Would you like a cup of tea?

So you’ve decided to become your own herbalist and buy a mortar and pestle and grind out some teas. But what to buy and how to you prepare it? I recommended a book in my first post, The Way of Herbs by Michael Tierra. It’s been incredibly helpful to me in concocting my own recipes and has great information about the properties of herbs, what they are used for and how, diet, remedies and the uses of different herbs in the Western and Chinese traditions of medicines. I also like the website http://www.botanical.com/. It gives a comprehensive overview of the herb down to what climate it grows best in.

While teas are the most common application for herbs, there are many others. The following information was taken from The Way of Herbs:

TEAS
Infusion: This application is used to utilize the flowers or soft leaves of the herb. They are steeped in a tightly covered container with water that has just been brought to a rolling boil.
Decoction: This application is used for coarser leaves, stems, barks, and roots. The herbs are simmered for about an hour and then strained off.

The usual proportion in making a medicinal tea is one ounce of dried herbs per pint of water.

FORMENTATION OR COMPRESS
This application is used to treat swellings, pains, colds and flues. It stimulates the circulation of the blood or lymph in the area to be applied. Those herbs that are too strong to be taken internally, the body will absorb slowing.

Make an herbal tea, dipping a cloth into the tea and applying the towel over the affected area as hot as can be tolerated.

LINIMENTS
This application utilizes herbal extracts to rub into the skin for treating strained muscles and ligaments.

Four ounces dried herbs, one-pint vinegar, alcohol (grain—vodka or gin for internal, rubbing alcohol for external) or massage oil (made by combining vegetable oils like olive, sesame or almond). Allow to extract by shaking contents of containers once or twice a day for about fourteen days.

OILS
This application is used when the major properties of an herb is associated with its essential oil.

Pound fresh or dried herbs with mortar and pestle. Olive or sesame oil. Use one pint of oil to two ounces of herbs and let stand for three days.


TINCTURES
This application is good for herbs that don’t taste good or are to be taken over an extended period of time.

Four ounces powdered or cut herb with one-pint grain alcohol (brandy, vodka, gin, rum). Shake daily for about two weeks and then strain.

These are not the only possible applications, but they are some of the more widely used. You also need to remember that the shelf life for dried herbs is about a year to a year and a half. How you store them is important. Mountain Rose Herbs gives great advice about storing herbs. http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/newsletter/tips_for_storing_herbs.htm

You can also used all those dried herbs you’re about to buy to make your own incense. I use self-lighting charcoals and a fireproof container (I use my cast iron cauldron). Grind up some lavender, sweet grass and sage to cleanse the energy in your space. It lifts the spirits and calms the soul.

However your decide to incorporate herbs into your life, always remember to use common sense as a patient, practitioner and consumer. Happy Herbaling!!

Image from http://www.kitchenshop.com/

Did you find an herbalist yet?

History has always found a way to repeat itself and we in the United States are making the decision to integrate herbal remedies into our daily lives. We take the advice of friends or people that appear knowledgeable about what to buy to make our bodies feel better. But what if you make the decision to find an herbalist? Or what if you want to become accredited yourself?

My first visit was to the American Herbalists Guild. www.americanherbalistsguild.com They give a great overview of the different types of herbalists and some suggestions about how to go about finding someone reliable. But as with anyone treating you for any condition, first and foremost, you need to be comfortable and trust eh person you’re talking to. Once again, common sense is your friend.

As I was reading the overview, I noticed that herbalists aren’t certified, they are registered or members of schools or organizations. But if your practitioner is specializing in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Traditional Ayurvedic Medicine (M.D. (Ayur.) when coming from foreign countries or the American accreditation, D.Av.) or Naturopathic Medicine (N.D.), there are licenses and accreditations for this individual to practice. So what’s up with herbalists?

According to the article “Enhancing the Accountability of Alternative Medicine”, http://www.milbank.org/mraltmed.html#acknowledgments, “only chiropractic, acupuncture and naturopathy have accrediting bodies recognized by the United States Department of Education.” The article also states that most consumers “choose and administer herbal medicine themselves, following recommendations by friends, employees in health food stores, and the increasing number of books, magazines, and magazine article devoted to the subject.” Crazy. I’m going to let Chuck, the stock guy at Whole Foods tell me whether St John’s Wort will truly ease my depression or Echinacea shorten my cold?

Well, not necessarily. But before I take Chuck’s advice I buy the books, read the magazine articles and the websites and make my own informed choices about what is best for my body. I have three mortar and pestles and make my own tea remedies for my friends and myself. Herbs are one of the many opportunities we have to reconnect with our own bodies by listening to what it says to you. If you do make the decision to consult an herbalist for perhaps a prolonged illness, you should find someone you feel is qualified and is associated with a known organization such as the AHG and the National Institute of Medical Herbalists located in the U.K. http://www.nimh.org.uk/

And if Chuck does recommend an herbalist to you, research and talk to the practitioner about their training and expertise. Would you expect anything less from a medical doctor?

“The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.” George Eliot

What does the government say about all this health stuff?

I wanted to find out how the United States handles the regulation of herbal products and fresh and dried herbs. Since Americans are starting to seek out different option for their healthcare and daily living, I thought this would be a relatively easy task. I went to the Food and Drug Administration’s website, http://www.fda.gov/, and typed in the search bar, herbal medicine.

The first thing I found is that herbs are listed as a dietary supplement and regulated by the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act instituted in 1994. According to an overview from the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition published in 2001, http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/ds-oview.html, “Currently, there are no FDA regulations that are specific to dietary supplements that establish a minimum standard of practice for manufacturing dietary supplements.”


In further reading, in December 2006 the FDA released a draft of a document entitled “Guidance for industry on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Products and their Regulation by the Food and Drug Administration”. http://www.fda.gov/OHRMS/DOCKETS/98fr/06d-0480-gld0001.pdf From what I could understand of this document, if an herbal product makes the claim that it is “intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in man” then it's considered a drug and is then subject to the FDA’s regulations regarding drugs. BUT, if the same herbal product made claims that its use is “to maintain the health of” than it’s a dietary supplement.
I didn’t look up that the actual FDA regulations regarding drugs and dietary supplements, not being fluent in the politico language, I was getting headache from the other documents I was trying to understand, it still seems to me there is room for loopholes. The beauty of a foreign language.


I also searched for information about regulations on the sale of fresh and dried herbs. Although I couldn’t find anything specific, the information I found referred mostly to supplements, my suggestion is to use common sense. Your local organic market is always a good place to start. I also visit my local farmer’s market. In these instances, I can speak directly to those growing or purchasing the herbs I want to buy.

The American Herbal Products Association, http://www.ahpa.org/, provides a listing of their member that includes suppliers of bulk herbs. Their members must sign and adhere to a code of ethics and their philosophy is one of self-regulation. Their members include my own personal on-line herb-shopping site, http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/. I’ve bought from them for several year sand have been quite happy with their products and service.
Whew, that was a ton of information.

In the meantime, I leave you with this: “Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, thy may be relied on to set them to rights.” Thomas Jefferson

A Little History of Herbalism

The history of herbalism is a long tradition within many cultures. China can boast to being the oldest known civilization to compile s listing of medicinal herbs. According to the National Library of Medicine whose web site hosts an online version of an exhibit on Chinese medicine (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/chinese/chinesehome.html), the Emperor Shen Nung is believed to be the author of the shen-nung pen ts’ao ching (Divine Husbandman’s Materia Medica). This includes 365 medicines derived from plants, minerals and animals. While Shen Nung ruled approximately 3000 B.C., the information complied was eventually recroded approximately 2,000 years later, the herbal tradition passed orally from generation to generation of physicians and practitioners. Here is a picture of this work from the above-mentioned exhibit.

The Greeks also have their herbals. According to Wikipedia, the first was written by Pedanius Dioscorides, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedanius_Dioscorides. De Materia Medica was written in the first century A.D. and this book remained the standard for herbal remedies in Western civilization until the fifteenth century. The most famous reproduction of his work is an illustrated copy created in the sixth century, The Vienna Dioscurides. A picture of this work is taken from Wikipedia.

The Indian culture also includes herbalism in its ancient healing practice named Ayurveda, which translated means the science of life. According to the Ayurvedic Institute, http://www.ayurveda.com/, the first writing on this subject, the Charaka Samhita arose around 400 – 200 B.C. Although its roots and practice are much older, no one can be sure how old this medicinal philosophy really is. The Ayurveda’s philosophy is the prevention of illness by maintaining one’s health through the balance of and between the mind, body and soul. Herbs play a huge part in the body’s maintenance.

The idea of alternative medicine isn’t new. There was obviously a time when herbal medicine wasn’t an alternative at all. Its history is long and spans globally as cultures independently found uses for the herbs in their area. This knowledge was eventually shared as trade and exploration became more commonplace. I found a good overview article on the history of herbalism that expands on even more cultures than I’ve covered here and can be found at www.canmedbotanics.nl/watisfytoeng.html. Although this is a retail site, this article has reliable information.

Now that we have a background about the history of herbalism globally, we can turn our critical eye to how the United States deals with the use of herbs medicinally in the present.

Beginning the Search

Any search for information usually leads an individual to the Internet first. Anything you Google is most likely to come up with some insane number like 1,532,791 answers to whatever question you’re throwing out there. I, like any good Internet user, did the same thing, plugging in herbal remedies and expecting the insane number. But my initial search brought me every retail site possible. Not only could I grow my penis by 54%, but I could buy a remedy for constipation and a salve for sore muscles. Not exactly what I was looking for. So I found after some perusing, that if I plugged in Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM), while by dangit, I found much better answers.

Which brings us to…what exactly is complementary and alternative medicine? Pretty fancy name for what?

Believe it or not, under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Health there is the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM). http://nccam.nih.gov/ This organization promotes scientific research and training for practitioners in the use CAM. They define complementary medicine as a therapy used in conjunction with traditional medicine while alternative medicine is used in place of traditional medicine. Since I want to focus on herbal remedies, this would fall under alternative applications.

I also found a great article for physicians, which gives an easy-to-read breakdown of all the therapies included in CAM such as acupuncture, chiropractic and homeopathic therapy. http://www.aafp.org/fpm/20010300/37comp.html. The most important fact I found though in this part of my search is this: if anyone is considering using an alternative method for illness, you should most definitely discuss this with your physician. Herbal remedies may have fatal results when used with certain prescription drugs and death would definitely defeat the purpose of trying to become well.

Next, we’ll look into some of the history of herbal remedies. Until then…”Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.” Mark Twain

Photo found at

www.cel.sfsu.edu