Medicinal Herbs Rapid advances in knowledge are usually not absorbed easily by a culture and sometimes the ideas are completely ignored. Alternative medicine was like this for awhile, then problems with conventional methods pushed many people towards other forms of healing. This was helped by new research and hundreds of success stories. I think we have now reached a point where people are too accepting and need to exercise some caution. In the area of medicinal herbs we still have a lot to learn, the products vary in quality, and some herbs are harvested in ways that hurt the environment. For me the biggest attractions of medicinal herbs are: they usually have fewer side effects, some can be sustainabily manufactured at home, and they empower people to take an active role in health. The current trend is to rely on doctors and hospitals for cures and spend little effort on prevention or health education. If this home production of medicine was encouraged and researched it would save some people money and consume a lot less resources for packaging and transportation. It also would be a way we could obtain quality herbs without worrying about toxic additives. A few days ago i began researching herbs that could be grown at home and were proven to be both useful and effective. One might think this would be an easy project, but i'm finding some problems. The growing methods are not usually discussed in sufficient detail and the processing of harvested herbs can be complicated. Also, the strength of a herb depends to some extent on how it was grown. After sorting through a pile of books, i've concluded that this is going to be a difficult and interesting project. A friend who has severe immune problems is now spending close to $500 a month on herbs because that is the only path that seems to work and provides hope. This is true of thousands of other people who are now acting as experiments to find what works. Together they are spending billions of dollars on these products. Anyone can walk into a health store and see little bottles with a price tag of $20 or more. Anyway, if my friend could grow some of these herbs at home it would save a lot of money, move towards sustainable methods, and improve the quality of life. Just for fun.. here is a list of proven herbs. How many of these herbs are you familiar with? kava astragalus maitake St john's wort pau d'arco nettle green tea gotu kola ginkgo garlic dandelion Another viewpoint is that food and herbs are the same thing. A carrot is a herb which is in common use. I like this viewpoint because it leads to the conclusion that our food supply has become too standardized and more diversity would be helpful. This view also helps remove the barriers between crops and nature. If our view of food becomes more diverse then the weeds in the garden begin to look different. Many become herbs. The forest becomes a garden. The garden stops being a small patch of land dominated by ordered expectations and rules. ---------- Jeff Owens ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Zone 7, http://www.teleport.com/~kowens Underground house, solar energy, reduced consumption, no TV
