Health & Wellness

Herbal Handbook is a charming, information-packed guide to 51 herbs and their uses illustrated with rare botanical art from the renowned archives of The New York Botanical Garden.

Did you know that woodruff was used as a room freshener in the Middle Ages; that crushed bergamot leaves can soothe bee stings; and that dried fenugreek seeds were found in the tomb of King Tutankhamen?

Herbs are magical, and their uses myriad. Inside Herbal Handbook are fifty-one herbs portrayed in words and rare botanical art curated by experts at The New York Botanical Garden. Some, like saffron, are treasured and rare; others, like purslane, grow by the roadside. They all have a place—in the garden, in the kitchen, in the bed or the bath. Use Herbal Handbook to explore their history, how to grow them, and how they were used in the past and present. Then bring them into your daily life; each herb’s profile offers a recipe or project that highlights its unique properties.

So cleanse your face with calendula when you wake up, sip a bergamot tea at breakfast, have a lovage tuna sandwich for lunch, and mix a caraway cocktail at the end of the day. Let Herbal Handbook delight your senses as they have done to others for thousands of years.

Our future diet will be shaped by diverse forces. It will be shaped by novel technologies and the logic of globalisation, by geopolitical tensions and the evolution of cultural preferences, by shocks to the status quo – pandemics and economic strife, the escalation of the climate and ecological crises – and by how we choose to respond. It will also be shaped by our emotions. It will be shaped by the meat paradox.

‘Should we eat animals?’ was, until recently, a question reserved for moral philosophers and an ethically minded minority, but it is now posed on restaurant menus and supermarket shelves, on social media and morning television. The recent surge in popularity for veganism in the UK, Europe and North America has created a rupture in the rites and rituals of meat, challenging the cultural narratives that sustain our omnivory.

In The Meat Paradox, Rob Percival, an expert in the politics of meat, searches for the evolutionary origins of the meat paradox, asking when our relationship with meat first became emotionally and ethically complicated. Every society must eat, and meat provides an important source of nutrients. But every society is moved by its empathy. We must all find a way of balancing competing and contradictory imperatives. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the origins of our empathy, the psychology of our dietary choices, and anyone who has wondered whether they should or shouldn’t eat meat.

A fast-paced, gripping insider account of the entrepreneurs and renegades racing to bring lab-grown meat to the world.

The trillion-dollar meat industry is one of our greatest environmental hazards; it pollutes more than all the world’s fossil-fuel-powered cars. Global animal agriculture is responsible for deforestation, soil erosion and more emissions than air travel, paper mills and coal mining combined. It also depends on the slaughter of more than 60 billion animals per year, a number that is only increasing as the global appetite for meat swells. The whole world seems to be sleepwalking into a food crisis.

But a band of doctors, scientists, activists and entrepreneurs have been racing to end animal agriculture as we know it, hoping to fulfill a dream of creating meat without ever having to kill an animal. This is the story of a group of seven vegans quietly working to solve one the most pressing issues we face today, creating the biggest upheaval to the food business in decades along the way.

In Billion Dollar Burger, Chase Purdy explores the companies at the cutting edge of the nascent food technology sector, from polarizing activist-turned-tech CEO Josh Tetrick to lobbyists and regulators on both sides of the issue. Billion Dollar Burger follows the people fighting to upend our food system as they butt up against the entrenched interests fighting viciously to stop them. It will take readers on a truly global journey from Silicon Valley to China, by way of Israel and the UK.

The stakes are monumentally high: cell-cultured meat is the best hope for sustainable food production, a key to fighting climate change, a gold mine for the companies that make it happen and an existential threat for the farmers and meatpackers that make our meat today.

No soil? No sunlight? No problem. A hydroponic growing system gives you the power to grow plants anywhere. Even if you live in an area where water is scarce, a hydroponic system is the answer you’ve been looking for. Hydroponic systems are sealed and do not allow evaporation, making water loss virtually nonexistent. Simply suspend your essential nutrients in a water-based solution and circulate them to the plant roots in a contained network of vessels and tubes. This accessible guide provides the solid information you need for hydroponic gardening success.

Farmer Tyler shows you, with detailed step-by-step photos, precisely how to create these systems, and how to plant and maintain them. All the information you need to get started with your home hydroponic system is included:
– Recipes for nutrient solutions
– Light and ventilation sources
– Comprehensive equipment guide
– Growing and maintenance instructions
– 12+ hydroponic system builds
– Complete crop selection charts

DIY Hydroponic Gardens is the best resource available for getting started in hydroponics.

How do plants work? How can I grow tomatoes? How can I encourage garden wildlife? RHS Get Growing will answer all these questions in a fun and accessible guide.

Perfect for parents and children who enjoy engaging with the outdoors and want to do more activities together, or for beginner gardeners just starting out, this book explains how plants work, describes the building blocks of gardening, and shows how to grow everything from cacti to cucumbers.

With great facts and practical projects, giving the reader a lot of information, it’s an ideal, hands-on introduction for complete beginners, and designed to inspire a life-long love of gardening.

In this book, you will learn to:
– Learn about the plants and animals that make up the ecosystem of any garden
– Plant seeds together with your children and watch as they grow
– Carry out experiments – from making a wormery to mapping rain shadows
– Make delicious recipes from your home-grown produce

The projects and experiments are bite-sized and self-contained, ideal for weekends, holidays and even home-schooling.

This book is ideal for parents and teachers who want to get kids connected with nature, experiencing the world and relating to the food that they eat. All the guidance is backed by scientific and educational research, drawn together by the team of RHS experts.

Get your children growing shoots and seeds, whatever their ages, and watch them fall in love with the natural world with RHS Get Growing, the complete family gardening guide.