The Spicebox Kitchen with Dr. Linda Shiue

Where do food and medicine meet? In the kitchen! This week, I chat with Dr. Linda Shiue, one of the few MD’s who is also a trained chef. She has dedicated her life’s work to bridging the gap between the medical, nutrition and culinary worlds. We discuss how a plant based diet impacts your health and Dr. Shiue offers some great tips on how to prepare some tantalizing plant-forward recipes! Learn more about her new book Spicebox Kitchen and follow her on Facebook, or Twitter and Instagram at   @spiceboxtravels !

#Spices #FoodIsMedicine #Recipes

Precision Nutrition with Dr. Sarah Berry

Precision nutrition enables investigation of many factors that influence our health—whether the composition of foods we eat, how and when we eat, and what influence our genetics and the composition of our microbiomes has on health. I speak with Dr. Sarah Berry, a nutrition scientist at Kings College London who was led more than 30 randomized clinical trials on human nutrition and cardio-metabolic health. She shares some key insights from the large PREDICT studies, which assess the genetic, metabolic, metagenomic, and meal-dependent effects on metabolic responses to food. Follow her on Twitter at @saraheeberry

Wild Foods & “Sex in Nature” with Dr. Łukasz Łuczaj

For our Valentine’s Day episode, I speak with Polish ethnobotanist and foraging expert, Dr. Łukasz Łuczaj about how humans connect to nature! Łukasz shares his work on wild foods—including plants, mushroom, and insects—and how this ties into cultural histories of the people who consume them. In addition to the edible aspects of the wild, we discuss Łukasz’s new book Sex in Nature: A Guide to Making Love in the Forests and Meadows to learn about the many other ways people connect with the outdoors! 

Want more content on wild foraging? Check out his YouTube channels in English and Polish and his book about life in the natural world On the Wild Side and his book Foraging in Eastern Europe.

#Foraging #WildFoods #Bushcraft

Nutrimetabolomics & Chemical Signals of the Human Diet with Dr. Nichole Reisdorph

Nutrimetabolomics is an emerging field of science that represents the intersection of metabolomics and nutrition research. Using the powerful tools of mass spectrometry and models with germ-free mice and human microbiome samples, scientists are discovering new biomarkers of health and are able to track how different foods are metabolized by the body and the gut microbiome. Our guest this week is Dr. Nichole Reisdorph; she’s working at the forefront of this exciting field to investigate how the consumption of everything from salmon to green tea, and even cannabis, impacts our metabolome. 

#Cannabis #Nutrition #Metabolomics

More Than a Sweet Treat! The Dynamic Chemistry of Maple Syrup with Dr. Navindra Seeram

In that magical period between winter and spring in the northeast US and Canada, tapped sugar maples yield buckets of clear sap. Once concentrated, the resulting sticky syrup is used as a natural sweetener for everything from breakfast treats to specialty cocktails. While sucrose does make up the majority of maple syrup, there are many other secondary metabolites present that give maple its unique flavor and contribute to its pharmacological potential. I speak with Dr. Navindra Seeram, an expert in the chemistry and pharmacology of maple trees. He explains maple chemistry and shares some fascinating projects underway in the development of nutraceutical and cosmeceutical products developed from maple.

#MapleSyrup #Maple #Pharmacognosy

Herbaria & the Natural History of Plants with Dr. Barbara Thiers

Dead plants do tell tales. Over the past five hundred years, plant hunters have scoured the Earth, collecting millions of specimens that are now held in vast collections in New York, London and Paris, complemented by smaller collections found in museums and universities across the globe. These plants were sought out not just for their beauty and diversity, but also for their potential applications in new foods, medicines, and more. I speak with Dr. Barbara Thiers, Director of the Steere Herbarium at New York Botanical Gardens and author of a new book entitled, “Herbarium: The Quest to Preserve and Classify the World’s Plants.” We discuss the fascinating history of herbaria and recount the adventurous stories of some of the famous explorers that built these collections. 

#Herbaria #NaturalHistory #Expedition

Fabulous Fungi and Pharmacognosy with Dr. Nicholas Oberlies

A vast network of fungi circles the globe—interwoven throughout the soil, coating surfaces above ground and even living inside of plants! There is an astonishing level of diversity among fungi, and this biodiversity is coupled with incredible chemical diversity. In this episode of Foodie Pharmacognosy, our guest is Dr. Nick Oberlies, an expert in the field of pharmacognosy who specializes in the study of fungal chemistry! He explains how he and his team find fungi growing inside plants and throughout the environment in the hunt for new molecules to treat cancer, infections, and more. 

#Fungi #Pharmacognosy #NMR

The Chemical Signatures of Plants with Dr. Nadja Cech

Plants produce a fantastic array of metabolites to defend themselves, communicate with other organisms in their environment, and attract pollinators and seed dispersers; sometimes, these metabolites can also impact human health. Our guest this week is Dr. Nadja Cech, an expert in the field of mass spectrometry and natural products. She explains how she uses this exciting tool of science to study the medical potential of herbs like kratom, goldenseal, and more. We also discuss the importance of mentorship and support of diversity and inclusion in science.

#MassSpectrometry #Pharmacognosy #WomenInSTEM #Kratom

Ethnobotany and Exploration in Oman with Dr. Darach Lupton

This week, we take a closer look at the plants and agricultural traditions of Oman, situated on the Arabian Peninsula. Our guest is Dr. Darach Lupton—an ethnobotanist who manages the collection and documentation of plants and seeds from across Oman in his role at the Oman Botanic Garden! He gives us a sneak peek behind the scenes of this incredible garden, which uniquely showcases native plants of the region in a variety of specialized habitats and biomes.

#Oman #Garden #MiddleEast

Biocultural Diversity in Barbados with Dr. Sonia Peter

This week on the show, we’re going to dive into a really cool program dedicated to biocultural education and research in the Caribbean! Our guest is Dr. Sonia Peter. She is the Director of the Biocultural Education and Research program in Barbados and the founding director of Heritage Teas Barbados. We discuss ongoing initiatives dedicated to recapturing the biocultural heritage of the island and also sharing connections to traditional knowledge through a special line of heritage teas.

#Barbados #Biodiversity #Ethnobotany