TRANSCRIPT:
 Another way we know about plants is from
10 Herbs to Radically Change Your Health
Rosalee:   Hello and welcome to 10 Herbs to
Radically Change Your Health. I'm Rosalee de
la Forêt, author of Alchemy of Herbs and
Education Director for LearningHerbs.
For many of us, using herbs for our health is
something that's pretty new, but humans have
been interacting with plants for a really long
time. To get a sense of this, let's go back in
time. We might not need Michael J. Fox or a
DeLorean, but we do need to stretch our minds
to go all the way back to 800,000 years ago.
Archaeologists in Israel have determined that
our Paleolithic ancestors were using plants as
medicine 800,000 years ago. That's a very long
time. They figured this out by analyzing dental
tartar. The researchers were able to show that
our ancestors were eating things like willow,
clover, fennel, maidenhair fern, plantain, and
chamomile.
It's really amazing to think how long we've been
interacting with plants. We can see how we've
coevolved together, intertwining our entire
existence, whether it's relying on plants for
medicine and food, or even to plants relying on
us to spread seeds and to help propagate them.
In this presentation, I'm going to talk a lot
about plant medicines and all the amazing
things they do. Before I do that, I want to
mention all the ways that we know about
plants. One of our most basic ways of knowing
about plants is by using our senses.
Taste is a really important sense for herbalists.
Imagine drinking cayenne tea or just eating
something that's really spicy. You feel that zing
on your tongue. If you eat enough of it, your
whole body will start to heat up. You'll feel it in
your core, and it'll start to spread outwards.
That's our sense of taste and our felt sense
telling us that cayenne is very warming and
heating. We can also experience herbs simply by
smelling them. For example, the smell of
lavender helps us to relax. Other plants, like
rosemary, can actually stimulate our senses.
Written by Rosalee de la Forêt © LearningHerbs. All rights reserved.
information that's been passed down through
generations. Many of us have learned about
herbs through our herbal elders and teachers.
Perhaps some of you were even lucky enough to
learn it from your own parents or even
grandparents.
Books, whether they're old or new, are another
way to learn about herbs. Some of the books we
have have existed for hundreds, even thousands
of years. I think about that a lot, because that is
pretty amazing.
Some people learn about herbs through their
dreams, and others learn about herbs through
the study of science. We're at this point now
where we can carefully examine many
individual molecules of a plant. That is mind-
blowing when you think about it.
As we move forward through this presentation,
I'd like you to keep these two things in mind.
The first is that our DNA has been interacting
with plants for a very long time. It's almost
impossible for me to even fathom how long
we've been interacting with plants.
The second is that we have many ways of
knowing about herbs and many of which we are
going to explore in the next hour.
In this presentation, you're going see how herbs
can affect our health in many radical ways.
From protecting against radiation, to helping us
to sleep, to increasing our nutrient absorption
and on and on and on. I chose the 10 herbs that
we'll be looking at in this presentation from
both my book, Alchemy of Herbs, as well as
from, Apothecary, the Alchemy of Herbs Video
Guide.
Our first plant is technically an ancient fruit
and seed. Black pepper is undeniably the most
popular spice of our time. It adorns tables across
the world, from fancy restaurants to dive diners
to many homes.
This spice has been used for thousands of years.
We know from historical text that it's been used
for at least four thousand years, but I'm sure we
can imagine this being used much longer than
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that. Black pepper was once so much in
demand that it was used to pay taxes and
dowries.
Black pepper is a stimulant. It's hot and spicy.
We use it when there's signs of stagnation and
signs of coldness and dampness. I will talk
about that more so you see exactly what I mean.
Black pepper warms us up. It's warming, it's
spicy. Therefore, it's especially suited for people
with signs of coldness. For example, that might
be someone who regularly feels like they have
cold hands and feet, or just someone who
generally feels colder than other people.
Black pepper has long been used for people who
have arthritic pains, especially arthritic pains
that get worse in the cold weather. Often, it's
used actually topically for arthritis. Black
pepper can also help break up mucus
congestion. It relieves that stagnancy in the
lungs and sinuses.
You've probably experience this in some way if
you've ever had lung or sinus congestion, and
you eat something spicy then it helps to release
all that congestion. That's exactly what black
pepper does.
Besides tasting great, another reason black
pepper is commonly found as a culinary spice is
its ability to promote healthy digestion. So
remember its energetics. We're talking about
being spicy and stimulating. That means, it's
best for people who have cold or stagnant
digestion.
Those symptoms might include, what I call a
bowling ball stomach, where you eat food, and
then it just sits in your stomach like a bowling
ball. Sometimes, people who have cold
digestion their stomach actually feels cold to the
touch, or it feels like it takes a long time for
food to actually digest.
Some people with cold or stagnant digestion
might have a lot of uncomfortable gas. Some
people might notice they have a thick white
coating on their tongue. All of these are good
indications that the person would benefit from
using black pepper.
Written by Rosalee de la Forêt © LearningHerbs. All rights reserved.
What actually amazes me most about black
pepper is its ability to help us digest nutrients.
By adding black pepper to your meals, it helps
you to absorb your food better. This is due to
multiple factors. For example, it's a circulatory
stimulant, which helps transport nutrients
around your body.
It can also modulate cell membranes to help
transport nutrients through barriers. It can go
into cells more easily. It's also great for helping
you absorb nutrients because it increases the
blood supply to the GI tract, thus promoting
digestion.
When you use black pepper with your meals,
it's like getting a bigger bang for your buck.
You're eating the same foods, but if you put
black pepper on it, you're getting more out of
the food that you're already eating.
Herbalists, as well as many other holistically
minded health practitioners, believe that poor
digestion is often the root of disease. If you
think about that, it makes a lot of sense.
Even if you're eating the healthiest of all foods
but you can't digest them well, which means
you aren't able to absorb the nutrients or
building blocks that you need in order to stay or
maintain or have good health, then that's going
to be a problem.
Simply adding black pepper to your meals is
one way to promote good, strong digestion so
you can absorb those nutrients. And by having
strong digestions, you can see many benefits for
general overall health.
When you're buying black pepper, look for
whole peppercorns as opposed to buying it
already ground up. Ground pepper just loses its
pizazz really quickly, so buy whole peppercorns
and grind them up fresh.
I recommend keeping a pepper grinder at your
dinner table. That way, you can just grind it up
fresh for any meal. I do this, and we actually eat
in a couple of different places in the house. I
keep pepper grinders there at all of them.
Because of this, I often say that black pepper is
my most used herb.
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Black pepper is safe in normal culinary mouths.
What I mean by that is if you're going to
sprinkle some black pepper on your food, we
are A- OK. If you use a lot of black pepper, it
could cause some nausea.
We talked about how it actually helps you
absorb your nutrients better. If you use a large
amount of it, it might increase the effects of
certain drugs. I'm talking about way more than
you would sprinkle on your meal, if you were
taking a lot if it as capsules or something. If
you're, for whatever reason, planning on using a
lot, consult with your prescribing doctor first.
Black pepper disperses coldness and stagnation.
It increases nutrient absorption, and it's just this
really potent digestive remedy. As my friend and
fellow herbalist, Kami McBride, says, "It is the
emperor of digestive aids." I hope that you will
be inspired to add freshly ground black pepper
to many of your meals, because it can do all of
these amazing things.
Let's switch now from a spice that's been widely
adored and highly prized to a weed that's more
commonly disdained by people who just don't
know how powerful it can be. That weed is
plantain.
Plantain is ubiquitous. It grows everywhere,
especially in trampled places. There are many
different species of plantain. What we're
looking at here is Plantago major, which have
these oval or egg- shaped leaves. You'll
commonly see Plantago lanceolata, which has
longer, narrower leaves.
Even though this plant isn't really widely
acclaimed outside of the herbal crowd, I want to
remind you that it is one of the plants that our
prehistoric ancestors were using 800,000 years
ago. It's a plant we've been interacting with for
a long time.
It's both the leaves and the seeds that can be
used. You can use them as both food and
medicine. For this presentation, we're going to
be focusing on the leaves. If you only knew one
thing about plantain, I'd go with its amazing
ability to soothe an insect sting.
Written by Rosalee de la Forêt © LearningHerbs. All rights reserved.
I have lost count of how many times I've seen
angry red, swollen insect stings or bites be
instantly relieved by a fresh plantain poultice.
It's really, truly amazing, but even though
plantain is amazing for these insect bites, I'd
caution you not to pigeonhole it into being a
bee sting plant, because it really does so much
more than that.
Energetically, plantain is very cooling. One
great way to get to know how to use this plant is
just to understand that simple concept. It's
wonderfully cooling to hot conditions.
Remember the wasp's sting. If you can
remember being stung by a bee or a wasp, and if
you put your hand over that area, you'll feel it
radiating heat. That radiating heat, that's the
perfect indication for plantain.
Plantain is just a wonderful healer on so many
levels both externally and internally. As I
mentioned, the fresh leaf poultice really works
wonderfully for those insect stings and other
external wounds. It could be used to heal a
scratch or to address, for example, a minor
burn.
For internal wounds and infections like urinary
tract infections, gut inflammation, gut wounds
like an ulcer, then you can use plantain
internally. In that case, I recommend a strong
tea. It can also be used for hemorrhoids and
postpartum. In that case, use it as a suppository
or a sitz bath.
Besides being a great healing herb, plantain is
also really amazing for coughs, especially when
you have lungs that are feeling really hot and
inflamed, and then you have this spasmodic
harsh cough that goes along with it. Again,
taken as a tea, plantain is wonderfully soothing
to those hot and dry tissues, and can really help
soothe that type of cough.
Plantain really grows everywhere. This was
actually the first herb that I ever learned. I
didn't know what it looked like at the start of
class, and then I was introduced to it. Once I
knew what this plant looked like, it suddenly
was growing everywhere I went. I've never
noticed it before, but now that I know it, it's
everywhere.
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We're really lucky that this plant is so common,
because the plant is absolutely stellar when you
use it fresh. I mentioned using a fresh poultice
for things, like a bee sting. If you want to make
an oil infusion or a salve, then I would like to
harvest it fresh, let it wilt, then infuse it into the
oil.
You can also just harvest it and then fully dry it
and then store it for teas. If you aren't able to
harvest your own plantain, it is commonly sold
at herbal apothecaries but get to know this plant
fresh. [laughs]
Some tips on how to use plantain. If you're
using that fresh poultice, then I recommend
changing it out about every 20 minutes or so. I
mentioned liking it as a strong tea. When you
make a tea out of it, I recommend doing what's
called a nourishing herbal infusion.
To do this, you put 30 grams of the dried herb,
the leaves, and you put that into one quart of
water and let that sit for 48 hours. That's just
boiled water. By using a large amount of herbs
in an extended steeping time, you're also
extracting a lot of the vitamins and minerals
and other nutrients that's in this plant.
You can also just eat the leaves, but you have to
do it when they're really young and while
they're still tender. What I do is I harvest one
young, and I chop them up finely and add it to
salads, but they can also be cooked.
Plantain is a super safe herb. You can use it for
children and adults. Of course, whenever you're
picking wild plants, you want to have 100
percent positive identification. Because it likes
to grow in trampled places, sometimes you have
to be pretty picky about where you harvest it.
You only want to get it from clean areas. You
want to harvest it away from chemical pollution
or even popular dog trails.
My friend and fellow herbalist, Val Paul, calls
plantain, "The Watson of Weeds," in reference,
of course, to the Sherlock Holmes stories. I love
this quote because plantain is an unsung hero.
It's always there for us, and it keeps everything
Written by Rosalee de la Forêt © LearningHerbs. All rights reserved.
all stitched together. A perfect metaphor for one
of my favorite plants.
Let's leave the green, weedy world beneath our
feet and travel to the beautiful aromatic world
of lavender.
The scent of lavender is probably one of the
most recognized of all herbs. It's added to
seemingly everything these days from laundry
soap, to dish soap, to hand soap, to shampoos,
to conditioners, to deodorants, and of course,
perfumes, and probably a thousand other things
that I forgot to mention. [laughs]
The reason why it's added to so many things is
because, of course, it's such a pleasing scent.
Maurice Mességué, a famous French herbalist,
says, "My mother's linen cupboard was steeped
in lavender. When they unfolded the big sheets
that lay on the shelves there, it was as if a little
bit of paradise had come down to earth." Well
said.
Energetically, lavender is a bit warming, but it's
slight. It's certainly not warming in the way that
black pepper is warming. More when I think of
lavender, my overall impressions are that it's
both aromatic and relaxing. Of course, we often
use it to relax tension, to relieve anxiety, and it's
actually fairly antimicrobial as well.
If we didn't know better, we could just dismiss
lavender as this good- smelling plant, and then
just leave it at that. Lavender has two stories to
tell. The first is that the smell is a surprisingly
important part of its medicine, and the second
is that this complex plant has many benefits
beyond its scent.
If you have ever taken a few deep breaths of
lavender, you may have noticed its ability to
relax tension and anxiety. The act of smelling
lavender has long been known to promote sleep.
Herbalists have long used lavender flowers in
sachets and pillows for this exact purpose.
Are you wondering how simply smelling
lavender can change our emotions and quality
of sleep? Researchers have decided to investigate
the effects of lavender essential oil on the
autonomic and central nervous systems.
Page 4 of 16
As compared to the control group, participants
who smelled lavender had a significant decrease
in blood pressure, heart rate, and skin
temperature, which means they had a decrease
of autonomic nervous system arousal. They also
had stronger theta and alpha brain activity,
which are the calmer, more relaxed brain waves
that are seen during sleep and meditation.
We even know that simply smelling lavender
can bring relief even in one of the most
anxiety- inducing situations. That's right, the
dentist's office. [laughs] One study evaluated
200 people who were waiting for their dentist
appointment. Those in the study who smelled
lavender while waiting had reduced anxiety as
well as an improved mood. That's a nice
practical application for this plant.
Lavender can also be used internally as a tea or a
tincture. Herbalists use it for depression.
Herbalist David Winston uses lavender for
people who feel that they're in a fog, and for
those who are experiencing what he calls
stagnant depression, which is defined as a
fixation on a specific traumatic event.
For these purposes, David actually recommends
using it with lemon balm, which we are going
to talk about later.
Lavender can also be used to promote healthy
digestion, especially if there's digestive issues
going on in a relationship to tension and
anxiety. I like to combine it with chamomile as
an after- dinner tea.
Externally, lavender has many uses. It can
soothe the discomfort of insect bites or even
minor burns. I like to add the essential oil to
castile soap mainly for the scent, but lavender is
also a safe antimicrobial.
I'm probably not letting out a big secret or
anything, but lavender is a beautiful, beautiful
plant. It's very easy to grow, too. I don't even
know how many lavender plants I have. I have a
lot of them. I put them specifically in areas
where I frequently walk, so I can bend down
and smell them whenever I pass by.
Written by Rosalee de la Forêt © LearningHerbs. All rights reserved.
I highly recommend growing your own, if you
can. If not, you can also readily find dried
lavender, and you can use it as a sachet or as a
tea. It can also be used as a tincture. You can
infuse it into oil, or of course, use it as an
essential oil.
One thing to pay attention to when you're
sourcing lavender is to make sure you have a
medicinal species. You know all those lovely
photos of lavender fields growing in France, like
the one you see on the left there?
Most of those photos are actually of a hybrid
plant called...I think in English, you say,
"lavandin," or maybe that's French. Lavandin?
Something like that. Lavandin is how I know it.
Lavandin is this hybrid plant, and it has this
really prolific growth. This plant is often
harvested. It's distilled into an essential oil, and
then that can be used in things, like commercial
soaps and detergents. Because it's so prolific in
its growth, it costs less to produce. It's just a
cheaper medicine.
I'm sure it has many great benefits, but when
you're using lavender for medicine, make sure
that you're using Lavandula angustifolia.
Tips for using lavender. First of all, if you're
going to use it for a tea, then a little can go a
long way. Just the tiniest of pinch in your teas,
because it's so perfumy that it can just quickly
get to be really bitter. You can use it as a
tincture as well, and then of course, as an
essential oil. You can inhale that, or you can
dilute it in a carrier oil for external use.
Some considerations. First of all, always make
sure if you're going to be consuming the
lavender, that you're getting food grade
lavender. Lavender from florists or garden shops
could be sprayed with various chemicals. Be
sure that your plants have not been sprayed.
Lavender essential oil is very powerful, and so I
recommend being cautious with it. A lot of
people consider it to be safe, the essential oil,
undiluted on skin. I have personally seen that
undiluted lavender essential oil cause chemical
burns on people. I recommend using a one
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percent dilution in a carrier oil to be safe,
especially for sensitive skin.
Maurice Mességué tells us that, "No scent could
be sweeter than lavender." For at least 4,000
years, and assuredly much longer, people have
been enjoying the scent of lavender. I hope
you'll find a place for lavender in your home,
whether it's in your linen or clothes drawer, as
an herb pillow, a plant in your yard, or as part
of a comforting tea.
Many people today are dealing with anxiety,
and there's a lot of reasons for this. A big part of
it is that we spend too much time dealing with
situations like this and not enough moments
like this. Let's all make some time for lavender.
Our next herb is a favorite of many herbalists,
yet it's commonly hated by outdoor enthusiasts.
That's right. That's stinging nettle. This is a
food, it's a medicine. It's an important source of
fiber. Historically, this fiber was made into
things, like ropes and even clothes.
This plant is easily one of the most nutritious
plants on the planet. It doesn't have big showy
flowers, so it can easily blend in to your
surroundings. If you careless brush by it, you're
going to be instantly very aware of its presence.
It has these little, just very tiny projectile- like
hairs that cover the plant. If you brush up
against it, it'll cause this mild, itchy rash
wherever it touches. Hence, it's commonly
called stinging nettle.
Nettle loves to grow near humans. This photo
was taken on Lake Geneva in France. This little
nettle was springing up through this old sewer
drain on this cobblestone street in the French
Alps. This nettle was growing on the outside of
a cave in Central France that was inhabited by
humans starting 35,000 years ago.
If you think I just took this as an opportunity
to show you all my nettle- in- France photos,
you might be right. [laughs] Seriously though,
you will find nettle growing near humans. It
loves to grow near homesteads, in agriculture
areas, moist forests, near rivers. It definitely likes
the damp.
Written by Rosalee de la Forêt © LearningHerbs. All rights reserved.
Nettle is slightly cooling. It can be very strongly
drying, and I'll talk about that more later.
Really more than anything, I think of it as being
nutritive. The leaves contain lots of minerals,
especially calcium, magnesium. All these
incredible nutrient qualities make nettle good
for just about everything. [laughs]
Herbalists commonly use nettle to support
healthy energy levels as well as to support bone
health. I often joke that if you take nettle, you
should be aware of the side effects, which
include things like more energy, healthier,
stronger hair, stronger nails that grow longer,
strong and flexible bones. [laughs] Horrible side
effects with this one.
Nettle also helps to restore healthy iron levels.
Women use these nettle infusions, specifically
during pregnancy, to support their iron levels
more naturally. Herbalists often use nettle for
women who have amenorrhea, which is a lack
of menstruation, because it helps to build the
blood. It's also used for women who experience
cramping during their periods.
Type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance are really
a growing concern in the western world.
According to the Center for Disease Control,
more than 29 million Americans are living with
type 2 diabetes and 86 million are living with
prediabetes. Nettle's a really powerful ally for
those dealing with this metabolic
disease.Clinical trials have shown that nettle
decreases inflammation, decreases
hyperglycemia, and also decreases hemoglobin
A1C.
Nettle can also help people who have pain in an
unexpected way. [laughs] Remember those
irritating, stinging hairs that can cause an itchy
rash if you brush up against them?
Intentionally applying fresh nettle to arthritic
joints is a folkloric way, or I should say, a well-
known way to decrease both inflammation and
pain associated with arthritis. In my book, I cite
a study where they took this to the lab and
showed that it was helping people. Taken
internally, nettle can further help modulate
inflammation due to its many nutrients,
notably magnesium.
Page 6 of 16
Seasonal allergies. If you have these, you know
how horrible they can be. Nettle is amazing at
helping. They can decrease inflammation
perhaps due to its own histamine content.
Nettle can really decrease all those annoying
symptoms associated with seasonal allergies.
What I recommend is having a strong,
nourishing herbal infusion with nettle months
prior to your seasonal allergy season. You'll be
amazed at how much less symptoms that you
have.
Nettle helps with so many different ailments,
more than we can even cover in this
presentation. Looking at all these, it makes you
start to wonder. Do we take nettle to fix our
health, or maybe it's the lack of nettle in our
lives that's leading to our dis- ease?
Nettle grows wild in many places around the
world. As always, you want to be 100 percent
sure of what you're harvesting, so you need to
be on top of that. If you can't harvest it
yourself, it can also be found dried at your local
apothecary or online.
Because nettle is both food as well as medicine,
and it tastes pretty good, you can do so many
things with it. Here's some of my favorite
recipes. I love to make a nettle smoothie with it,
the nourishing infusion, which I've mentioned
several times. You can do sautéed fresh nettle,
which is a favorite thing in the spring. Nettle
pesto and on and on and on.
Here's some tips for using it. It is a food- like
plant. You can eat it in large amounts, or use it
as a tea in large amounts. For the tea, I
recommend 30 grams of the dried leaf steeped
in a quart of just boiled water. You steep that for
at least four hours up to eight hours.
I talked about seasonal allergies for nettle.
Freeze- dried nettle can be used in increasingly
large amounts. You start with a small amount
and then increase it up. That can help address
acute allergy symptoms. The studies for type 2
diabetes and prediabetes were done using the
fresh leaf tincture.
Written by Rosalee de la Forêt © LearningHerbs. All rights reserved.
Nettle is a very safe herb. It's really a food, but
it is very drying as I mentioned earlier. It can be
a strong diuretic for people. Here's the typical
situation if somebody is already on the dry side,
and then nettle further dries them out.
I'll hear from people. They'll say, "Oh, I started
drinking the nettle infusions, but it caused me
to have really dry skin," or sometimes, people
get headaches from nettle.
Those are some things to look out for in terms
of the drying effects. If you're going to eat fresh
nettle, then you want to avoid eating the leaves
after the plant has gone to seed. The nettle
leaves that you see there, those are great. They're
young. The plant hasn't gone to seed, yet.
I already mentioned this, but I'll just keep
mentioning it every time we talk about wild
plants. You just want to be sure that you have a
100 percent positive identification, and then
always harvest from a safe place.
Herbalist, David Hoffman, says, "When in
doubt, choose nettle." I love this quote, because
it really alludes to nettle being good for just
about everything, which we saw is pretty much
the case. I would further say, "Forget your
apples. Regularly eat and drink nettle to keep
the doctor away."
So far, we've explored the fruits of black pepper,
the leaves of nettle and plantain, and the
beautifully aromatic flowers of lavender. Now,
let's dive into the earth to see the rooty gifts of
astragalus.
Astragalus originally comes to us from Asia, but
it's now a beloved herb of many western
herbalists. We use the roots of astragalus, and
you'll often find them sold in long strips, like
you see on that image on the right.
Where nettle just took us on this whirlwind
tour of all it does, astragalus really shines in one
particular area, the immune system. Astragalus
modulates the immune system, which is to say,
it broadly supports a healthy immune response.
It's not an immune stimulator. I see people get
confused about that, but it does not stimulate
Page 7 of 16
the immune system, say, in the same way, say,
that echinacea might. Astragalus is also
classified as an adaptogen, which means it
broadly supports overall health.
Astragalus is safe for most people, even those
with autoimmunity. Astragalus is a wonderful
thing to add to your diet or herbal regimen if
you frequently catch colds or get the flu. I also
use it a lot for people with seasonal allergies. As
I mentioned, those people with autoimmunity,
such as rheumatoid arthritis. I'll even use it for
people who have adult- onset food sensitivity.
All these ailments might look to be really broad
or totally random, but they all have a root cause
in poor immune system function. You can see
that while astragalus doesn't have this huge list
of benefits that are all over the board in the
same way that, say, nettle does, it still affects us
on many levels.
When you're buying astragalus, you can often
find it in these long slices. I like these for
cooking, because you can easily remove them.
The very traditional way to use these is to take
the roots and cook them in your rice or cook
them in your bone broth.
They never become edible. The roots are always
too fibrous to eat, so you have to remove them
before you eat them, or eat your meal. I like the
strips, because they're easy to remove. You can
find astragalus in all sorts of different ways - -
small slices, shredded, or as a powder.
One thing I'd say is you don't see these as much
anymore, but astragalus used to be commonly
sold as these really long flat roots. They look
more like tongue depressors. When you see
those, they have a really strong yellow color to
them.
We figured out that actually many of those
roots have had yellow dyes added to them. We
avoid those and do more of these looking roots.
Astragalus is a food- like herb. As I mentioned,
it's not edible. We cook it into our food but we
have to remove it before we eat it, or you can
cook it into your food using powder.
Written by Rosalee de la Forêt © LearningHerbs. All rights reserved.
The dosage for this plant is very high, if you're
looking for a therapeutic dosage. In Chinese
medicine, they'll use 30 to 100 grams of the
dried root. That's a lot. I generally recommend
about 30 grams of the dried root per day, more
just because that's more doable for people. You
could just add a bit to your food as a preventive,
which can also be helpful.
There are thousands of different species of
astragalus out there. You want to be sure to be
using the medicinal ones only. If you're taking
immunosuppressive drugs, then avoid
astragalus. Also, astragalus is best as a
preventive, so to keep you from getting a cold
or flu, for example. It's not generally
recommended for when you have an active cold
or a flu.
Herbalist, Stephany Hoffelt, credits astragalus
with helping her family through 15 cold and flu
seasons without having to turn to conventional
medicine. I believe it because I used to get
frequent colds and flus. Every winter, I'd come
down with several colds, a flu every winter.
Then I started using astragalus through the
winter months and I don't get that anymore.
Getting a cold, especially getting a flu, can be
such a huge disruption in our lives, besides
being just plain uncomfortable. Think of what a
powerful impact astragalus could make if a lot
more people were using it regularly throughout
the winter months.
There's so much you can do with astragalus,
too. You can add the powder to a cardamom
spiced rice, or add the roots to a bone broth, or
my personal favorite, which is making a
delicious herbal chai.
Rosalee de la Foret:   We're about midway
through our plant tour, so let's spice things up
with a bit of controversy.
Say hello to the beautiful comfrey. Comfrey is a
large herbaceous plant that really knows how to
grow. I've seen it take over entire fields. I've seen
it crowd walkways so much you can barely
make it through. You can try to cut it down, or
Page 8 of 16
even to cut it out, but if you leave even just a
tiny bit of the root, it's going to find a way to
come back again, and again, and again, and
again.
Thank goodness for that, because comfrey is an
important healer, and it can be a powerful
source of nutrients for the garden.
Comfrey is cooling and very moistening, in fact.
[laughs] . Above all, it's what we call a vulnerary
herb. It heals wounds and even stitches together
bones. That's right. Comfrey is our best
stitcher- upper, and I would never want to be
without it.
It heals up scrapes and scratches so fast. You'll
swear that you can actually see those tissues
healing right before your eyes. In fact, it's so
effective that you have to be careful to only use
it on clean wounds. If you use it on an infected
wound, you run the risk of actually sealing the
infection in.
I'll never forget the first time, actually, I ever
used the comfrey root. I was on a second date,
cooking dinner for who was, later, to be my
husband. I reached into the oven and burned
myself really badly on my thumb just on the
stove there.
I grabbed some comfrey root from the freezer. It
was fresh, had been mashed up with some
water. I applied the frozen comfrey root on this
horrible- looking burn that was just pulsing
with pain. I could not believe how fast the pain
went away. Even though it had been this really
ugly severe- looking burn, by the next day, I
could hardly tell that anything had happened.
Comfrey is so strong in its healing powers. It
can even help the body to heal broken bones
and torn musculature. I could tell you another
long story about my mother- in- law who had
knee surgery and who had used comfrey. It just
went so well, the post- op. The doctor was
amazed and on and on and on.
I have so many comfrey stories to tell and not
enough time to tell them. Suffice to say,
comfrey is one heck of a stitcher- upper.
Written by Rosalee de la Forêt © LearningHerbs. All rights reserved.
Comfrey isn't only just loved by herbalists. It's
really big in permaculture practices.The leaves
are so nutritious. They just have so many
nutrients in them that are especially good for
soils, that they can be used as a mulch added to
the compost pile or even fermented down into
this dense green liquid that can be used as part
of a potent fertilizer.
Comfrey is also being explored as a nutritive
forage food for animals. Important stuff since
we're very much suffering the effects of mass
agriculture and having soils that have been
depleted. Comfrey can hold a lot of answers in
terms of getting the nutrition and nutrients
back into our soils.
When you're using comfrey, it's best to use fresh
comfrey, for the most part. The leaves and the
roots can be frozen for future use. You can make
up fresh leaf plasters, and then seal them in a
Ziploc bag. Keep them in the freezer. You can
cut up the root, mash it up, freeze that.
I highly recommend, if you can, to grow some
comfrey near you, but I will caution you to
think really, really hard about where you want
to put it. Once you plant comfrey, it's probably
always going to live there from that day
forward.
I did promise you a controversy, and comfrey is
full of it. I recommend using comfrey liberally,
but only externally. I don't recommend it
internally for most people. I realize that it is a
very controversial statement.
For those of you who might not know, the
reason why is young leaves, and especially the
roots of comfrey, are really high in pyrrolizidine
alkaloids or PLAs. These alkaloids are
potentially harmful to the liver. A lot of people
eat comfrey, or use the tea, and they seem fine.
There is a lot of caveats here and considerations
when it comes to using comfrey internally. Do
you absolutely know for certain what exact
species of comfrey you're working with? Some
have higher PLAs than others. Do you know
exactly how healthy your liver is or other health
effects that might be relevant here?
Page 9 of 16
There's a lot of caveats and considerations, so
that's why I'd say it's safer just to use this
externally.
In the apothecary course, I do have a
monograph that goes into all the science and
why this is, and I really back up my opinion on
this one, but, for now, it's safest to say that
comfrey is best used externally.
My preference is a fresh poultice, but it can also
be used as a salve, which is often more
convenient to use and to store. That's also an
option.
Thomas Avery Garran says comfrey is simply
the best herb for healing external wounds,
broken bones, and treating knocks and falls. I
couldn't agree more. This is a powerful first-
aid plant, and it really deserves a place in every
home.
Our next plant, chamomile, it's a weak plant.
It's best for small children, or if you just want to
make a really cute and simple tea.
I'm embarrassed to say that's what I used to
think.
Now, chamomile astounds me. It astounds me
because it has so many lessons to teach. For
example, you can get lost in a chamomile
flower. Have you ever looked at that really up
close? I just love these little flowers. You have
those simple, white ray flowers that are
radiating, creating this halo around all those
teeny- tiny disc flowers.
What we commonly call one chamomile flower,
is actually an inflorescence of hundreds of
flowers. Chamomile is really in camouflage. You
have all these tiny little flower heads and they're
sitting atop these thin little stems, which branch
out into these wispy little leaves.
The plant looks weak, but if you've ever spent
time with chamomile, you'll know it supports a
lot of life. The genus name for chamomile is
Matricaria, which has its roots in the word
"mother."
Written by Rosalee de la Forêt © LearningHerbs. All rights reserved.
Some people say that this is because chamomile
is wonderful for mothers. Others say that
drinking chamomile is like getting a hug from
your mother. I think it could also point to the
way chamomile is like a mother who has the
ability to be gentle and sweet, but can be strong
and powerful when needed.
Chamomile is an interesting plant energetically.
Some herbalists classify it as slightly cooling
because of its bitter taste and diaphoretic effects.
Others call it slightly warming due to its
pungent aromatics. In either case, it's fairly
close to neutral, and therefore tolerated by most
people.
When I think of chamomile, I really think of its
aromatic and relaxing characteristics, and just
how wonderful it is for both tension and
irritability. Especially when you take this as a
strong tea, chamomile relieves muscle tension,
whether it's tense muscles in your neck and
shoulders, or intense spasmodic pain, like
menstrual cramps and leg cramps.
One of my favorite indications for chamomile is
for a headache during a fever. Sometimes, you
get that really tense fever, and this really intense
tension headache, so you're tense, tense, tense,
tense, tense. That's what chamomile's good for.
While chamomile can effectively decrease pain,
even as I mentioned intense spasmodic pain, it
really goes beyond that simple use. In one
clinical study, non- steroidal, anti-
inflammatory drugs, NSAIDs, like ibuprofen,
were compared with chamomile in women with
PMS.
After two months, the women using chamomile
had a reduction in pain similar to that of these
women who used NSAIDs, but they also had
significantly fewer emotional symptoms. That's
pretty amazing. This study showed that
chamomile was just as effective as non-
steroidal, anti- inflammatory drugs, but that it
also helped people's mood as well.
Of course, herbalists and just many people have
been relying on chamomile's relaxing properties
for many centuries, and it is used to decrease
Page 10 of 16
anxiety, let go of a stressful day, even to promote
sleep.
Science is really catching up on validating all of
these traditional uses. In one exploratory study,
researchers found that even a relatively small
dose of chamomile, which was 220 milligrams
- - it's pretty small. They found that that was
more effective than a placebo in relieving both
depression and anxiety in people.
There was another clinical study, and it found
that chamomile relieved mild to moderate
anxiety in people who had been diagnosed with
general anxiety disorder. It may look cute and
delicate, but it has a very powerful punch for
our nervous system.
Chamomile is a plant that I recommend
everyone keeps on hand, because it does so
many things. It's a diaphoretic, which means it
supports the fever process. It modulates
inflammation, so it's often used for things like
eczema, which has an inflammatory
component.
It can also be used internally for digestive
inflammation. Often, those two things are
related - - eczema and digestive inflammation.
Antimicrobial - - it's an amazing plant for
pinkeye.
The first conference I ever taught at, I woke up
the morning of my class and I had this goopy,
horrible, awful pinkeye. Just goopy eye, red-
shot eye, and I was just horrified that I was
going to have to teach my first class like that.
I had chamomile tea bags with me. I put that
on my eye, and I kept changing it out. Within
hours, my eye looked so much better, so
amazing for pinkeye.
Chamomile is actually amazing for digestion,
especially an anxious stomach. It's a perfect
thing for it. I mentioned GI inflammation. It
has some bitter components to it which help
support the liver and the gall bladder. This is
safe for kids, too.
It works great for kids. It can soothe the pain
and irritability associated with colic and
Written by Rosalee de la Forêt © LearningHerbs. All rights reserved.
teething. You can see this plant does so much.
Again, it's an herb I would not be without, and
I recommend everyone keep in their homes.
Chamomile is commonly used as a dried herb,
and it works great like that. I recommend
getting it as a bulk herb as opposed to a tea bag.
Tea bags can be really convenient. I like to keep
them in my first- aid kit, as I mentioned.
When we use chamomile, if we're going to use
them for their therapeutic properties, we're
going to want to use a lot more than you find in
a tea bag.
When you're looking for chamomile, if you're
buying it, look for brightly colored flowers. As
this photo shows, those cones are still nice and
yellow. You want this plant to be aromatic, too.
As I mentioned, dunking a chamomile tea bag
in a cup of water can make a delicious tea. If
you want its more powerful effects, then I
recommend making a really strong tea. It's not
going to taste as good, but it's going to work
really well.
To do this, use about 9 to 15 grams of the dried
flower, about three to five heaping tablespoons
of the dried flower. If you're going to use it for
sleep, which it also works really well for, then I
recommend using it as a tincture or an alcohol
extract, so you can use less liquid before
bedtime than you would in a tea.
Chamomile, a very safe herb for children and
adults. The only consideration here is that there
are some people who are allergic to it. People
generally already know if they are allergic to
plants in the Asteraceae family. If that's the case,
then I would either not use it, or approach it
with caution until you know your level of
sensitivity.
My friend, an herbalist, jim mcdonald, sums up
chamomile's teachings here, "Gentle does not
mean weak." After having personally dismissed
chamomile for many years, I now can't imagine
being without it. I know it's an herb I can trust.
I can trust it to do many things, yet it's gentle
enough to be enjoyed every evening.
Page 11 of 16
Let's stay in this beautiful yellow world and visit
with dandelion. Dandelion is a symbol of both
hope and resistance for herbalists. One of my
favorite weeks of the year is the week when the
dandelions are out in full force.
Of course, dandelions continue to bloom, but
really in the springtime, they have one big
bloom. I'm lucky enough. I live in a rural area.
There's lots of agriculture here. There's lots of
big meadows or people even just having huge
lawns where dandelions have just fully
permeated all of that grass.
For this one glorious week, there's all these
dandelions with their yellow orbs. They cover
the entire field. It's like these little medallions of
golden coins. If dandelion offered nothing more
than its beauty, I would still be puzzled by our
culture's desire to poison them.
More than 80 million pounds of herbicides are
used on lawns by homeowners. Most of that is
specifically to kill dandelions. Many of the
chemicals either haven't been tested thoroughly
for safety, or we know that they have a strong
correlation with cancer.
Not only are these chemicals harmful to
humans, but they also affect the entire
ecosystem and things like beneficial insect, such
as our bees. It's totally insane to me that we just
regularly poison a plant that offers us so much.
Its flowers, roots, leaves, and even stems offer us
important food and medicine. If we allow it to
fully develop into a seed head, it even gives us
free wishes.
Dandelion is cooling and drying. I primarily use
it for a spring tonic, as a digestive aid, and
simply as a nutritious food. The tender spring
leaves of dandelion are full of nutrients,
including vitamin C, K1, potassium,
magnesium, beta- carotene. Besides being
nutrient- dense, they also have some medicinal
properties.
Herbalists use the leaves as a diuretic. The
French even commonly refer to dandelion as
pissenlit, which sounds really pretty, but it
literally translates to pee the bed, referring to its
strong diuretic qualities.
Written by Rosalee de la Forêt © LearningHerbs. All rights reserved.
Young dandelion leaves are a wonderful spring
tonic as they offer lots of nutrition, but they
also have a slight bitter flavor. That bitter taste
is really important. When your body detects
bitterness, it really helps to challenge and
stimulate your digestion.
For example, the first thing that happens
generally is that you have increased saliva, and
that helps to break down carbohydrates. It
increases hydrochloric acid in the stomach. It
increases bile production and release, which
then helps to break down fats to a variety of...It
also stimulates a variety of pancreatic digestive
enzymes, so it really gets our digestion going.
In today's world, many people are beginning to
realize that the lack of bitter foods and drinks in
our diet is actually an underlying cause for
many of the rampant digestive issues that we see
today.
Some people are recognizing, "Oh, my
digestion is not as strong as it used to be, so I
probably need to take some digestive enzyme
pills." I recommend adding bitter foods, like
dandelion, to your diet regularly. In this way,
you're actually supporting your body's natural
production of digestive enzymes instead of just
supplementing with an exogenous source.
Look at dandelion when you think about that
because we can see that dandelion is just not an
herb that can fix something, but by using it
regularly, it can actually help us maintain strong
digestion and therefore health. Dandelion roots
are also a bit bitter, but they have a stronger
sense of sweetness. They, too, are nutrient-
dense. They're high in inulin.
Herbalists specifically use the roots to support
healthy liver function, which can have many
positive effects on health, such as helping to
maintain healthy hormone levels. It can help
have clearer skin due to better detoxification,
and of course, stronger digestion as well. It's a
current fad in many natural health circles to do
these fairly harsh detox programs. You do it
once or twice a year.
I promise you that you will have a more
profound and positive effect on your health if
Page 12 of 16
you regularly nourish your liver with something
like dandelion root than you would get from
any expensive fad detox product.
You probably don't have to look far for
dandelions as they are undoubtedly growing
near you. If you aren't able to harvest your own,
they are readily available though. Grocery stores
can order in the fresh leaves. Herbal
apothecaries are certain to have the dried root.
There's many ways to get dandelion even if you
can't harvest it yourself.
Some tips for usage. The fresh leaves can be
eaten as a food, but take note. They are fairly
diuretic. The dried roots I'd recommend at 9 to
15 grams per day if you're looking for a
therapeutic dose there. Then you can use the
roots as a tincture. You could also use a leaf
tincture as well, but it works as well as that.
There's endless possibilities when using
dandelion as food and medicine, whether you're
using them like a beverage, like a roasted root
beverage, which is one of my favorite things.
You see that photo there with the strawberries?
That's this tangy strawberry shrub recipe with
dandelion root. So delicious, or you can just use
the greens in the pesto that you see pictured
there.
You can just chop them up and put them in a
salad. You could even sauté them up a bit.
There's so many versatile ways to use dandelion.
Dandelion is safe for everyone, but as I
mentioned several times, if you're harvesting a
wild plant, you need to be sure you have a
positive ID and also that you pick it from a
clean area that hasn't been sprayed with
chemicals.
Guido reminds us that, like all good rebels, the
dandelions are irrepressible. This generous plant
continues to spread its food and medicine
despite this full- on war that's being waged
against it. It breaks through our concrete
jungles. It's a persistent reminder of the power
of plants.
It's my genuine hope that as more and more
people fall in love with dandelions, the sooner
Written by Rosalee de la Forêt © LearningHerbs. All rights reserved.
the chemicals that kill dandelions and harm our
environment are going to be a thing of the past.
Our next plant is also loved by bees. The genus
name for lemon balm is Melissa, which comes
from Greek meaning "honey bee" or simply
"honey." In Greek mythology, Melissa was a
nymph who shared the wisdom and honey of
the bees. As I mentioned, lemon balm is a
favorite plant of bees.
Not only does the plant produce a lot of nectar,
which they like, but it's also been used by
beekeepers to prevent bees from swarming.
Lemon balm has this lemony, minty taste that's
just so aromatic and delicious. It makes it a
favorite of humans as well. Lemon balm
originally comes to us from the Mediterranean
and has been used for medicine for thousands
of years.
Pliny, Hippocrates, Galen, Culpepper, even
Shakespeare all spoke of its attributes. There's
also records of Thomas Jefferson growing lemon
balm at Monticello. Like most mints, lemon
balm is cooling and aromatic. Lemon balm has
long been treasured for its calming and relaxing
properties. Herbalists classify it as a relaxing
nervine or an herb that relaxes, soothes, and
supports the nervous system.
Human clinical trials have shown that lemon
balm can relieve agitation in people with
dementia and improve the mood and stress
levels of healthy adults as well. It can be used for
anxiety, frayed nerves, stress, insomnia, seasonal
affective disorder, and nervous tension.
One of the most interesting studies I read while
researching for my book was the study that
showed how lemon balm can protect against
DNA damage caused by x- rays. In this study,
55 radiology staff members were asked to drink
lemon balm tea twice a day for 30 days. The
reason why is that radiation from x- rays can
damage DNA and induce oxidative stress.
What they did is they tested oxidative stress
markers before they began drinking the tea and
then again after the 30 days. The researchers
recorded numerous improvements in oxidative
stress markers after those 30 days, including a
Page 13 of 16
marked reduction in plasma DNA damage.
That's pretty cool. [laughs] I'm going to be
drinking lemon balm tea before and after any
x- rays I may need.
For the most benefit, I recommend using fresh
lemon balm. It's easy to grow. I recommend
growing it in a container. Freshly dried lemon
balm does retain its virtues but not for a really
long time. If you have dried lemon balm, give it
a smell. Make the tea out of it. Is it still strongly
aromatic? If so, great. You can still use it.
Lemon balm tastes so great, so there's really a
lot of ways you can enjoy the herb, which I'll
talk about in a moment. In terms of tips for
using it, it can be used in small amounts like
just a teaspoon to make a cup of tea. In that
radiology test that we saw, they didn't use that
big of an amount, so it's pretty impressive.
You can also do the 30 grams or one ounce of
the dried leaf made into a tea, too. That has
more profound relaxing, nervine effects.
Because the fresh herb is so great, this does
work quite well as an alcohol extract of the fresh
herb as well. Here's some of my favorite ways to
use lemon balm, and I do grow this plant in a
container.
One thing I love to do is so simple. I just pick
some fresh leaves, crumple them up, put them
in my water, and drink the water all day. It's
light, but it's so delicious. Of course, lemon
balm tea works great. You can make it into a
salve or a lip balm. You can even use it in food.
Lemon balm is safe for children and adults. I
didn't really mention that, but it's great for
children for anxiety and sleep, all the reasons
that we mentioned.
In vitro studies did show that lemon balm
might inhibit thyroid function. This effect has
not been shown in humans. However, since we
have this in vitro study, probably a good idea if
you have an underactive thyroid to avoid
consuming the plant in excess.
Beloved herbalist, Cascade Anderson Geller,
sums it up well here when she says, "Lemon
balm is good for the heart, good for the soul,
Written by Rosalee de la Forêt © LearningHerbs. All rights reserved.
for babies, the elderly, and everyone in
between."
Our last herb in this presentation is probably
one of the most popular herbs of our time. In
fact, Google reported that turmeric was one of
the most popular searched- for food terms from
2014 to 2016.
Most of us are familiar with the orange powder
of turmeric that you can readily find at the spice
rack. I wanted to show you some photos of this
beautiful tropical plant. It's been a beloved spice
in India for thousands of years. You can
frequently find it in Indian cuisine. It's, of
course, a big herb in Ayurveda medicine.
India currently grows most of the world's
turmeric, and it also consumes 80 percent of it.
I know you can grow turmeric in a greenhouse.
It definitely likes those tropical conditions. I've
heard of people in more southern US being able
to grow it as well. Energetically, turmeric is
slightly warming, but it really has more
pronounced drying effect, which I'll talk about
a little bit later.
What do we use turmeric for? Just about
everything. [laughs] Looking at this list of the
many ways we use turmeric for health, it might
seem a bit unbelievable. How can one herb do
so many things? One of those reasons might be
turmeric's incredible ability to modulate
inflammation.
Inflammation plays a significant role in cancer,
type 2 diabetes, autoimmune disorders, asthma,
arthritis, ulcerative colitis, periodontitis,
eczema, psoriasis, and many other ailments. In
fact, many of the major diseases plaguing the
western world can be linked to chronic systemic
inflammation.
This is another one of those instances where I
start to wonder… What’s the best use of this
spice to address the diseases we already have, or
should there be more awareness that we should
be using these spices every day because the lack
of spices like turmeric might be causing us to be
sick?
Page 14 of 16
Glutathione is a protein that's making headlines
with its incredible antioxidant abilities as well as
its ability to support natural detoxification.As a
result, taking glutathione supplements is a
growing trend in the natural health world right
now. It's the same deal as taking digestive
enzymes. Why take a pill when we can take this
whole spice of turmeric, which naturally
stimulates our glutathione production?
Turmeric is regularly found as a dried powder at
many stores or in your favorite herbal
apothecary.It's also increasingly available fresh at
health food stores. The best quality turmeric's
going to be very bright orange. If it's turned a
browner shade like the one you see on the left
there, then you'll know it's not super fresh.
What you're looking for is that bright orange
shade that you see more on the right. Turmeric
is a wonderful spice to get in your meals every
single day.
I love making golden milk, one of my favorite
beverages. It's so great in Indian food or just
simply used as a powder and sprinkled onto
your foods. If you're using turmeric for
therapeutic reasons, like you want to see it have
an effect on decreasing systemic inflammation,
then therapeutic doses of turmeric, which is up
to 10 grams a day, is going to be hard to do in
food. Capsules might be necessary.
When we talk about taking turmeric in these
larger amounts, we have to talk about how
turmeric is drying. People regularly using
turmeric or taking it in higher amounts might
notice that they feel unusually thirsty, or they
have dry eyes or dry skin. That's what I mean
by turmeric is drying. If this happens to you,
then I recommend a couple of things. You
could decrease the dose and see if that helps, or
you could also increase healthy fats as well as
liquids in your diet to see if that helps to
balance things out.
You should know that turmeric will definitely
stain everything it touches orange. [laughs]
While it's safe for everybody in culinary
amounts, larger than culinary amounts should
be used with caution for people who have
Written by Rosalee de la Forêt © LearningHerbs. All rights reserved.
bleeding disorders, who know they have
gallstones, or for women during breastfeeding.
I also thought I should mention curcumin. This
is an isolated chemical constituent that's found
in turmeric, and it's been heavily studied in the
scientific world, even lots of human clinical
trials on it.
Here is my opinion. There might be a time and
a place for isolated chemicals, but I believe that
when we regularly choose these isolated
chemicals instead of the whole foods and spices,
we're going to miss out on a wider range of
benefits.
We know that turmeric, in its whole form, is
profoundly healing. I would say, we also know
that all of those healing things are not just
found in this one isolated chemical constituent.
One way to think of it is like an Impressionist
painting.
The individual brushstrokes can be really
fascinating, and they're actually an important
part of the painting. If you only focus on those
brushstrokes, you really miss out on getting the
whole picture.
While curcumin might be good for some
specific diseases or special situations, really
there's countless constituents in turmeric that
are synergistically working together. I
recommend using whole turmeric to get the
widest range of benefits for everyday health.
Referring to the myriad of things that turmeric
does, my mentor, K.P. Khalsa, says, "I call it the
medicine cabinet in a jar. Certainly, a powerful
inflammation modulating spice that deserves a
place in our daily lives."
We've now looked at 10 herbs that can radically
change your health. You saw how these herbs
and spices can address a wide range of health
issues, from DNA damage from X- rays, to
healing wounds, to even giving you free wishes.
Before you go, I would like to share a short
story with you. You may already be familiar
with the story of the three little pigs, but this
version is a bit different. As you know, three
Page 15 of 16
little pigs went out to make their way in the learn about them, but most importantly, use
world. them.

The first little pig did not see the importance of
eating nutrient- dense foods or herbs and
spices, so he mainly ate iceberg lettuce, fries,
and ketchup. It wasn't long before the big bad
wolf of disease, made its way to this little pig.
The second little pig tried a bit harder to eat
healthy food. She ate her vegetables. She even
took herbs from time to time when she was
sick. She did well at first, but after a while, the
big bad wolf of disease made its way to this little
pig as well.
I really hope this presentation has inspired you
to use herbs in your daily life. Whether it's
drinking a glass of golden milk with turmeric,
or just grinding up pepper on your meals,
making a healing salve with comfrey, or maybe
it's growing herbs in your garden, or taking
time in your day to simply stop and smell the
lavender.

The last little pig joyfully ate lots of nutrient-

dense foods and included lots of herbs and
spices with every meal. In this way, he had good
digestion. His immune system was strong. He
often felt relaxed. He slept very well every night.
Life was really good, and so he invited his
brother and sister to sit at his bountiful table
and enjoy their food as medicine.

We know that we need certain things in order

to be healthy. For example, we can only live a
few seconds without air, a few days without
water, perhaps a few weeks without food. Right
now, we are living through a widespread
cultural experiment to see how long we can live
healthy lives without an abundance of herbs and
spices.

In this presentation, we saw that herbs can

affect certain diseases, but I hope that you also
see that we need these herbs and spices simply
to maintain our good health. These aren't
pharmaceutical drugs that you only take when
sick. These are safe things that need to be a part
of our daily lives.

We know they're an important part, because

we've been using them for hundreds of
thousands of years, because science is
confirming their use every day with more and
more studies, and simply because we know we
feel good when we use them.

The solution is really simple. It's finding your

favorite herbs and spices, trying out a bunch,
seeing what you really love. Seek them out,

Written by Rosalee de la Forêt © LearningHerbs. All rights reserved. Page 16 of 16