Researchers say the results are as good as those seen with antipsychotic medications, with benefits lasting longer than any other intervention. And, unlike typical pharmaceutical prescriptions that cause problems including weight gain and libido loss, fish oils seem to have no deleterious side effects.

Other studies are finding that omega-3 oils can help the mind stay young and sharp. Earlier reports found that DHA, one specific form of omega-3, helped slow dementia but didn’t help folks with Alzheimer’s disease. A February report in the Journal of Neurochemistry suggests that EPA, another omega-3, may do the trick. The report’s authors believe EPA helps slow the natural decline of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter, helping keep the brain young and boost memory and learning. Both DHA and EPA are typically found in fish-oil supplements in varying ratios.

A version of this post originally appeared on Wellwire.com.

My favorite seed catalog came in today’s mail.

What’s new for 2010: organic Floriani red flint corn, green meat radish, Bolivian rainbow pepper, purple pac choy, ruby streaks mustard.

This is why I started gardening – I was awed by the incredible diversity of life I could sustain on my little corner of earth.

There were other reasons too. After my urban upbringing, I longed for the pastoral and bucolic ideal of self sufficiency and thriftiness. And certainly there were the political reasons: getting off the corporate food trough while promoting biological diversity and personal health.

But what really pushed me past reading and into action was a full-color catalog that arrived one Winter’s day. I saw purple carrots, speckled lettuces, striped snappy string beans, and a bright orange tomato that turned out to be an eggplant! If your vegetable education came largely from mainstream supermarkets as mine once did, you’ll understand my shock. Who knew there were purple potatoes, or that we could grow Thomas Jefferson’s beans or the Anasazi’s corn?

These days I’m a passionate gardener and my garden supports over 100 species. Here’s why you should tend a garden, even if it’s just a couple of plants:

1. Get outdoors. Being outside can help many health conditions. The sunshine lightens most folks’ moods and helps produce immune-building vitamin D. Researchers find that people living near green spaces have much lower rates of diseases including asthma, depression, heart disease, migraines, and even urinary-tract infections.

2. Eat better. As a naturopath I always recommend that people eat the rainbow — and gardening is one great way to do it. Vegetables begin losing nutritional value as soon as the plant is plucked and produce from your own garden travels the shortest distance between place and plate. Also, many soils around the country have some well known nutrient deficiency—in western Oregon it’s selenium—which you can address easily in your home garden. Feed your soil, feed your plants, feed yourself.

3. Love those vegetables. Gardening is a great way to convert knowledge about the health benefits of veggies into the action of eating them. Researchers consistently find that garden-based education in schools makes children more willing to try, like and eat a diversity of vegetables. The same trick works with picky adults, too…

4. Grow your own medicine. That lovely lavender you’re already growing can improve digestion and fight depression. Thyme makes a great ground cover and fights off lung infections. Garlic, onions and their relatives support the immune system and the heart. Even weedy dandelion is medicine, helping the liver and the kidneys. And so much of this is so easy to grow!

5. Be more community-oriented. Scientists have found that spending time outdoors changes people for the better. Read here about how gardening transformed the English town of Todmorden and its inhabitants, building food security, ecological sustainability and community spirit.

6. Pure joy. Part of a healthy life is making sure there’s joy in your life, every day. And that is one of the best reasons out there for gardening. For me, that’s about the wonder of nature’s colors and textures, and the sheer awe of actively and literally keeping history alive. And it’s a wonderful gift to share with your partner or kids.

So as the year’s darkest days settle in, take time by the real or virtual fire to go through the words and pictures of the seed catalogs and feed your dreams of summer. Here is a short list to get you started.

• Fedco Seeds, a Maine cooperative, offers great starter packets at fantastic prices.
• Horizon Herbs offers one of the largest selections of medicinal plant seeds.
• Native Seeds/SEARCH has a focus on traditional Southwestern crops including a huge variety of beans, corn and hot peppers.
• Seeds of Change was one of the first glossy proponents of growing heirloom seeds.
• Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds in Mansfield, Mo., boasts a catalog of 1400 varieties of vegetable and flower seeds.
• Heirloom Seeds in Pennsylvania.
• Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.

Happy garden planning!

NB: A version of this story originally appeared at WellWire.com.

Photo by Nihan Aydin.

It’s the “most wonderful time of the year” — and depression is rampant. Between the darkness (if you live in the northern hemisphere), family drama, financial stresses… it’s a time when many people find their mood going in an unhappy direction. Here are some tangible tips for feeling better.

1. Exercise.
Depression by definition diminishes most motivation. But getting off the couch can make a remarkable difference in your emotional resilience. Exercise literally changes not only the chemicals being made in your brain, but also how well those chemicals work. It doesn’t have to be intense and it doesn’t have to be very much. Just starting will help those clouds lift.

2. Get some sun.
The winter’s lack of light makes lots of people low. The effect isn’t new — it’s been described since the 1800s. These days there’s a name for it, complete with cute acronym: seasonal affective disorder, or SAD.

Adding light can help. Outdoor, natural daylight is best, especially in the morning. But many companies also sell light boxes that researchers find really do help — even for summertime depression.

Photo by Nathalie Dulex.

3. You are how you eat.
Author Michael Pollan said it best: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”

Scientific research all over the map supports this. An October 2009 study in the Archives of General Psychiatry reported that a Mediterranean-style diet reduced depression in addition to its well-known heart and anti-cancer benefits. They found that fruits, nuts, beans and fat from fish and olive oil all helped beat the blues.

Filling up with fresh fruits and veggies also has another happy side effect: reducing your exposure to mood-busting sugar and processed foods.

4. Up the fish oils.
The long dark winters in Iceland don’t translate into high levels of depression there, and scientists think the reason is in the high-omega-3 fish the locals consume.

For people who are depressed, researchers have found significant improvements in mood after just two weeks of therapy with fish oil.

How does it work? The omega-3 oils reduce depression-causing inflammatory chemicals and improved cellular function, all of which make a happier brain.

5. Feed your microflora, too.
The first-line prescription therapy for depression is a drugs that increases serotonin availability in the brain. Looking at the body as a whole, most serotonin is found in the gut, where it helps signal the movements needed to promote digestion.

We’re designed to make a lot of serotonin ourselves, with the help of foods and the healthy flora in our guts. Supporting that flora with probiotics —found in foods such as sauerkraut, kimchee, live yoghurt and miso — can help make more serotonin available to the whole body, including the brain.

Like fish oils, probiotics also reduce inflammation and oxidative stress that influence depression.

6. Give flower essences a try.
Having flower essences on hand can offer a quick pick-me-up, or support long-term healing. Take four drops as needed, or four times daily in a little water over the longer term. They don’t interact with any other medications, and the only possible concern is a tiny amount of alcohol.

Try Star of Bethlehem for dealing with grief and trauma. Sweet chestnut helps deep, dark despair and hopelessness. Pine relieves guilt. And willow helps when you feel resentful or sorry for yourself. For some sunshine in a bottle, try the Solstice Sun environmental essence from wild Alaska.

7. Learn more.
While there’s no substitute for talking with friends or professional counselors, these books can help you understand what’s going on and offer suggestions for helping yourself.

This psychologist-recommended website links to articles about natural health and a variety of mental health issues.

8. If you need help, get help.
Sometimes the blues are transient, and simple home fixes like these are all you need. But if the darkness persists, remember that you are not alone. Naturopaths and psychologists are an important part of getting better.

If you’re battling the blues this holiday season, be sure to take some moments out to take care of you!