The Nutrition Library

Nutrition Basics

The unglamorous fundamentals that make the most difference. Start here if you're not sure where to start.

• How to build a balanced plateThe one framework that fixes more meals than any other. Protein, fibre, colour and fat — how much of each, and what it looks like on a Tuesday.7 min
• FibreMost Canadians get about half of what's generally recommended. What fibre does, the two types, and how to add it without wrecking your week.7 min
• Meal planning for people who hate meal planningNo colour-coded spreadsheet, no Sunday spent cooking. A loose system for having enough good food in the house without the admin.6 min

Vitamins & Minerals

Straight guides to the nutrients people actually ask about — what each does, where it comes from, who tends to run short, and whether a supplement is warranted.

• ProteinHow much you actually need, why breakfast is the meal that matters, and whether powders are worth it.6 min
• IronOne of the most common shortfalls in Canada — and the one supplement you should never take on a guess.6 min
• Vitamin B12The one nutrient plants genuinely cannot provide — and the case where a supplement is straightforwardly the right answer.5 min
• Vitamin DAt this latitude your skin makes almost none for half the year. What that actually means, and how to find out where you stand.6 min
• MagnesiumInvolved in hundreds of reactions, widely under-eaten, and heavily oversold. What's real and what isn't.6 min
• FatsWhich ones matter, what omega-3 actually does, and why low-fat eating left a lot of people hungry.7 min

From the Land

Seasonal foods, wild plants and traditional preparations, and where traditional knowledge meets modern nutrition.

• KimchiCabbage, salt, chilli, time — and a few hundred years of knowing exactly how long.Korea
• Snow Fungus & PearA translucent, almost weightless mushroom, simmered with pear into something between a soup and a dessert.China
• Masala ChaiBoiled, not steeped — which is the part almost every Western recipe gets wrong.India
• HariraThe soup that breaks the fast — lentils, chickpeas, tomato and enough herbs to turn it green.Morocco
• RosehipOne of the richest sources of vitamin C that grows wild in Canada — and it improves after a hard frost.Northern Europe · BC
• MulleinThe tall, felted weed on every roadside — and one of the oldest recorded cough remedies in Europe.Europe · naturalised across Canada
• CattailCalled the supermarket of the swamp — and the entry in this atlas that carries the most serious safety warning.Wetlands across Canada
• Wild MushroomsBC exports thousands of kilos of pine mushrooms to Japan every autumn. Most people here have never eaten one.British Columbia · Japan
• The Chopped SaladCucumber and tomato cut small, dressed with lemon and oil — eaten at breakfast, which is the interesting part.The Levant
• PelmeniMade by the hundred, frozen outside in the snow, and eaten all winter. The original convenience food.Siberia · Urals
• MisoSoybeans, salt and a mould called koji, left alone for anything from three months to three years.Japan
• Injera & TeffA sour, spongy, metre-wide flatbread that is simultaneously the plate, the cutlery and the meal.Ethiopia · Eritrea
• DandelionThe plant most people spend money removing from their lawn, and one of the first greens of the year.Everywhere
• Stinging NettleIt stings until you cook it, and then it is one of the most nutrient-dense greens you can pick for free.Temperate worldwide
• YarrowThe feathery-leaved plant on every dry roadside verge, and the one in this collection I would treat with the most respect.Northern hemisphere

Open From the Land →

Food & Health

How eating patterns connect to energy, sleep, digestion and the way nutrition needs shift across a life.

• Why your energy crashes at 3pmBlood sugar in plain language, and the small changes to breakfast and lunch that flatten out the afternoon without more caffeine.8 min
• The nutrition side of sleeping betterCaffeine timing, alcohol, eating too late or too little, and the evening habits that quietly decide how the night goes.7 min
• How nutrition needs shift through the decadesIron in your twenties and thirties, the perimenopausal years, protein and bone health later on — what actually changes, and what stays the same.8 min
• DigestionHow eating actually works, what tends to go wrong, and where the line is between something to adjust and something to get looked at.7 min
• Blood sugar balanceWhat's actually happening between meals, and the small changes that flatten the curve without cutting anything out.6 min

Supplement Education

How to read a label, what Canadian regulation does and doesn't guarantee, and how to tell a useful product from an expensive one.

• How to read a supplement label in CanadaWhat an NPN means, what the claims on the front are legally allowed to say, and how to spot a product that isn't worth your money.9 min