Blog
The link between a healthy heart, and overall health and wellbeing is clear. Read the latest blog to discover how a vibrant, flavourful diet can nourish your heart from within.
It’s common knowledge that maintaining a healthy lifestyle includes getting a good night’s rest and eating a balanced diet. However, it’s easy to only pay proper attention to your health once you’re sick, instead of continuously caring for your body to improve the strength and resilience of your natural immune system.
There are some solutions to supporting your immune system that are more practical and easier than you might think. So, here are 9 ways to boost your body’s natural defences that are all science and no hype.
Our daily habits are what shape us into who we are as individuals. One of the most important lifestyle habits that radically improves energy levels, mood, immunity and overall health and wellbeing is healthy eating. But knowing where to start, and how to stay on track with healthy eating habits is easier said than done. Read on to learn five simple tips and tricks to help you build a healthy eating pattern, and how to stick with it.
Natalia shares her story on living with a chronic skin condition, called psoriasis, from the age of 17. She discusses how she managed different treatments, the impact on her mental health, and the role of good nutrition.
Tennis great Ivan Lendl famously lamented "grass is for the cows" after capturing every major title in world tennis bar one - Wimbledon - the only major played on grass. So is grass really only for the cows and if so, why would we recommend you take shots which are full of wheat grass and barley grass sprouts?
Endometriosis is an inflammatory disease that affects millions of women around the globe, and it’s estimated that at least 1 in 10 people with a uterus in New Zealand will experience it.
While there is no cure for Endometriosis, there are some self-care tips to help you live your best life with Endometriosis.
We discuss tips such as nutrition, exercise, support and sleep among others. If you or someone you know suffers from this disease, then this is the article for you.
What's it like to live with Type One Diabetes? Our team member, Ella, shares her personal experience and insights in this blog. She talks about how her diagnosis has changed her approach to caring for her body and making mindful food choices, while also shedding light on the challenges of managing diabetes.
Growing up in the 70s was easy. John Denver and Abba ruled the airwaves, we all knew our neighbours, we ate meat and three veg - except on Friday when it was always fish. Vegetables grew in the backyard, and mum would preserve the stuff that couldn’t be eaten straight away.
Fast forward fifty years and most kids have no idea where their food comes from - 'The supermarket?'. But how it got there or what happened to it along the way is a mystery.
For the last four years Nutrient Rescue has been actively supporting a group of keen adventure racers in their quest to tackle the annual New Zealand GODZone adventure race. GODZone is an expedition adventure race where mixed teams of four navigate their way through back country terrain to reach a series of check points, by either trekking, kayaking, pack rafting or mountain biking.
CEO Andrew Simcock dives into the issue of rising food prices, and what this means for our health and nutrition.
It is becoming increasingly understood that our gut microbiome is the foundation of our overall health. Read on to learn why this is the case, what negatively affects gut health, and what you can do to improve your gut microbiome.
Over recent years, the dietary term “plant-based” has gained increasing interest from the western world, due to a variety of reported health and environmental benefits. But what does it mean exactly, and why should we try to eat a more plant-based diet? Read on to learn more as well as tips on how to go about eating a more plant-based diet.
Berries are some of the healthiest foods you can eat, and it is becoming increasingly evident that berries grown in New Zealand are some of the most powerful superfoods on earth.
Ground-breaking New Zealand-based research is being conducted into how and why blackcurrants and boysenberries are so beneficial to our health, especially in helping to lift and maintain our brain and lung potential.
We share some of the science behind how these berries might work towards helping you live a better life, especially with regards to lung, brain and general health.
You may remember sitting in the classroom at school, being shown the food pyramid as a guide to healthy eating.
The world of nutrition is moving fast, and what we were told when we were kids is being refined and in some cases dramatically revised.
We've put together the latest thinking on the healthy eating food pyramid, and you might be surprised at what you discover.
We all aspire to live a long, happy and healthy life, but how do we achieve that? The answers may lie in the lessons we can learn from the diets of those people that achieve it.
One of these areas is Okinawa, Japan. This is home to the world’s longest -lived women.
In 2004, Dan Buettner teamed up with National Geographic and some of the world's top longevity researchers to find out more. Here is an excerpt from The Blue Zones Solution by Dan Buettner, published 7 April, 2015.
“It took me two days to convince Gozei Shinzato to show me her arsenal of longevity supplements, but, in the end, she delivered.
Before me lay at least five compounds that could explain how the spry centenarian had eluded the diseases of aging to reach her 104th year with the flexibility of a yogi and the frenetic energy of a Chihuahua.”
There's a war raging in your body right now, and it only gets worse the older you are. That's what the experts are saying. It's the antioxidants versus the free radicals.
Read on to learn more.
If you’re in your late 40s or early 50’s you’re probably staring down the barrel of “the big M” – menopause, if you’re not already there. It can be a little daunting or scary and it’s something none of us particularly relish experiencing.
Menopause is a reality check that your body is changing, so this is a time to take care of yourself by making healthy lifestyle choices. Taking steps to achieve a healthy diet, a good level of fitness and an ideal body weight can help to ease immediate symptoms and improve your longer-term health.
We share 10 tips to help you support your body through this change.
You may have heard the phrase “eat the rainbow”, referring to eating fruits and vegetables of all colours, just like a rainbow. But do you know why it’s important for you?
Plants contain compounds called phytonutrients which give plants their colour, taste and aroma, and also promote good health. Phytonutrients also protect plants from germs, bugs, the sun and other threats.
When we eat plant food, those phytonutrients help to protect us from chronic diseases. Sounds pretty amazing right? But what has that to do with the rainbow?
We discuss the benefit of each colour and give you some ideas around how to bring more colour into your diet.
So, you’re over your illness, but you’re still feeling “blah”. Just as an illness might last a week or several weeks, so too might it take a few weeks to feel like your old vibrant self again. It takes time to get over feeling wobbly and tired, and back to eating normally with your usual energy levels.
There’s no magic trick that can bring you back to instant health, but there are some tried and true ways to get your energy levels back after being sick. The most important thing is to listen to your body and ease back into your usual routine and eat wholesome and nutritious foods.
We share 10 ways to help you get back your energy levels.
The more we learn about nutrition, the more it seems we should eat the way people did a hundred years ago. Recent research appears to be pointing us in the direction of eating mostly "whole foods" – that is, foods that are as close to their natural form as possible.
But what exactly is a whole food? And is a whole food powder as good as eating fresh produce?
We explain what exactly a whole food is, and talk about 6 reasons you should be eating more of them.
As the famous saying goes… “You can’t pour from an empty cup”.
Women are often the centre of every household, particularly when they’re also a mum! From the moment they wake up to the moment they go to bed they are thinking of others before themselves. Making breakfast for the kids, getting them ready for school on time, looking after them, all while keeping on top of managing chores and a career - all of this before they can think about themselves! But to give 100% we need to be nourished and well rested. Good nutrition is essential for good health.
Could NZ Blackcurrants be the key for the prevention and management of Type 2 Diabetes? Recent studies suggest that the answer is yes.
Getting enough sleep is vital. In fact, when it comes to health, sleep is as vital as regular exercise and eating a balanced diet.
A poor night sleep is something many of us have experienced. It can leave us feeling tired and frazzled.
Not getting enough sleep can also weaken your immune system, cause cognition (thinking) issues, lower your sex drive, and lead to weight gain.
But fear not, you’re not doomed to toss and turn every night. There are some simple tips for better sleep that you can implement straight away.
Spending time in nature is good for us for lots of reasons.
Recent studies are showing that there are many benefits to be gained from interacting with nature and being more connected to the earth. These studies show that being in nature can have positive impacts on our brains, bodies, feelings, thought processes, and social interactions.
In this week's article we talk about ways you can connect with nature, such as grounding (or earthing) and other activities that are easy to incorporate into your everyday life.
If you're interested in finding out how something as simple as walking barefoot can help you, then read on.
With winter coughs and colds and other illnesses approaching, we all start to turn our thoughts to preparing our bodies to help defend itself.
While no food can cure any illness, eating the right foods and boosting essentials nutrients may help support your immune system and offer some relief from certain symptoms.
You can of course get some of these nutrients from a synthetic pill, but nature has a way of giving us this plus so much more.
We talk about foods that can help you prepare your body’s defense mechanisms.
The term superfood is thrown around constantly. From the superfood smoothies you get at cafes to superfood muesli bars you can purchase at the supermarket, it seems to be following us everywhere! However, there is a good reason behind why the term “superfoods” seems to chase us like a lost puppy.
So what exactly are superfoods, and how do they benefit us? We break it all down and tell you about 5 superfoods we think are awesome, as well as give you some tips on including them in your diet.
Every day we are bombarded by hundreds of environmental chemicals. While we should be mindful about avoiding chemicals when we can, the fact is we simply cannot avoid them all.
The body already has its own clever system to rid itself of toxins. If it didn’t, we’d be in trouble.
So what can we do to support our bodies in flushing out toxins?
We share with you 8 ways to support your digestive health in order to keep your gut happy and maintain your health and wellbeing.
It’s that wonderful time of year again – Christmas! A time to eat, drink and be merry! Although Christmas is a time where it can be easy to overindulge in treats, it is still possible to maintain a healthy balanced diet during this time. While festive foods can add enjoyment, having too much of it can be detrimental to our health and overall wellbeing.
To help you out and keep you on track with your health and wellness this festive season, we’ve come up with 7 handy tips to help you get your fruits and veges in while enjoying your festive season!
Make your gift giving a little more thoughtful this year, by getting crafty at home and gifting something personal and homemade this Christmas. Everyone cherishes those gifts that are made from love.
We thought we’d share 6 of our favourite crafty gift giving ideas, from homemade delicious goods to something the kids can pull out of their Christmas stockings.
Here at Nutrient Rescue, we thoroughly enjoy reading and hearing about your favourite tips and tricks to help boost immunity, sneak in more fruits and veges, and everything else you share with us! We find we are always learning new things from your questions and insights.
We thought we’d share some of our all-time favourite tips and tricks from our Shotsters.
We’re in love with green vegetables. No really, we really love them.
Dark green leafy vegetables are among the best foods on the planet. They’re nutrient-dense which means they’re crammed full of vitamins and minerals, and other good things like fibre, chlorophyll, folate and antioxidants to name but a few.
We know not everyone feels this way about veges and some of us struggle to eat them with any frequency, so we thought we’d share our favourite ways of sneaking extra veges in to our diets.
With Summer rolling in we start to think about days lounging at the beach, weekend BBQ’s with friends and family, and wearing shorts at long last! It’s also the time we start to focus on getting ourselves in tip top shape both inside and out so that we can enjoy the Summer and festive season.
Glowing, healthy skin and hair is something many of us aspire to over summer. Eating well and getting plenty fruits and veges is key to achieving this. If you’re healthy on the inside it makes sense that it radiates through to the outside.
Here are some suggestions which may help you to achieve photography worthy skin and hair.
We often hear the saying “Eat well, look good, feel great!”, a saying we are firm believers in. Feeling your best starts with being healthy. We all focus on supporting our immunity through the Winter months to avoid coughs and colds, but Spring, Summer and Autumn should be no different.
There are some simple ‘healthy life rules’ you can follow to help you feel great all year round; boost your energy, support your immunity and glow on the outside.
In today’s busy world our bodies are exposed to more and more toxins each day. These toxins can be ingested into our bodies through the food we eat, what we drink and the environment we live in.
As we move into Spring we often focus on getting our bodies into shape, and one of the methods to help kickstart this is a detox. The liver is the detoxing powerhouse of your body, designed to assist with cleansing your body of toxins and producing bile to support healthy digestion.
However, with modern life the liver’s ability to ssist in detoxing your body can become overloaded, causing your body to store toxins as body fat to be dealt with at a later date. Detoxing is one way to assist your body in ridding itself of these toxins so that your liver can function optimally. It all helps to make you glow from the inside out!
What does detoxing actually mean, and how can you go about it without going on a crazy diet. Find out in this week's blog.
We all have little rituals and "go-to's” that are special to us. These activities may keep us grounded, lift our mood, maintain physical health or simply be a little bit of a treat once in a while.
Here at Nutrient Rescue we thought we’d ask our staff what their favourite health or wellness related rituals or favourite things were, and share it with you.
Eating a more plant-based diet is becoming more and more popular for many reasons. Maybe you or someone you know has already made the switch to eating more plant-based foods. But what are the benefits of eating plant-based foods? What does plant based actually mean and how can you maintain a plant-based diet?
This month, we would like to help answer some of your plant-based questions for the newbies among us, alongside reaffirming what for our plant-based followers what they may already know.
There are times when we all feel a bit lost, restless, and discontent, or feel as though nothing is in our control. Nourishing your soul means to feed it mindful, positive thinking and intentional self-care. Taking time each day to nourish your soul will help you maintain the health and balance of your life.
Here are 10 ways to help you nourish your soul.
Phew, modern life. As our lives become more and more hectic, it can seem nearly impossible to check off everything on our to-do list, let alone find time to reconnect with ourselves or those we love, both of which have proven helpful when it comes to your happiness and health.
Luckily each new days brings with it a fresh start, and it’s up to you to give today your best shot.
Here are 22 simple time saving hacks that we use at Nutrient Rescue that will help you get the most out of every day.
So, what does it really mean when we talk about gratitude? And how does it benefit us in life?
Research shows us that over 1,000 people aged from 8 to 80 found that those who practice gratitude consistently are more present, happier, and more optimistic.
The best thing that comes with gratitude is joy. Pursuing these good vibes might even improve your health!
Practicing gratitude is easier said than done.
Here are some tips for learning to appreciate what do you have and being able to enjoy the little things.
Making school lunchboxes every day that are appealing to your kids can be tricky. Kids get really bored if they eat the same thing over and over. Variety not only keeps them interested, but it also gives them nutrients from a variety of sources.
We share our ideas on how to not only sneak some extra veges into your kids' lunchboxes, but how to make them appealing so that your kids will finish their lunch every day.
If you’re like most of us, you’ve been paying special attention to your immunity and wondering what you can do to boost yours.
While there’s no single food that is magically going to help you avoid getting coughs and colds, there are ways to give your immunity a real supercharge: get more sleep, stay hydrated, exercise, wash your hands. And fill your pantry with immunity-fighting foods.
A lot of us won’t realise that we already stock some foods at home that are known to help boost our immunity.
Here are our top 10 immunity boosting pantry staples.
“New year, new you!”
“Today is the start of the rest of your life!”
Oh, how easy it sounds. We’ve all had those moments of clarity where we vow to ourselves that we’re going to make that change that will finally impact our quality of life. Join the gym. Quit booze. Start running. Cut the sugary snacks. Meditate.
We all need to find tools to embed habits to create behaviour change. Read our blog to find out how to go about doing this.
As the mercury drops and the days get shorter, we find ourselves trapped indoors. This can lead to us feeling demotivated, tired and sapped of energy. It becomes harder not to hit the snooze button and by afternoon many of us are already dreaming of bed.
Vitamin D keeps your immune system humming and helps to regulate insulin levels. It boosts energy and promotes a good mood. The sun is the best source of Vitamin D. When our skin is exposed to sunlight it makes vitamin D from cholesterol in the skin cells.
Read our blog for five of the more unusual (and easy!) tips to get you back in action mode.
The reason for going organic is simple: natural food is better for us and better for the planet.
But what exactly makes food organic? To be classified as organic, farmers must adhere to strict standards regulated by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI). Organic crops are grown without synthetic pesticides, artificial fertilisers, antibiotics, growth promotants, genetic modification and irradiation.
While we like to shout about the benefit of our product from the rooftop, no one says it better than our customers.
In 2020 we ran a survey of almost 1,000 of our customers and asked them to tell us about their experience with taking their Shots. We were interested to know what benefits our customers felt, and whether those benefits increased over time with continual use.
We found the results really interesting, so we thought we’d share the results with you.
Vitamin C is hailed the Queen of immunity boosting vitamins helping us stay strong when surrounded by cold and flu's. But that's not all it's good for...
In this modern, busy world our immune systems take a hammering. Stress, a processed food diet, lack of sleep - these are all factors that contribute.
We get run down, get the sniffles, a sore throat, or just feel chronically tired with annoying brain fog to boot.
Prevention is better than cure, so what can we do to stave off the lurgies?
An extract from blackcurrants has been shown to raise the fat-burning ability of the female body by an average of 27 percent - the equivalent increase of three-to-four weeks' worth of regular exercise.
The brain is an energy-intensive organ using about 20% of your body’s energy requirements!
It needs good fuel to keep it going throughout the day.
Eating certain foods that nourish and protect your brain can help slow cognitive decline and improve your brain’s health.
Sugar is a dangerous substance that upsets the body's biochemistry and contributes to a whole raft of diseases. And yet the average person eating a Western diet consumes 33 teaspoons a day!
Naturopathic Doctor, Dr. Vanessa Ingraham believes that eliminating white sugar from the diet is one of the most important ways to improve overall health.
Today we're looking at sugar and how our nutrient-dense Shots are the good guys when it comes to the sweet stuff.
Good nutrition is essential to maintaining healthy skin.
Although it's impossible to prevent the natural aging process good nutrition can help maintain firm skin and a clear and bright complexion.
Our skin is made up of multiple layers - it's the largest organ in our bodies! Often we focus on the topical layers of skin health, nourishing with oils, serums, and creams but just as important is how we feed our skin from the inside out.
Here are four super nutrients that help your skin to glow
Looking for a natural mood booster? It could be as simple as topping up your breakfast with some berries or taking your Daily shot!
When it comes to eating to nourish and fuel your body it could compare to building a campfire...
We're honing in on the power of our key ingredient (blackcurrants) on brain health.
A recent study by the University of Auckland found that NZ blackcurrants are packed full of a key brain nutrient that helps fight age-related brain conditions and helps maintain whole-body health and wellness.
When Captain Kirk said "beam me up" I always pictured the body disintegrating into a million particles and then miraculously being reconstituted on board the starship enterprise.
This is one feat that the scientists haven't been able to replicate… yet. Probably because the human body is such a complex organism and there's so much we don’t know about it.
That hasn’t stopped a series of mad scientists on our TV screens trying to recreate the human form; 'Frankensteins' that didn’t quite work out.
So what makes us think we understand the plant world any better? Yet scientists deconstruct plants in the lab, extracting all the parts they think are worth keeping and separating them into piles of vitamins and minerals, ready to be reassembled as the latest remedy to help lose weight or to improve your skin.
The long sunny days of summer may now be a distant memory but etched in my brain are two events from last Christmas Day.
Christmas Day is not usually a day for making any earth-shattering discoveries, let alone two.
We were staying with Tracey's parents in Kaiteriteri and preparing for the traditional feast prepared by Tracey's Mum and Dad. While they were preparing I was keeping well clear, pretending to be useless - which I seem to be very good at!
Tracey's parents celebrate 50 years of marriage next year so as you can imagine they are a well-oiled machine when it comes to perfecting the Christmas feast - which is lucky because it usually feeds us until nearly New Year.
Since Ryman I've been searching for a new mission, one that would be less taxing on my health and more importantly one that might actually slow down the progression of Parkinsons and improve my quality of life.
The advice I received from the specialist I saw in Oregon five years ago was still ringing in my ears - his advice was to eat super-healthy, to push yourself both physically and mentally, to keep up the social contact and to get good sleep. This was my big opportunity to take his advice.
I discovered Nutrient Rescue late last year. I was my usual sceptical self but I couldn’t argue with the evidence - after just a few weeks of taking the shots I felt way better. My teenage son Sam, took to them as well, which blew us away. Six months later he still takes them every day. The rest of his diet hasn’t improved any, but his school results have!
Tracey and I decided to invest.
Dinner battle lines are drawn. I’m barking out the orders.
“Less talking more eating”
“Use your fork”
“Stop playing with that, it’s dinner time not play time”.
The blonde haired angels sat either side of me apparently gleeful in their defiant retorts.
“I don’t like carrots” (non-sense!)
“I’m full. Can we have pudding” (not if you’re full)
“Have I eaten enough now” (you’ve barely eaten anything!)
My girls Aria and Sylvie are seven and five. They’re actually pretty good eaters, and not too fussy about what foods they will or won’t eat. They will eat broccoli, for example. But they won’t touch leafy greens, with the exception of kale when it is crispy baked.
by Dr Vanessa Ingraham
We all know that a diet rich in vegetables and fruit boosts our immune system and keeps us feeling our best, but will an apple a day really keep the doctor away this flu season? These days, apples are one of the least nutritious fruits we can consume. Not only are they prone to insect predation and doused with pesticides (1), modern apples have been selected for sweetness and most varieties do not contain much more than some dietary fibre and a little bit of vitamin C.
by Dr Vanessa Ingraham
Chronic inflammation is thought to be a significant factor for almost every disease associated with ageing. Conditions such as heart disease, cancer, autoimmunity, osteoporosis, diabetes and even skin wrinkling all have roots in chronic inflammation. In order to achieve vibrant health we need to understand how to allay chronic inflammation.
by Dr Vanessa Ingraham
Our modern lives are by definition highly inflammatory. The Annual Update of Key Results 2015/16, New Zealand Health Survey, found that one in three Kiwis is overweight. Visceral adipose, or what is affectionately known as belly fat, contains cells that act like little factories, churning out cell messengers that promote inflammation in our bodies. Chronic inflammation unhinges our ability to control blood sugar, and the ability of our liver and muscles to burn fat.
Obesity drives inflammation, and inflammation makes it harder to lose weight. An anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle changes can break this cycle and reduce our risk of chronic disease.
by Dr Vanessa Ingraham
What do heart attacks, Alzheimer's, diabetes and depression all have in common? The underlying mechanism by which they occur and progress may the same — chronic inflammation driven by poor diet and lifestyle choices, stressful lives and big bellies.
The word “inflammation” describes our body’s natural response to injury. The last time you got the flu, were bitten by a mosquito or sprained an ankle, you experienced inflammation. Appropriate inflammation is a protective mechanism and results in swelling, an increased immune system response, increased circulation to the damaged area and a host of complex cellular processes that together facilitate healing.
Every parent knows that children love lollies, cookies and sweet drinks. But don’t be too hard on them; it’s all a delicious ploy by evolutionary biology to ensure survival of the youngest members of our species. Research shows kids are hardwired to have a stronger sugar preference than adults, and newborns will show a strong preference for sugar-sweetened solutions.
A child’s sensory world is very different from ours. They will salivate over treats far too salty or sweet for you and me, and are generally more sensitive to bitter flavours. One reason is simply that children need more sugar to support their rapid growth and development. A strong preference for sweet foods, which in nature were not always as ubiquitous as they are now, may have conferred a survival advantage.
Avoiding bitter foods makes sense too. In nature the bitter flavour often represents secondary plant compounds such as alkaloids and terpenes, which may be poisonous. By avoiding the flavour that may go with dangerous phytochemicals, again, children may have been using their taste buds to survive.
Sugar not only tastes extra good to little ones, it makes them feel extra good too. Doctors know this and so will use sugar-sweetened liquid as a natural pain reliever in infants too young for traditional analgesics.
There is good news though — at the age at which children stop growing, their preference for sugar shrinks as well. By age 15 or 16, most teenagers show about the same preference as adults for sweet foods and drinks. The age at which that preference changes can be predicted by measuring bone turnover — when bone stops growing, kids may stop raiding the lolly jar as well. One reason for this is that growing bones secrete hormones such as insulin and leptin that may stimulate the brain and and influence metabolism, taste and cravings.
Subscribe to auto-renew and save 15%