Herbalism

Contents
Herbal Extracts                                           Herbal Teas                                     Herbal Cook

A few years ago I took a leap into making my own herbal extracts and have been very happy with the results. I also use herbal teas for different reasons.  Because of the benefits it is something that grows.

As herbs are scientifically tested it is consistently found that the historical use matches the chemical benefits.

The basis of Chinese traditional medicine is the use of teas but European medicine was often the use of alcohol based extracts and teas.  A herbal cook is done by cooking prescribed herbs on a very low simmer (use a slow cooker) for hours or even up to 5 days. I have only seen these done in red wine.

Some extracts are made in glycerine or honey but these are not as efficient as alcohol or cooking though, particularly the honey extracts taste very nice.

Once made, extracts are convenient and have a long shelf life.  My preference is that awful tasting ones are made into extracts and nice ones into teas.  Compliance is essential in medicine and drinking an awful cup of tea 3 times a day would half kill me.  Herbal cooked medicines need to be refrigerated and have a short shelf life.

The amount of alcohol drunk is so negligible as to not warrant concern. Eating a banana creates its own alcohol inside of you.  1/4 tsp wont hurt. Should you wish to make tonics for persistent health issues, try making half of your tonic with half the ingredients made as tincture and half as a herbal cook in red wine (the alcohol cooks off).  This will give you roughly a blend at 20% alcohol which is sufficient to preserve it.

I find a shame is that many Christians turned away from the use of traditional herbs because of the association of witchcraft.  A friend told me her great grandmother would successfully use herbs for people with venomous snake bite in Zimbabwe but this information was lost due to this reason.  Unfortunately this no doubt gave more power to the wrong people.

As a Christian I find it an absurd thought that God grew all these plants for our benefit and because some misuse them (witchcraft) or tie it in to their non Christian beliefs (New Age) you would do away with the whole lot.  I am sure many good, wise people were burnt as witches during the dark ages.  I am not so naive as to think they were all good, some actually were witches.  I have been to Africa and India and met people who have been subjected to the evil machinations of witchdoctors and seen the results.


Why Make Your Own

*Herbal medicines have many health benefits without a lot of the damage done by standard pharmaceuticals.
*You have more control over the product.  With pharmaceuticals you have to trust that the companies do have your best interest at heart.  Unfortunately history doesn't support this and the many court cases show that they were well aware of dangerous "side effects" and conspired to hide these results.  eg Thalidimide and the babies born without arms or legs - and knew before they released it that there was a problem (Chemie Grunenthal GmbH)

With pharmaceutical companies giving donations to universities for funding medical training and getting floor time in lectures, as well as giving kickbacks to doctors for prescribing certain medications and then funding reviews by so called independent doctors, don't presume that your doctor has an open mind to alternative treatments even when they are scientifically shown to be more effective.  Doctors who do read research are often persecuted by so called ethics committees and overlords - who often have financial connections to pharmaceutical companies.

Bayer, Hoechst, Berhing, Werke, IG Farben (major pharmaceutical companies) were all charged with crimes against humanity and genocide at the Nuremberg trials.  Their cruelty would take more space than I wish to use, but there was no limitation to their evil.  A few doctors received death sentences and many were jailed along with the CEO's.  Curiously many also got out of jail very quickly and went straight back to their old positions.  These companies still supply your medications.  Good Luck!

Of course pride is an issue.  Its not easy for a highly intellectual person who has trained in a field, makes a lot of money and gained a lot of prestige (watch the consultants rounds in hospital and you will see the blending of intelligence, pride and arrogance) to think that maybe their training could be flawed and a peasant can heal themselves of say, cancer through diet and/or herbs or prayer.
Sometimes its not altogether a case of what they learnt, but what they didn't learn.
You would have noticed the years it takes from when a medication or treatment is exposed as being dangerous before it is stopped being used.  People find it hard to admit they were wrong.

Medical researchers estimate that 8 out of 10 deaths during the Spanish influenza epidemic was not due to the flue but the medical establishments mistreatment.  Most deaths, symptoms were identical to overdoes of Aspirin (Bayer) and doctors records show... overdose of Aspirin.  Initially the death rate was not so high, until US military doctors increased the dosing protocols and others followed suit.  Death rates skyrocketed - not during the initial phase of flue but afterwards with symptoms of pneumonia and seizures (aspirin overdose symptoms).  Most doctors quietly bury their mistakes, bury history and move on.

*Save money...unless you are like me and keep giving it away.
*Be independent
*learn something new.

How To Make a Herbal Extract

Research the problem you have or the herb you want.  I recommend buying a good reference book and checking what you find on the internet.

If you grow it, research the best time to harvest as strength improves at certain times eg.  Chaga is harvested in winter when the sap has stopped running in the Birch tree.  Flowers are harvested when new in the morning when the dew has dried off them.  Some herbs are often picked just prior to flowering as the energy is more concentrated.

Do not pick herbs from the sides of the road or from under high voltage power lines as they are probably polluted from fumes and possibly altered by electrical pollution. This applies to herbs growing near nuclear power plants (there are always detectable levels of radiation particularly when fuel rods are changed annually).  Remember that the herb is being taken as a concentrate and if there is herbicide or other pollutants, that is also concentrated.

You can make an extract from fresh plant but it is recommended that the plant is dried so the water content doesn't dilute the extract.

If you buy your herbs I am not sure how to know the quality of the herb.  Generally they are not very expensive,

Most commonly the herb or root is put into a glass jar and covered (double for root and 2/3 extra for dried leaf - to keep the herb covered when it expands) with vodka.
Rule of thumb.  40% alcohol for fresh leaf
                           50% alcohol for dried leaf
                          60% alcohol for root
                          90% alcohol for resins and gums

The alcohol in an extract or tincture facilitates the absorption of the herb.

Some like to talk to their plants as the cut them and be in tune to mother nature and some dance but not being of the new age persuasion I thank God for giving us plants that strengthen our bodies.
Some see it simply as chemistry.

Purists may make their extracts to moon phases - and I am not against the idea as there are so many things that we are affected by.

Does the flavour of the herb effect the result of the healing? Maybe but the cost of vodka here is so expensive that you could be forgiven for buying cheap wine and freeze distilling it.  If the wine is 15% alcohol, 3 bottles would give you 1 bottle of cheap (cheat) brandy at about 45% alcohol.  It is illegal in many place to distil spirits without a licence.  Whether anyone is interested in a few bottles of herbal medicine is doubtful, unless you were making money, then the taxation office would probably come visiting with the local law enforcement.  WARNING: Be aware that wine has methanol as well as ethanol.  Ethanol is what drinking spirits is made from and methanol causes blindness.  Because wine is so dilute this is not a problem but if you distil the alcohol this concentrates the methanol.  Distillers remove this.  The volume used in herbal extracts probably not a problem but would cause problems if you used it for drinking.

With freeze distilling the theory is that alcohol doesn't freeze but water does.  Put the wine into a plastic bottle and freeze it. Once frozen, tip it upside down and collect the first 1/3 of the defrost.  Most of the alcohol if not all should be in this first run off.

You could buy a small still (a pot with a sealing lid, copper pipe through the lid spiralling down through a smaller open pot for ice water). Heating wine will cause the alcohol to steam off first. You would have to research the finer details of distilling such as removing the first 5% and the last small portion.  You could save about 50% on costs.

To get a 95% alcohol you can buy Spirytus Rektyfikowany which is made in Poland or in US you can use Everclear which is 75%.  This can be used to strengthen up your "brandy" for woody extracts.

Once your herb is covered, let it do its thing for a month or two.  Shake it up every day. When it is done, filter off solids and bottle liquid.  I use cheese cloth doubled over.  You can use a press to get every drop out.

Don't short cut labelling.  Make sure the common name, scientific name, and date of bottling are recorded.  Should you wish, add dose details and what you choose to use it for.

Dosage

20 drops is considered a normal dose under usual circumstance.  20 drops is 1/4 of a teaspoon.
5 to 7 time a day is are the golden numbers.

Unusual circumstances are things like snake bite, for which doctors in the early 1900's in USA successfully treated with 1 tsp Echinacea Augustifolia every 1/2 hour then on to hourly AND used a soaking compress of Echinacea on the bite area.


Some Extracts I Make

Echinacea Augustifolia or Echinacea Pupurea:  Most excellent for cold and flues. As soon as we feel a cold coming on, we start taking usually 3 times a day.  I have a bottle in my snake bite kit for my dogs (along with Vit. C for injection, Tea Tree Oil and homeopathic drops)
Some people have voiced concern about giving young children Echinacea.  After a great deal of reading, the only problem I could find was the possibility of an allergic reaction.  This could be forewarned if there is an allergy to the cone flower type plants.

Chamomile:  This has been a life saver for some young mothers I give this to for teething babies. Very young babies respond to 1 drop rubbed on the gums.  Chamomile tea can be added to a babies bottle to calm fretting.
If an adult uses 20 drops then work out dose by weight. Eg an adult weights about 70-90kg at 20 drops.  A 20kg child would use 10 drops. A 5 kg child would use 5 drops and so on.

I have seen a baby OD'd on Chamomile (a dark night when mum grabbed the bottle to give 1 drop and the dropper was off the bottle).  Once the extract was washed off the face of the baby and mouth rinsed out, mum had to be calmed down, then there was one very happy baby:).
Poison sites state there have been no cases of overdose of chamomile.

CAUTION: I have seen asthma induced 10 hours after drinking chamomile tea.  This was in a person who suffers from hay fever and allergies to pollens. If you are allergic to any of the daisy family be watchful for this and discontinue should this occur.

Milk blend for nursing mothers:  I made up a blend of herbs to increase milk supply and it has worked exceptionally well.
 Fenugreek Seed,                   Moringa and                                  Wild lettuce in equal amounts.
I asked for someone to test them separately and the results were that Fenugreek boosted milk supply a lot, very quickly but didn't last so long.  Wild Lettuce was not so intense, cut in slower but lasted a lot longer.  Moringa fell in between them.  This blend is perfect.

One person I know took a teaspoon full at night and in the morning had so much milk she got stretch marks.

This extract is brilliant for mums who are unwell, over worked or stressed and running low on milk.
I give this in gift baskets at baby showers.

Ginseng: Korean and American are the same family of plants. Siberian and Indian are completely different but all have similar actions/results.  Indian is also known as Ashwagandah.
Sometimes I take Korean and Siberian Ginseng as powders mixed with Ashwagandah as a tincture in a little juice. It tastes disgusting but reduces fatigue and improves concentration amongst other things.

Sleep assistance: I make a blend of Valerian, Wild Lettuce and Passion Flower and Chamomile.  I use a larger amount of the Valerian. I find this useful when I travel long haul flights and with jet lag.  Even if I don't sleep the whole trip, I doze comfortably and have no groggy feel or unpleasant effects.

Digestive Bitters  - coming soon

Heart Tonic - coming soon

Cautions

Make sure you carefully research your herb, how and when to take it.  Remember it is a medicine and it may interfere with other medications that you take.  Check contra-indications (when you shouldn't take it). Some herbs are fine to take every day but others should only be taken for a limited time.  Some shouldn't be taken by pregnant woman etc.
If you can't be bothered researching these details, just go buy your herbal medicine from a qualified herbalist and follow the instructions on the label.

Idiots not only make themselves sick but give reason for governments to clamp down further on natural medicine practitioners.  Its true that doctors make a lot of mistakes and bury some of them, but critical eyes are watching for the slightest excuse to pounce on people wanting to be independent.
Don't give them more material to use against us.


Some Teas I Drink

Dandelion:   All of my teas have dandelion leaf in them.  As I have got older I suffer some fluid retention.  Dandelion excellent to reduce this.  I buy dandelion leaf in bulk and share it with some friends who also suffer this.  It has taken a while to get used to it so I mix it with ginger or peppermint leaf or Tulsi (Indian Holy Basil).

Dandelion root is good for Liver, leaf for Kidney.

Ginger: I buy fresh ginger and chop and dry my own.  Excellent for stomach problems.

Hawthorn:  I mix this with my dandelion tea to strengthen my heart. This is prescribed by doctors in Eastern Europe for heart problems (a friend in Czech Republic has a family member on Hawthorn for sinoatrial node problem - creates electrical impulse for the heart to beat).
In history Hawthorn was called "poor mans bread and cheese" because of the nutritional value and availability. The flower, berries and leaves are all edible.  The flavour is not offensive.

Nettle:

Peppermint


Syrups

Recently I made Elderberry syrup.  Elderberry is very good for the immune system and commonly taken for colds and flues.  It can be made by simmering the elderberries in water and reducing the water to concentrate it, then adding sugar and boiling it to make a syrup.  To avoid using sugar and get a better shelf life I made Elderberry alcohol extract (tincture) and added it to honey in equal parts.
This gives it about a 20% alcohol level.  It is excellent for a sore irritated throat as well as the immune boost.  Medical research has proven elderberry will reduce cold and flue duration by half.