This post was going to be about tools I used to deal with my metabolic syndrome but then I realized that it might be helpful to discuss metabolic syndrome itself.  It’s also called, or was called, Syndrome X.  That’s kind of a scary name, if you ask me.  It sounds like a disease black hole!  And, honestly, that’s not a bad way to describe metabolic syndrome.  We hear alot about chronic disease today, especially cardiovascular disease, heart disease, high blood pressure, dyslipidemia (fancy way of saying high cholesterol), obesity and diabetes.    These are all related and metabolic syndrome encompasses all of them.   It most likely plays a role in cancer, too.  

A HIGHLY simplfied version of what happens in Metabolic Syndrome

Metabolic syndrome is basically a dysregulation of metabolism causing too much insulin to be released into the blood stream.  It starts with certain body cells becoming insulin resistant, meaning that the cells stop responding to insulin. The cells that become insulin resistant first are muscle cells (heart muscle, too).  Muscle is a metabolically active tissue and needs lots of energy.  Cells that are the last to become insulin resistant are fat cells and some cells, like epithealial cells that line the arteries and the  GI tract, don’t become insulin resistant at all.  They keep growing in response to high insulin levels as insulin is an anabolic, or growth-promoting, hormone.  Hence, metabolic syndrome plays a part in cancers. 

Eating lots of carbs raises blood glucose which in turn promotes insulin secretion from the pancreas.  If one high carb thing hits the GI tract after another, all day long, for years and years, eventually some of the cells in the body just ignore the insulin (they become resistant) when it comes by to tell them to store nutrients. Cells down grade their insulin receptors because there is so much insulin in the system.  More and more insulin is needed to get cells to take the nutrients.  When this happens, blood glucose stays high, nutrients aren’t put into insulin resistant cells and the person feels like they’re starving.  And some of the cells are starving.  Muscle cells can’t get nutrients, for example.   This causes the person to want to eat again as nutrients aren’t available to cells that need them - they’re all being packed away in fat cells.  Let this go on long enough and the person may develop Type 2 diabetes or even worse, T2 diabetes with insulin dependence from the pancreas wearing out.

As you can see what eating three high-carb meals a day plus high carb snacks can do, especially to a carbohydrate sensitive person. It ends up as a horrid feedback loop that is difficult to break.  As the person gains weight, he or she may be told to go on a low fat diet and that generally means a high carb diet.  That doesn’t help matters much.  Or the person is told to exercise more.  That is difficult as people with metabolic syndrome, because their muscles are starving, don’t have much energy.    

Insulin signals the kidneys to hang on to water and sodium, causing edema.  Edema drives up blood pressure and the person gets hypertensive.  All those carbs get turned into fat in the liver, too, especially triglycerides and VLDL, causing cholesterol to go up.    These processes are pretty complicated and I’ll refer you to Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes or The Protein Power LifePlan by the Eades for more information.

Insulin also supresses a hormone called glucagon.  Glucagon is the hormone that tells the body to release fat from fat cells and use it for energy.   Now we can’t live without insulin but we certainly don’t want insulin to run amock.   We definitely want glucagon to be secreted so our bodies burn fat.  The problem with our current dietary “wisdom” is that glucagon never gets a chance and our bodies don’t burn fat.  These pathways aren’t used and then it takes a while to get them established.

So, that is a very, very short and simplified version of metabolic syndrome.  It certainly ain’t pretty.

What to do to tackle Metabolic Syndrome?  As I’ve already discussed my dietary guidelines in the last post I’m going to give some “helpful hints” here.

I’ll tackle tools first:

• Tape measure
• Scale that measures body fat percentage - not just weight. 
• Food tracking program.  The free ones available on the internet like Fitday or The Daily Plate are just fine.
• A diet buddy or support person
• Exercise
• Supplements
• Herbs

How to use your “tools”

The tape measure is to measure your body:  thighs, waist, hips, chest - even your arms if you wish.  These numbers are really helpful, as I’ll explain in a minute.  And don’t feel like you have to show them to anyone, ever!  Periodically check your measurements and by periodically I mean no more than once a month.  Quarterly is fine, every eight weeks, etc.  I keep mine on an index card because it’s purple and that makes me happy plus it fits in the bathroom drawer where only I can see it.

A scale that meaures body composition is vastly superior to a scale that just measures weight.  Why?  The scale that meaures only weight cannot tell you if you’ve lost fat and gained muscle.  This is extremely important because muscle is metabolically active tissue (see above).  It uses energy just to sit there.  If you loose weight and loose a lot of muscle that is bad - you’ve just lost the tissue that uses up energy.  This is why many people who do diet and go off the diet end up heavier than before, especially people who use a lot of cardio exercise (talk about that in a minute).  They’ve lost too much metabolically active tissue rather than fat.   Ultimately, we want to use fat for energy to get rid of it and build muscle.  My advice if you only have a regular scale is to put it in the basement and don’t use it.  Use measurements or how your clothes fit.  Here’s my anecdotal story about this.  I weighed 160 on 1 Oct and wore a size 14 pants just barely.  They were a bit tight in the wasit.  Fast forward to 1 Dec.  I still weighed 160 but now wore a size 12 pants loosely.  What happened?  I lost fat and built muscle.  Muscle is denser than fat so it takes up less space.  Oddest thing?  Didn’t exercise much.  Taubes talks about this in GCBC.  There were some weight loss studies done in the early 1960’s using the type of diet I use - with women, so we’re talking apples to apples here.  The additional protein seemed to lead to muscle mass building without additional exercise.  Or perhaps it was just that elevated glucose causes muscle waisting?  No further studies were done on this line of thinking.  Bummer.

A food tracking program or keeping a food diary is really useful.  If you can use a free internet-based one that’s great.  Fitday breaks up intake by macronutrient.  Either way it’s a super useful tool to see what you’re really eating.

A diet buddy is great to keep you on track whether you need someone to talk to or someone to compete against.  Internet buddies count, too.  It helps if your household is “carb clean”, too, but for some of us that is very difficult due to family members that don’t want or aren’t willing to come along for the ride.

Exercise is important and if you are able you should do it.  By that I don’t mean making time for it.  I mean physically able.  If you’re physically able you should exercise.  Metabolically active tissue uses energy and you want lots of that.  The best way to get it is to weight train or do body weight exercises.  No “chronic cardio” as Mark Sisson calls it.  That tends to raise levels of the stress hormone cortisol (which works with insulin, by the way) and may signal to your body that storing fat is a good idea.  After all, if you’re going to be running miles everyday your body needs lots of energy.  Without adequate protein or with a restricted calorie diet the body may eat up muscle tissue for its protein needs.  If you’re heavily overweight, walking is fine.  You can also sit and do weighted arm exercises if its comfortable to do so.  When you’ve lost enough weight and are able to exercise, by all means do so.   If you’re thinking “oh, I hate to exercise” you may be surprised.  Once my I started to burn fat rather than sugar I felt so great I went running - I had only lost about 5 pounds by then, too.  My energy level was the first thing to change.  It was great.  

Supplements are important because metabolic syndrome is an imbalance caused by both excess and deficiency.  The excess is high insulin and high blood sugar.  The deficiency is micronutrients, mainly chromium, magnesium and omega-3 fatty acids.   Refined carbohydrates use up bodily chromium and there’s not a good way to replace it.  Even foods high in chromium, like beef liver, don’t have very much.  The whole compliment of antioxidants are important as well - selenium, Vitamin E, coenzyme Q-10, just to name a few.   Contact me for specific types (there are several types of chromium and they’re not the same) and amounts. 

Now onto herbs.  Being an herbalist, you’d think I’d have listed these first.  However, they are the least important part of the picture here.  I’m healing my metabolic syndrome with very little herbal help, if you don’t count all the plants I eat.  Herbs can be helpful but they are not a substitute for dietary changes and exercise.  I can’t stress this enough.  Herbs that can be helpful include:

• Cinnamon - makes cells more insulin sensitive
• Dandelion - helps tonify the liver, which takes a beating on a high-carb diet
• Gymnema sylvestre - makes you unable to taste sugar as well as lowers blood sugar
• Ginsengs - may help by stimulating insulin secretion, but the mechanisms aren’t clear
• Blueberry and bilberry - eat the berries (no sugar & with cream) to help with vascular complications from diabetes or make a tea with a pinch of the leaves for blood sugar lowering effect. Some studies show that the leaves may be toxic over the long term so don’t self-herb with this.
• Devil’s club
• Brickelia
• Syzygium  
• Fenugreek
• Cinnamon
• Maitake mushroom
• Bitter melon (Momordica charantia)
• Basil - certain species

Again, don’t self-herb with any of these!  Check with a trained herbalist near you.

 READING - These are all good books to read about diet.  The Protein Power Lifeplan talks a lot about insulin resistance and its biochemistry.  If you have T2 or T1 diabetes, Dr. Bernstein’s book is a must-read to understand your disease.

• Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution by Richard K. Bernstein, M.D.
• The Protein Power Lifeplan by Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades
• Protein Power by Drs. Michael and Mary Dan Eades

One of my friend/clients asked me to write a post about my experiences loosing over 40 pounds and getting my blood sugar under control.  What prompted me to get my butt moving, to put it colloquially, was taking a session on natural treatments for type 2 diabetes at the International Herb Symposium in June, 2009.   As I sat there, I realized the presenter was describing me when he described someone with pre-diabetes - overweight, rising blood pressure to name a few things.   That wasn’t the lesson I wanted, to be sure, but it was the lesson I needed.  Unfortunately, the remedy this particular presenter endorsed was pretty conventional:  more complex carbohydrates (corn, beans, whole grains), less fat, some fasting, lots of exercise.  So I tried that for 6 weeks, gained 10 more pounds and felt absolutely miserable.  I was hungry all the time and had the energy level of a slug on a cold day.   The presenter, by the way, was very thin and did not currently or ever have weight problems.

Luckily, there were two presentaions during the conference on metabolic syndrome (pre-diabetes)/type 2 diabetes.  The second presentation I had on CD to listen to later and I did.  That presentation really changed things for me.  The presenter, Paul Bergner, endorsed a “paleo” diet to combat these kinds of problems - metabolic syndrome, T2 diabetes, obesity.   Everything he made sense - the evolutionary history of people, the insulin responses driven by eating carbohydrates and his case studies.  To add to this, Paul has metabolic syndrome himself and was carb addicted.  He knows how hard dealing with this problem can be.  Later in the fall I signed up for his distance learning course on treating metabolic sydrome, which I am working on now.  Following the protocol he gives helped me immensely.  I lost 30 pounds in two months and after that went down a clothing size as my body recovered more.  Now I am working on replacing fat with insulin-sensitive muscle and continue to loose weight and get smaller.  And I feel fantastic.  I mean really fantastic.  I wish I would have felt like this in my twenties!

Here are the four main things I changed in my diet.  I’ll discuss why in more detail below when I talk about what I’ve learned. 

• No sugar - none, none, none!  No maple syrup, no honey, no sucanat, no Rapadura, no table sugar - they ALL do the same stuff in your body.  No, the mineral content in, say, sucanat, honey or maple syrup eaten as a food, does not counterbalance the damage done by the fructose and glucose present in it.  The sugar in maple syrup is sucrose, that means it has fructose and glucose in it in a 50/50 ration, just like table sugar.  Totally out for me.
• No grains.  Same as above - they all raise blood glucose, some just faster than others.  Wheat is also highly addictive and modern “hard” wheat has much, much higher levels of gluten in it than in the past (100 or 150 years ago).  Modern wheat is bred for modern industrial food processing factilities, not for our health and benefit.   Soaking helps negate some of the unhealthy compounds in grains, like phytates and some lectins, but nothing changes the fact that these things raise blood glucose and set the body up for a sugar crash.  This does seem to effect some people more than others, though.  More on wheat below.
• No beans.  Too starchy and wreak havoc in the digestive tract.  Plus have phytates and lectins, only some of which break down with soaking.
• No starchy veg.  No potatoes, minimal sweet potato.  Again, raises the blood glucose.

What I mainly eat is a ketogenic diet - that means a fat-burning diet.  I burn body-fat for fuel and it’s nice.  Fat takes a long time to burn so I don’t need to eat as frequently or as much.

My general diet consists of two meals a day.  I rarely snack and when I do, it’s a small snack - handful of nuts and an ounce of cheese.  The bulk of my diet is fat.  Yup, that’s right, fat and mostly saturated fat, too.  I sometimes track my daily food intake on Fitday, a free internet program that helps users keep track of macronutrients (fat, protein and carbs) as well as exercise.  According to Fitday, fat makes up about 75 % of my daily diet.  I eat enough animal protein to maintain my body tissues as well as increase my muscle mass.  Because muscle is insulin-sensitive, creating and maintaining muscle mass is a priority for me.  During most diets one looses muscle mass which is one of the reasons why people gain weight back and add some on after they drop off a diet.  Protein comes in second at about 20% and carbs make up the balance.  The carbs are ALL from non-starchy veggies - cauliflower, broccoli, kale, peppers, onions, spinach, brussels sprouts, turnips, rutabagas, etc.

EEEK!  I can hear people screaming.  My cholesterol is high and my arteries clogged from all that saturated fat!  I’m gonna die of a heart attack!  About 5 months after I started this I had a check up with my MD.  My blood sugar is within high-normal range (it was borderline diabetic); my blood pressure is low-normal (it was high-normal); my trigylcerides are low and my HDL is almost up into the very good range.  My LDL is a little high, but the test didn’t break out VLDL, the actual “bad” cholesterol and eating saturated fat will make the okay LDL, the big puffy stuff, be high.  The problem being the VLDL is very damaging and causes arterial plaque build-up while the big LDL doesn’t do anything bad.  It just shows that hey, you eat animal fat!

Here’s a typical daily diet for me: I don’t eat breakfast during the week but I do have some coffee - half-caff with cream.  I’m not very hungry when I get up so I don’t eat until I’m hungry, usually around 11:00 a.m. or noon.  I’ll eat leftovers  from supper.  For example today I’m eating Italian sausage “stew” leftover from last night’s dinner.  It consists of 1 sausage, peppers, onions, spinach, olives and diced tomatoes with a pat of butter.  Or if I’m wanting a more traditional breakfast I’ll eat 2 scrambled eggs with salsa,  an avocado, and maybe some bacon.  During the afternoon I have some herbal tea or infusion and afternoon coffee is at 2 p.m. everyday.  But I normally don’t eat again until dinner, around 7 p.m.  Tonight’s dinner is brisket cooked in the slow cooker with a bit (2 - 3 TBS) of wine and a sliced onion, sweet potatoes and broccoli - lots of butter will go on the  broccoli.  The sweet potatoes are small and I might have one.  I might have 1 or 2 small squares of very dark chocolate for dessert.  When I say dark chocolate, I mean DARK, too.  Nothing below 75% cocoa.  My favorite now is Guittard’s 91% chocolate.  I no longer make cookies, bread, cakes, pies - no sugary desserts of any kind.  For a treat on Sunday we had plain, sliced strawberries with plain heavy cream.

Here are some things I learned along the way.

• It’s all about minimizing insulin.  Insulin is THE fat-storage hormone.  As blood glucose (blood sugar) rises in the body, the pancreas releases insulin to tell the body to store fat:  Food’s come in, gotta store some of that as fat in case we need it later!  The higher your blood glucose load (you’ve eaten a huge wad of rice for supper, or a lot of pasta, or a big ole baked potato) the more insulin your body secretes to sock that glucose away as fat. 
• ALL starches convert to sugar in the body, driving blood glucose up and subsequently causing a release of insulin.  Insulin tells the body to store fat.  The more frequently you eat, the more insulin is released, the more fat you’ll store.  Eating three meals a day plus two or three snacks is a recipe for obesity.  This is a diet I’d prescribe for someone who wanted to gain weight. 
• It doesn’t matter if the grains are soaked, whole, fresh-ground, etc.  They all drive up blood glucose. 
• Wheat-based carbohydrates are highly addicting - they release opiate-like substances in the blood.    These things effect the pleasure center in the brain just like real opiates.  That feeling of sleepiness and lethargy after a huge plate of pasta?  Opiates in your blood stream.  Can’t eat just one cookie?  Opiates + sugar.  What a deadly combination.  Some people are much more sensitive to this than others & I’m one of them. 
• Wheat has a much, much high gluten content than even 100 years ago when my grandparents were kids.  Gluten is highly damaging to the GI tract.  It can create tiny holes that let opiate-like compounds escape into the blood stream, and lectins and the gluten proteins themselves.  The result is autoimmune disease, like arthritis, obesity, edema, neurological problems, GI distress, thyroid problems.  Need I say more?  It’s nasty stuff and you don’t want it running loose in the body.  By the way, if you’re gluten sensitive or have celiac disease you’re more likely to be overweight, rather than thin and emaciated.  As it ends up, I’m probably gluten intolerant, too. 
• Our bodies aren’t meant to run on sugar.  Nora Gedgaudas likened running our bodies on sugar to keeping a fire going with kindling only.  It burns really hot and you have to keep feeding it.  It’s very oxidative and creates free-radicals.
• Our bodies are meant to run on fat and ketone bodies generated during ketosis.   Fat is a slow-burning  fuel.  It’ll keep you going for hours.  It’s very, very satisfying to eat a diet high in fat & that’s saturated fat, too.  It’s extremely stable.
• Yes, your brain needs a little glucose and if you have adequate protein in the diet your liver can make glucose from the amino acids in the protein.  The brain runs best on 75% ketone bodies and 25% glucose.  It keeps the brain calm and focuses.   I used to race mountain bikes & one of the things I’d notice was that sometimes I’d really be in ”the zone” and my biking would be great.  My brain is really in ”the zone” most of the time now.  I am so much calmer and laid back than when I primarily ran on glucose.  That’s a huge boon when dealing with children all day or any stressful situation for that matter.  No more “senior” moments, either.  
• When I stopped eating carbs, fat began to taste sweet.  Olive oil is like candy and so is bacon fat. 
• Sugar is horribly sweet now and turns my stomach.  Yuck.  Other carbs taste awful, too.  Potatoes?  They taste like paste.  Rice tastes like cardboard.  Popcorn tastes and has a texture like styrofoam.  What’s funny is that in the 1990’s I ate a low-fat, high carb diet.  Fat still tasted great when I had some and I really missed it.  I was a vegetarian for a four years, too.  When I did have some meat, it tasted good.  What’s with the carbs, then?  My guess is we’re not supposed to eat grains as the basis of our diets.  And some of us aren’t adapted to eat them at all. 

 For my second year presentation in the apprenticeship program I’m in, I worked with four people using this protocol.  One of them was myself, one my mom and two others.  What seems to have determined the degree of success for each person was the extent that they overcame their carb or sugar addiction.  Carb addiction is just like any other addiction that effect brain chemistry, like alcoholism or opiate addiction.  It’s extremely hard to overcome.  Some of the people who didn’t do well on this protocol still drank diet soda, made sweets for their families, had a lot of “treats”.  I’ve often been told that old saw about “Everything in moderation”.  People would never say that to an alcoholic nor should they say it to a carb addict.   

Recommended Reading/Viewing -

• Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes.  This is an extremely scientific look at all the diet studies done over the past 100 years.  And I mean ALL of them.  It’s a fiasco, which is not what Taubes was out to uncover.  Read the intro,  read the epilogue and then read the main text of the book.  It’s very long - 400+ pages.  He is supposed to come out with a shortened version of about 150 pages.  Maybe 2011?  Anyway, I cannot recommend this book highly enough.  Everyone should read it and doctors should read it twice!
• The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson My lifestyle - including exercise, which I didn’t go into here - in an easily readable book.  I could easily and very truly say this guy and Paul Bergner saved my life.  Seriously!
• Nourishing Traditions - Sally Fallon & Mary Enig  This is a great book.  I just don’t use the carby recipes.  Their emphasis on healthy fats and lots of them is spot on.
• Fat Head -  a movie by Tom Naughton  This is a fun, humorous movie that was filmed to refute Super Size me.  He ends up on a low carb, high fat diet, too.  With great blood work.

Books I am currently reading

Websites & Online Viewing

• If you don’t have the time to read Gary Taubes check out his lecture at the Stevens Institute of Technology:  http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4362041487661765149#  .   It’s about an hour long and you’ll get the basic jist of his book.
• Mark Sisson’s Website, Mark’s Daily Apple:  www.marksdailyapple.com  - Use the search function to check out the Archives.  The Primal Blueprint is so easy to do and it’s what I base my diet/lifestyle around now.
• Nora Gedgaudas’ 10 Worst Nutritional & Dietary Mistakes People Make:   http://www.primalbody-primalmind.com/top10-nutritional-mistakes.html 
• Livin’ La Vida Low-Carb show:  http://www.thelivinlowcarbshow.com/shownotes/ - This is Jimmy Moore’s website with his podcast interviews with the authors listed above.  If you don’t have time to read the books, check out his interviews.  Very enlightening.
• Sugar, the Bitter Truth:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM   A video presentation by Dr. Robert Lustig on EXACTLY what sugar does inside your body.  Fructose works in the same way as alcohol in the liver. 

There are now tons of blogs devoted to “paleo” eating.  Here are some of the ones I check regularly.  Remember, blogs are highly opinionated and I certainly don’t always agree with what everyone says but they’re always interesting to read!

• Dr. Kurt Harris’ PaleoNu Blog  http://www.paleonu.com/  He tends to be pretty scientific, being an MD and all.  Check out his links to other blogs as well as his “get started” tips.
• Free the Animal  http://freetheanimal.com/   Many recipes here.  His cauliflower pizza crust is great.  Opinion and topics as well.
• Pay Now, Live Later  http://paynowlivelater.blogspot.com/  More on the humorous side.  Likes to experiment with himself, which gets interesting.  He’s from the UK.

I could go on for pages, including talking about vitamin usage and high glucose (hint, high carb diet = you need more vitamins), diseases that relate to a high carb diet (pretty much all chronic disease, including diabetes and high blood pressure) but this is enough for now! Contact me ( dfatemental@gmail.com ) for more information or a full protocol  (including herbs, supplements and exercise).  I’d be happy to work with you.

One thing I have generally noticed on this path of herbalism and plant medicine is that many people want to transfer the characteristics of pharmceutical drugs to herbs, making herbs green drugs.  In the Wise Woman Tradition, herbs aren’t drugs, though there are other traditions treat them that way.  Herbs are much more complex and also much more helpful.

Why aren’t herbs drugs?  Pharmaceutical drugs have one active ingredient and generally one approved use, though this is not always the case.  Tylenon’s active ingredient is acetominaphen; penicillin’s is penicillin.  You take Tylenol for “pain relief” and you take penicillin to twart a bacterial infection.  Penicillin doesn’t have a secondary action - it only kills bacteria, it doesn’t also, say, promote sleep or a sense of well being.  The pill you take consists of the active ingredient and a bunch of binders and fillers, there’s no secondary constituents that promote or heighten the effect of the primary constituent or soften it’s effect on the liver.  To do that, you may have to take another drug but then you may run into drug interactions.  Drugs don’t mediate.  High blood pressure medication only takes blood pressure down; it does nothing to normalize blood pressure. 

Herbs on the other hand, are extremely complex chemically.  Their active constituents may run into the hundreds.  Individual constituents within herbs work synergistically (they work together).  You may take an herb that contains compounds not so friendly to a specific organ but has other compounds to strengthen that organ, hence no damage to that organ. 

Herbs have constituents that work together to make them wonderful remedies for specific situations.  Lemon Balm is an excellent example.  Lemon balm is a carminative, meaning it helps with digestive troubles.  It is especially useful for the nervous stomach where the person’s stomach is in a knot.  Lemon balm has constituents that bring on calm as well as ones that help to relax muscles (antispasmodics), making it a great help to those with a clenched, nervous stomach.  It’s also helpful just for nervous tension as well.

Herbs are also fantastic mediators or normalizers.  The actions within the body act to bring the body back into balance.  If your blood pressure is too high or too low, the traditional herb used to treat that condition is the same:  Hawthorn.  Hawthorn promotes the well being of the circulatory system and the heart, bringing that system back to into normal functioning.  Tonic herbs like Hawthorn do not have side effects (other than better health).  Because tonic herbs don’t stimulate, just gently nudge the system back into balance, there’s not harsh after effects and no burn out because there’s no forcing or overproduction in the system that’s being treated.

 A trained or experienced herbalist also knows the energies of the herbs and their relative strengths.  Some herbs love kids and are very gentle.  Some herbs I only use for adults or for certain situations.  There are many antiviral herbs to choose from, for instance, and I choose an herb for a specific situation based upon my knowledge of the herb and the person I’m working with.  For viruses, especially cold or flu viruses, I often choose lemon balm or elder for kids.  There are many other anit-virals - St. John’s Wort, Hyssop, just to name a few - but SJW is just to strong for a cold (why use a cannon when a slingshot will do) or too strong for the person I’m working with.  Hyssop is great for adults but most kids won’t drink it as a tea or take it as a syrup.   Lemon balm has anti-viral properties and works as a light fever reducer plus its taste is usually well recieved.  Elderberry made into a syrup has different anti-viral properties and can be used preventatively.  Elderflower is the traditional European remedy for colds.  The main difference between elder and lemon balm is their energy.  Lemon balm is more cooling, elder is heating.   I like to treat a “hot” cold with lemon balm and a “chilly” cold with elderflower to warm up the system.  In addition, an agitated child with a “hot” cold definitely benefits from lemon balm’s calming and relaxing properties - it brings the child back into balance.  Likewise, a chilled, tired child is brought back into balance with the warming energy of elderflower tea.  And, no, the temperature of the tea doesn’t matter.  

What kind of energy does a pharmaceutica have?  Hold one in your hand, see how it feels.  Dead? Sterile?  Do you feel any desire to bring forces together for your own healing? 

The herbalist’s relationship with the plant is also important.  Paracelsus said that lemon balm is the only herb one ever needs.  He obviously had a really good relationship with lemon balm!  My personal herbal allies include calendula, comfrey and St. John’s Wort.  I’ve had very good results using calendula even when it’s not the “best herb for the job”.  My relationship and respect for the plant comes through in the medicine I make.  In turn, the plant allows me to use its full healing potential.

How does one determine plant energies?  A good herbal is one way as well as working with herbs in on a hands-on way.  When handling the plants or dried plant materials the energy will still come through.  Never underestimate your own senses, including the knowing of your heart.   In times past when people spent a lot of time in their gardens, plant energies would have been apparent as well as  learned at the knee of a relative.  Plants knowledge was often taught that way  and because there was no break in the transmisison of knowledge most women grew up knowing which plant to use in which situation.  Intuition (your heart knowing) becomes important when dealing with the plant world.  In this way, learning the herbs also works to open up one’s heart to the whole world and it’s interconnectedness.   

When you take an herbal remedy, it brings together the energy of the herbalist, the plant and the Earth.  As Barbar Tedlock says in The Woman in the Shaman’s Body “Herbalists insist that in order to choose the proper medicine for any situation, a healer must ‘come to know the plants as living beings’.” (p. 137).  Healing comes from the interplay that exists between the spirit world, the herbalist and her energy, the energy of the plants and the energy of the person being healed.  Now there’s something no pharmaceutical can do!

Black Toad Herbals Herbal Medicine CSA 2010

Introducing the Herbal Medicine CSA, based on the Community Supported Agriculature idea.  This will be my first season as a CSA and I’m hoping it’ll be a grand one!  I like to think of this CSA as an opportunity for both herbalist and subscriber - it enables me as an herbalist to produce herbal medicine and to educate people about using plants as medicine and for general good health.  The share subscriber gets access to an herbalist and locally made herbal medicine and the opportunity to really get to know plants themselves and plants as medicine.  I’m personally very excited to be able to offer this opportunity to people.

What is Herbal Medicine?  How do Plants Work as Medicine?

Plants offer a unique form of healing.  They may work on the physical plane or the energy/spiritual plane.  On the physical plane, the chemical compounds or active constituents in the plants work in the physical body.  One herb may have several different actions and hundreds of different compounds or active ingredients, making them much more complex than pharmaceutical drugs that have only one active ingredient.  These compounds work synergystically within the body to produce an effect or gently nudge the body back to homeostatis and good health.  Many herbs have a tonic effect, akin to exercise, to help the body work more efficiently.  Herbs can be used as a tonic to keep good health or for acute situations, like the onset of a cold. 

Why Choose Herbal Medicine?

There are several reasons to choose herbal medicines.  Herbs are an enviromentally sound choice.  Herbal medicines can be produced locally from local plants, cutting down on greehouse gas emissions.  Many herbalists, myself included, feel that locally grown plants help to give our bodies a stronger immune system and prepare the body for whatever the local climate can dish out.   Herbal medicines from a local source are safe, effective and you know where they come from and what conditions they are made under.  Herbs support natural body functions and the immune system, not suppress symptoms as many synthetic drugs do.

Where the Herbs Will Come From

As much as I can I will use my own home-grown high quality organic herbs or herbs I’ve wild-gathered myself.  Due to space constraints, climate, and other factors I will have to purchase some of the herbs.  My main supplier is Mountain Rose Herbs, a company well known for the quality of their herbs and their commitment to organic growing and the environment.  All of the infused oils and salves I produce are made with my own herbs.

How I Grow My Herbs

Due to the smallness of my enterprise my garden is not certified organic but I do follow organic growing methods and use no petroleum-based fertilizers or pesticides.  I use organic suppliers, like FEDCO in Maine, if at all possible.  I’ve been gardening in Mendon since 1996.  Our yard and garden are organically managed.  We also began keeping bees in 2009 and hope to add a new hive this year.   If you have specific questions about growing methods or my suppliers, please let me know. 

Quality of Ingredients

Tinctures or extracts will be made with either 100-proof vodka or organic grape alcohol.  I am in the process of transitioning to using organic grape alcohol for tinctures.  Any tincture that has to macerate for longer than 6 months may be made with 100-proof vodka.  Infused oils and salves are made with organic extra virgin olive oil and, the case of salves, locally-sourced beeswax.  Honey is sourced locally as well.  Soaps are all-vegetable, super-fatted and retain the original glycerin to create a gentle, moisturizing bar of soap. 

Other Opportunities

Throughout the growing season I hope to offer opportunities for you to see and experience the plants your medicine will be made from.  It’s always good to get to know them as I work in partnership with them; your medicine does not come just from me!  As a member of the Herbal Medicine CSA you’ll be entitled to discounts on classes throughout the year. 

Pick-Ups

Pick-ups will be at my house (26 Wood Drive in Mendon, MA) and there will possibly be one in the early summer (possibly late June) with a few items and the bulk of the items available at the end of the growing season, once everything has been processed.  Bulk nourishing herbs will also be available on a pre-ordered basis at the pick-up.   Additional products will be available for purchase as well. 

Share Size

There are two sizes of shares: a small and a large.  The small is meant for 1 -2 people while the large would be good for a family.  The listings below are the minimum for the share.  Additional items included in the share may include herbal soaps, additional salves, teas, tinctures, handouts, booklets. 

Cost & Payments

You may pay 100% at the time of sign-up or you may pay 50% at time of sign up with the balance due at the first pick-up.  If you pay in full at time of sign-up you will receive a gift  at the first pick-up.  Sign-up is on a first-come, first-serve basis.  Sign-up runs through Jan 2010 until April 1, 2010.  Shares are limited so be sure to sign up early!

Small Share consists of

1.      1-12 oz herbal culinary vinegar

2.      2-4 oz herbal honeys (1 each: hyssop, sage)

3.       3-2 oz tinctures (diarrhea remedy, Echinacea combo, sore throat)

4.      2 oz tin of Heal-All Salve

5.      2 oz tin of Calendula Salve

6.      2 oz Itch Relief salve

7.      2 oz St. John’s Wort infused oil

8.      4 bulk teas (approx. 2 oz – 4 oz each)

9.      8 oz elderberry syrup

10.  4 oz cough & chest congestion relief syrup

11.  2 oz bulk astragalus root slices

12.  3 syrup mixes: 1  immunity syrup, 1 elderberry, 1 sore throat relief

Price for the small share is $130.

Large Share consists of

1.      1-12 oz herbal culinary vinegar

2.      2- 8-oz herbal honeys (1 each: hyssop, sage)

3.      3-4 oz tinctures (diarrhea remedy, Echinacea combo, sore throat spray)

4.      2 oz tin Heal-All Salve

5.      4 oz tin Calendula Salve

6.      4 oz Itch Relief salve

7.      2 oz St. John’s Wort infused oil

8.      4 bulk teas (approx. 2 - 4 oz each)

9.      8 oz elderberry syrup

10.  8 oz cough & chest congestion relief syrup

11.  4 oz bulk astragalus root slices

12.  4 syrup mixes: 2 immunity syrup, 1 elderberry, 1 sore throat relief

Price for large share is $175.

Bulk herbs (astragalus, elderberries), syrup mixes and teas come with instructions.  Dosage chart will be included in your share.  You will get a tea strainer as well. 

Additional Items

Additional items may be ordered at time of sign up.  Contact me for a list of available items. If you’d like any of the additional items listed below, especially Echinacea tincture, I do need to know at time of sign up so I can have the herbs macerating for the proper time and ensure that I have some available for you.

·         Tinctures:  2 oz for $12; 4 oz for $18

·         Teas:  2 oz for $5; 4 oz for $8

·         Salves: 2 oz for $7; 4 oz for $12

·         Infused oils: 2 oz for $10; 4 oz for $18

·         Syrups:  4 oz for $10; 8 oz for $15

·         Syrup mixes:  $12

·         Herbal Honeys: 4 oz for $7.50; 8 oz for $10

·         Culinary Vinegars:  $5

Additional bulk herbs available for nourishing herbal infusions. 

These are priced at my cost + 15% (to cover shipping & handling) as of 1/10/2010. From Mountain Rose Herbs in 1# bags.  As herbs are commodities prices are subject to change!!  I’ll email out prices about a month before the estimated pick-up date, so don’t feel like you have to commit to buying any of the below herbs if the prices go up.   Additional herbs are available on request.

·         Nettle $10 per pound

·         Red clover, if available  - about $20 per pound

·         Linden flower $11 per pound

·         Medicinal mushrooms (reishi, maitake, shiitake):  $21 per pound

·         Oatstraw $8 per pound 

A Little About Me

I’ve been making herbal medicine since 2006 but my interest in using herbs for medicine goes back to my childhood.   My main focus has been on the European Wise Woman Tradition with a bit of the American Vitalist tradition mixed in.   I’ve studied with Susun Weed in the past and am currently studying with Gail Faith Edwards and Paul Bergner.  I’ve always spent a lot of time outdoors and have the greatest respect for nature, for our Earth Mother Gaia, and the green beings that make our life on earth possible.

I strive to produce high quality hand-crafted herbal medicine.  I hope to provide you and your family with herbal products to keep you healthy as well as medicinal herbs to use in the event of a cold, flu or other mild illness. 

This is going to be the first in a series of ongoing posts about diet, nutrition, exercise and the conventional wisdom about these things.  First, let’s take a little gander at conventional wisdom and then have a little rebuttal and some anecdotes.  I won’t put this all in one post, I’ll spread it out.  Also, don’t take my word for it.  Read this really fantastic book by Gary Taubes called Good Calories, Bad Calories.  You may be really made and find yourself quoting Homer Simpson (”DOH!”) but you’ll also want to write Mr. Taubes a huge thank you note.  He’s no light weight writer, either.  Be prepared to go down some metabolic pathways.   What does this have to do with herbs?  Well, nothing really but being that I’m a justice kinda woman, this story just bears telling!

We’re told, if we want to lose weight we should cut our calories and exercise more.  That shouldn’t be too hard, right?  It’s very hard as it turns out.  Once a person goes on a calorie-restricted diet, called a “semi-starvation” diet in clinical articles, that person starts to experience starvation symptoms:  fatigue, low energy, fascination with food, fantasies about food, wanting to overeat and binge.  Most people who go on this kind of diet do lose some weight at first  but then “plateau” as their metabolism slows.  Once a person’s basal metabolism goes down, so does his or her energy.  Exercising doesn’t help because it drives hunger in the end.  Exercising might squash the hunger while a person’s exercising but then she’ll be even hungrier later.   And then, depending upon what’s eaten, her body may really get busy storing away some fat.  Yup, the muscles will get their glycogen back, but everything else will be stored as fat.  Did you know that every study on this method shows that it works less than 10% of the time?  Most people really do gain their weight back plus some.  And it doesn’t matter what age or sex you are.   To keep the weight off you’d have to stay on caloric restriction, and possibly keep reducing, forever.  Those psychological symptoms of starvation don’t go away, either.  I’ve tried this.  I’m sure you have, too, or known someone who did (probably someone very close to you).  Did it really work for them?  Were they happy while doing it?  I’m guessing that the answers to both are either “No” or “For a while” and then they gained their weight back.

Well, I’m on a low-fat diet, you say.  Um, that’s not too hot, either.  Most people on a low-fat diet feel very unsatisfied.  Plus, what do you replace the fat with?  Usually carbohydrates.  I also fee l that this diet can also be called the “calorie-restricted, low nutrient” diet because many people do replace fats with carbs.  And the nutrient-low carbs, too - breads, pastas, grains.  You know, I’m an herbalist, we’re all kind of weird anyway but my take on grains and starches in general is there is just not much nutrition there.  There’s not and none of it isn’t something you can get somewhere else.  Fats, on the other hand, do have some nutrients you can’t get anywhere else - the fat-soluble nutrients:  vitamins E, D, K and A.  Have scaly skin and you’re on a low-fat diet?  Does your hair feel yucky?  Have  a lot of fatigue?  Catch a lot of colds?  You may be low in some of those fat-soluble vitamins.  If you have extreme fatigue and have been a vegetarian for a long time or haven’t eaten red meat in a long time, get your vitamin B-12 levels checked.  If you don’t go out in the sun much and when you do, you wear sunscreen, get your vitamin D levels checked.  Most adults in the US have seriously low vitamin D levels.  If you’re eating low fat, you’re going to be low in these nutrients.  You need fat to fully absorb the minerals in your diet, too.  According to the Nurses Study saturated fat consumption has no correlation to breast cancer, either.  Polyunsaturated fats…well, that’s anther story.  Corn oil specifically may be implicated in tumor growth and accelerated tumor growth.  Read the above mentioned book to get a fuller scoop. 

So, when you carbohydrates your body will be pumping out insulin to deal with those carbohydrates.  What does insulin do?  In a nutshell, tells your body to sock away fat RIGHT NOW and stop burning fat (ideally, in between meals and overnight the body should be burning fat  stores).   When you eat all that pasta and you feel nice and lazy, that’ s the insulin.  It’s really hard to do anything after a meal like that, isn’t it?  Your body is so busy taking all that glycogen from the past and making it into fat (yes, fat!) that it doesn’t have a lot of energy to do much else.  And if you eat alot of sugar, it’s like the “perfect storm’ of fat accumulation!  The fructose in the sugar (or HFCS or fruit-sweetened jam or maple syrup) goes straight to your liver where it’s processed just like alcohol resulting in triglycerides (for fat storage) and hormones that tell your body to make more fat.   The glucose in the sugar (remember, sucrose = glucose + fructose) gets absorbed by the small intestine, goes into the bloodstream and causes causes a huge insulin rush.  As soon as you eat anything sweet (and I mean anything, regardless of what causes it to be sweet) it starts an insulin cascade.  The second the sweet molecule hits your tongue.  That little piece of information stopped me from having “just a little bit” or even just licking honey off my fingers! 

Well, this isn’t all that bad, right?  The problem comes in when your insulin level is chronically high.  Remember when we were all told that mini-meals were good and that eating 3 -6 meals a day was ideal because it kept your blood sugar “stable”?   What that really does is keep your insulin levels high (remember eating carbs = insulin response).  Chronically high insulin (hyperinsulemia) levels creates insulin resistence in someof the cells in your body, notably your muscles, while other cells are still sensitive to insulin - your  fat cells and epithelial cells.  Epithelial cells, by the way, never become insulin resistant.  These cells line your veins and arteries.   So, essentially your muscles starve (= no energy), your fat cells get big  and your epithelial cells have way too much energy.  Net result:  you’re fat, you’re never fell satiety (you’re never really full) and you have no energy.  Well, for some of us, or maybe most of us.  Some people just don’t respond that way and are fine.  Herbalist Paul Bergner supposes 1/3 of our population is very sensitive to carbohydrates, they become obese; 1/3 of people aren’t quite as sensitive and they end up overweight; the remaining 1/3 then say “why don’t you fat people just eat less and exercise?!”  The result being most of us end up overweight, myself included.

So, now you are thinking “Well, I didn’t learn any of this in school.  You’re full of it, Deb!” .  Of course you didn’t learn it in school because many of these pathways were not known when you went to school, especially if you’re in your forties like me.  And our society is heavily, heavily invested in time, energy and money in the “fat is bad’  and “overweight = eating too much + no exercise” hypotheses.  This would be a complete turnaround of all dietary advice given for the last, what, 25, 30 years?   Well, I don’t know what you thinks, but the low-fat/high carb thing just wasn’t working for me.  In fact, it was probably making me sick.  Just like it made my mother sick.  She was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in her forties.   Next up, my crappy struggle with being overweight and how I’m fixing that.

If you want to see a detailed version of sugar metabolism and how it works in the liver check out University of California’s Medicine for the Lay Person Series Lecture “Sugar, the Bitter Truth”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

References for this article:

Taubes, Gary. 2007.   Good Calories, Bad Calories:  Challenging the Conventional Wisdom on Diet, Weight Control and Disease.   Borzoi Books, New York.

Lustig,  Robert H.  2009.  Video Lecture.  “Sugar, The Bitter Truth”

Lecture Notes from Paul Bergner’s lecture at the 2009 International Herb Symposium.  Insulin Resistance:  Pathophysiology.

The International Herb Symposium was at Wheaton College on 19 - 21 June, 2009.  Wow, what a great time I had at the IHS!  It was my first time attending and I got to learn from some amazing teachers.  I often find myself at these events having a hard time choosing workshops, as so many look really great.  IHS was no exceptions.  I narrowly missed getting the Stephen Buhner trifecta by a last-minute change of plans.  It turned out for the best, though, as I learned something super-helpful regarding one of my daughters.  Here’s how the weekend went.

Friday started out with a miserable, rain-filled drive to the conference.  I picked up my registration packet, got myself some tea and headed over to the chapel for the welcoming ceremony.  We were all led in song by Kate Gilday.  Who knew signing in church could be so great?  Rosemary Gladstar gave us all a short welcome and introduced three wonderful elder shamans to lead the ceremony.  They were Rocio Alarcon, Dona Enriqueta Contereras and Raylene Ha’alelea Kawaiae’a.  What energy and power!   And what a way to start the conference.

I stayed in the chapel for the plenary session on visions of healing with the three women mentioned above.  Raylene talked  coming to the conference from her native Hawaii and how she interacts with the plants there.  She has such a gentle but powerful energy.  I really wanted to hug her.

Dona Enriqueta was next.  She speaks through a translator but there is no mistaking the power in her voice.  I don’t think I could really describe in words just how powerful Dona Enriqueta is.  The impact she made on the room was palpable.  When she called down the ancestors during the opening ceremony everyone could feel them there.  She’s also a midwife with a 60-year career - never lost a child or a mother!  Such a powerful grandmother!  She exhorted us to stop watching TV, limit our computer time and spend more time in our communities and with our families.  She yelled at all of us:  “People don’t even know their neighbors!  They never see the stars at night!  You’re loosing all your ancestral knowledge!  Technology has no conscience - we need to be its conscience.”  She’s right, of course. I left there wishing she was my grandma.  I might even write her and ask her if I could think of her as my grandmother.   

Rocio Alarcon had the unenviable position of following Dona Enriqueta!  She led us in a cleansing ceremony using tree branches.  It’s like having a green shower.  I took a session with her later in the day, so I’ll talk more about that later.   I left there pretty charged up!

After lunch I went to Stephen Buhner’s workshop “Herbs in Clinical Practice; Reflections on 20 Years of Herbalism”.  I’ve read many of Stephen’s books and listened to interviews with him before but I hadn’t experienced him in person.  What a treat!  First, and you know this if you’ve read his books, Stephen’s highly intelligent.  He has such a gentle manner, too, and is wickedly funny.  He’s a great stoyteller as well.   The description of this workshop states “A rant of brilliance and scope - be prepared to have unexamined beliefs challenged.”   And, well, seeing as how I’ve spent the last 5 years or so with the life theme of “Everything You Know is Wrong” , I had no problem with that.   He discussed unusual herbs he’s used, the conventional medican establishment, training for herbalists, schooling in general, secondary gains in disease and lots of other things.  It was great.  He’s incredibly brilliant.   I wished Stephen lived next door to me so I could have coffee with him all the time.

In keeping with, what many people would call, my no practical information workshops I then went to Rocio Alarcon’s  Plants and Shamanism:  Practical Activites in our Daily Life.  Here I learned how to do the green branch cleansing ceremony and do some great energy massage using rocks. 

Saturday’s weather was much nicer than Friday’s rain then super-humidity.  First up was four whole hours with Stephen Buhner. I took his intensive “The Ecstatic Journey and the Sacred Teachings of Plants”.  We learned about “duende”, that funny feeling of recognition that kind of takes you out of time.  It’s a direct perception of meaning that bypasses the brain and goes right to the heart.  We also discussed the Ecstatic Path.  I’ve had people tell me that this isn’t “practical” knowledge, but honestly, what could be more practical than knowing how to become a human being?  This is how we all need to learn to do just that.  My head was bursting after this. 

I went and talked to Stephen personally later Saturday afternoon, mostly about homeschooling kids and how to teach them (just let them learn is more like it) about the plants, how to talk to them.  What a great person.  We had a nice little talk and, of course, I had to buy some of his books!

The last session Saturday was Drugs and the Mind with Chris Kilham.   That was really interesting.  He goes to South American (the Amazon & Peru ) every year to work with the indigenous people there.  I know all kinds of stuff about hallucinogens now.  Insert big, evil smiley here.

Sunday and another rainy day - misty and blowing.  This morning for the first session I took something “practical” and learned about about herbal and dietary treatment of prediabetes and diabetes with Christopher Hobbs.  He’s much more of a Heroic tradition healer than I’m used to, being such a Wise Woman devotee.  His review of the scientific literature and latest research was very good.  He gave many different herbs used to stabilize blood sugar - even some preparations I thought my mom would take.  It was very interesting.

The next session I planned on taking was with Stephen again, making the weekend a S.B. trifecta, but something pulled me to Brigitte Mars’ session on Improving Emotional Health with Natural Remedies. Up until about halfway through I was regretting my decision, I must admit!  But then I learned some things that  monumentally are helpful.  She used TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) to explain the relationship between organ systems, emotions and what to do to improve emotional health by treating the organ systems.  One of the descriptions completely matched one of my kids.  Perfect!  I guess I’ll order Stephen’s session on CD!

Last session of the conference, tree walk with Susun Weed.  In the misty rain!  Well, we got through two trees and heard some really great stories from Susun.  Knowledge and wisdom just oozes from her pores!  Seriously!  I got to talk to some birch trees that really don’t like being lawn ornaments on the campus.  Although they do really like the pond there.

Ah, then on to the closing ceremonies. I could just leave, but that would feel really wrong.  And, besides, I wouldn’t learn any new songs that way!  Dona Enriqueta spoke again and made everyone cry when she started to cry.    It was a really nice end to the conference.

As I’ve often been asked what herbs would be good and easy to grow for a medicine garden I thought I’d do a little on that question today.  Here are some of my favorite herbs to grow.  Many of them are multitaskers, which is great if you don’t have much gardening space.  All of them are easy to grow and require little care once they’re established.  Be forewarned, however.  Once you start mucking about in the garden you may find it hard to leave there.  Medicine plants have such a wonderful energy and they’re so willing to help us.  They’re a pleasure to be around.

Here’s my short list of herbs and a little bit about each.  All are perennials and so don’t require re-sowing or replanting every year.  All are hardy and tough plants requiring little care.  In fact, if you give them too much compost or fertilizer, they won’t be as medicinally active.

• Lemon Balm (Melissa officinialis):  Aside from lemon balm’s nervine properties dicusse in an earlier article, it also a potent anti-viral (a specific against the herpes virus) and is a good febrifuge (fever-reducing herb).  Its gentleness and pleasant taste make it a good choice for children.  As stated earlier, it makes a great herbal honey (= instant tea) and herbal vinegar.  For fever reduction it’s best taken as a tea.  I dry it or preserve it in honey or vinegar.  You can grow it from seed or buy the plants.  Harvest it during flowering.  It does self-sow, so you will have new plants the next spring.
• Peppermint (Mentha x piperita):  Peppermint is cooling like lemon balm but it is also energizing.  It’s great iced on a hot summer afternoon.  Because it’s cooling, it does make a good febrifuge; one that’s especially good for “hot” fevers (the kind that makes you kick off the covers).  Peppermint is also carminative (good for the digestion), making it an excellent choice for upset tummies and nausea.  Served hot, it helps decongest a stuffy head (the menthol in the peppermint does it).  I preserve this in honey and dry it for teas.  Buy a plant; do not grow peppermint from seed.  Plants made from cuttings especially are more medicinally active.
• Sage (Salvia officinialis):  Yes, regular garden sage.  Sage is the primo sore throat herb.  I like it preserved in honey for sore throat.  I take it and give it to my kids by the spoonful for sore throat.  Sage also dries up bodily secretions (think mucus, perspiration).  Sage tea is the traditional remedy to dry up breast milk and shut down lactation so keep that in mind if you’re nursing and don’t drink it.  I’ve found a tablespoon of sage honey to be okay.   I dry some and preserve a lot in honey.  It grows well from seed.  Becasue it’s a culinary herb it’s easy to find as a potted plant.
• Catnip or catmint (Nepeta cataria): Catmint is a good herb for cooling fever and promoting sleep.  I find it works especially well if you’re the kind of person who can’t sleep well with a fever.  Catnip really helps here.  It’s a great herb to calm down overtired kids.  It also makes a really good pesto.  Simply substitute it for basil in your pesto recipe.  Catmint is a little bitter as a tea, so for the kids I give them plenty of honey with it or make a glycerite with it.  I’ve raised enough this year to make catmint honey with it.  Dry it, make a glycerite with it or preserve it in honey.  You can make an insect repellent of a tincture of catmint with 100 proof vodka.It grows well from seed or you can get a potted plant.  Kitties do love it, though!
• Hyssop (Hyssopus officinialis):  Hyssop is another great anti-viral.  It works by blocking the replication of the virus and bolsters the immune system.  Traditionally hyssop was used for colds and coughs.  It does make a good cough syrup.  Hyssop is a lovely plant to grow.  It’s bushy and may have either pink, white or purple flowers. I especially like preserving this in honey.  It’s great to give out by the spoonful.  I also dry it for tea.   I recommend buying a plant.  Hyssop’s a little hard to start from seed.
• Comfrey (Symphytum officinalis x Uplandica):  Often known as Russian Comfrey.  Comfrey is an excellent vulnerary herb, meaning that it’s great for bruises, burns, cuts, wounds, sprains, strains - even broken bones.  Now, it won’t set your broken bone, definitely have a doctor do that!  However, once your bone is set comfrey will help the fracture heal up quickly and strongly.  Comfrey heals burns and wouns without scarring.  Make sure the wound is very clean, though, or the comfrey may cause the skin to heal up over any infection in the wound.  Comfrey leaves  are also edible and make a super mineral rich vinegar.  Comfrey’s huge roots go deep into the subsoil to bring up minerals.  It’s leaves can even be used as a mineral-rich mulch in the veg garden or added to the compost pile.  I dry comfrey leaves but mainly infuse the leaves and the root in olive oil for salves.  The x Uplandica variety is not fertile and does not produce seeds and so, does not spread unless you dig it up.  If you do dig it up, a new comfrey plant will spring up from each little piece of root left in the dirt.  Because the comfrey is sterile you must purchase a plant.  The plants are lovely and dark green with bell-like multi-colored flowers. Pretty.
• White Yarrow (Achillea millefolium):  Yarrow used to be called “soldier’s wound wort”.  Yarrow has antimicrobial, anesthetic and styptic properties (it stops bleeding).  It’s great for skinned knees or kitchen knife slips.  Use the leaves fresh - macerate them either in your mouth or with a mortar and pestle - and apply to the wound.  The dried herb works well, too.  Simply sprinkle powdered dry herb on the wound.  I quickly stopped the bleeding from a bad slip of the kitchen knife this past winter.  Check out herbalist Matthew Wood’s The Book of Herbal Wisdomfor a great story about yarrow and a very bad chainsaw wound.  Yarrow is also a febrifuge that is especially good for “cold” fevers - the kind where you’re chilling and can’t get warm.  It is very bitter but does make a pretty good herbal honey.  I’ve read that it’s also good for regulating women’s menstrual cycles.   I dry yarrow, make herbal honey with it and tincture it in 100-proof vodka.  The tincture makes a fairly good insect repellent.  Yarrow can be grown from seed or purchased as a potted plant.  Make sure to get the white yarrow.  The ornamental colored yarrows do not make good medicine.  I have heard and read that they are either ineffective or poisonous. 

There, a short list of easily grown garden herbs that can serve you well.  If planted in the spring you could grow enough to harvest some of each of them by fall.   Next time I’ll talk about some herbs that require a little more skill or time to grow and process.

Stressed out?  Unable to sleep?  Let Lemon Balm Help You.

I’ve seen in print and heard from other people that St. John’s Wort has been recommended to them for sleeplessness.  I thought this was really whacky, as I know St. John’s Wort, Hypericum perforatum, and the one thing it’s not going to do is help you sleep!  Give you a good kick in the pants, maybe, or help you fight a nasty viral infection, certainly soothe your burns and cuts -  but lull you to sleep?  Ha!

For sleeplessness and to ease general stress, I recommend lemon balm or, as it was known in earlier times, simply balm.  In fact, “balm” is what it is listed under even in Maude Grieves’  A Modern Herbal, which was first published in 1931.  Lemon balm’s taxonomic name is Melissa officinalis.  “Melissa” relates to the Greek word for bee because bees love the balm.  The ”officinialis” part relates to the fact that lemon balm was an official medicine during medieval times ( the officinalis realtes to the “office” where they kept the medicine in monasteries).  Balm has been used for many ailments over time.  In fact, Paracelcus said that it was the only herb one would ever need. 

One thing lemon balm is good at it relaxing a person and in modern times lemon balm has won acclaim primarily as a nervine.  A nervine is a substance, in this case an herb, that calms and soothes the nervous system, making the person relax.  Nervines often help you sleep, too, due to that relaxing action.   In 1990 the German Commission E approved lemon balm for sleeplessness due to nervous tension.  It’s gentle enough for children as well.  The nervine action of lemon balm also helps in cases of depression, especially depression due to stress.  Here’s a quote from the 16th century herbalist Gerard regarding lemon balm: “Bawme makes the heart merry and joyfull, and strengthens the vitall spirits.”   Sounds pretty good - and tastes good, too!

A secondary action of lemon balm is its carminative and antispasmodic action.  Antispasmodic means it helps in cases of spasming muscles and carminative concerns the digestive tract.  Think stomach cramps (your stomach is a muscle) and you can see where lemon balm would help.  I’ve found it helpful in cases of skeletal muscles spasms due to tension and anxiety, and here, it’s clear to see lemon balm would help in that kind of situation.  It eases the tension in the nervous system, allowing the body to relax and relax the muscles as well.  And, I’m going to say it again, it tastes so yummy!

Lemon balm has cooling actions as well, just like other members of the mint family.  This makes it a good choice for low fevers due to viral infections (it has antiviral properties, too) or as an iced tea to cool you down on a hot summer day.

So, here we have a wonderful herb that tastes good and does many things for you easily.  I think lemon balm is overlooked because it’s common and easy to get; not at all fashionable, trendy or exotic.  It’s extremely easy to grow and looks and smells lovely in the garden.  Lemon balm likes full sun, like most mints and herbs.  It will spread via seeds.  That’s no problem, though, because then you’ll have more to plant somewhere else or share with your friends.  And, of course, it attracts bees, our great pollinating friends. 

So, the next time you can’t sleep or are stressed out, sit down with a nice cup of lemon balm tea.  Enjoy its lemony flavor and aroma, sweeten it with some local honey and relax.

Here are more ways to enjoy lemon balm:

Lemon Balm Honey or Lemon Balm Vinegar(see below for instructions).  Both are really tasty.  Lemon balm honey is an “instant” tea - pour boiling water over a spoonful of honey and herb and drink.  No steeping time.  I use the lemon balm honey to sweeten my lemon balm tea and get a double dose of lemon balm.  Lemon balm vinegar is great in a vinegarette.

Lemon Balm Cordial - from Adele Dawson’s Herbs, Partners in Life:  “A fine home-made liqueur can be made by taking two handfuls of crushed Melissa leaves, putting them in a glass jar or crock, pouring over them a fifth of vodka, three-quarters of a cup of honey, and a grated lemon peel.  Shake well and let stand for a week.  Strain, bottle, and test your character by waiting three weeks before using.” p. 153.  Using this basic recipe you can use just about any herb to make a cordial or aperitif.  Dandelion flowers even.  See Susun Weed’s Wise Woman Herbal Healing Wise for that recipe.  Cordials are excellent served with sparkling mineral water or plain seltzer and ice. 

Lemon Balm Ale.  Check out Stephen Harrod Buhner’s Sacred and Healing Beers for more on making this and other pleasant herbal beers.  It’s only recently that hops became the only herb used in beers and ales.  I’ve made it and it’s absolutely delicious, and, of course, very relaxing!

Lemon Balm Foot Bath.  Make a standard infusion (1 ounce of herb by weight to 4 cups of boiling water; let steep at least 4 hours; strain).  Warm up and pour into a suitable foot bath container.  I use a $2 plastic dishpan from Walmart.  Add enough warm/hot water to cover your feet nicely.  Sea salt/mineral salts/epsom salts are optional.  Immerse feet, sit back  and relax.  Nice.

Lemon Balm Syrup.  Make a standard infusion (see above or the posting on infusions).  Strain and put into a pot on the stove.  Reduce volume slowly by half.  No boiling or simmering here, just let it steam and evaporate.  You’ll have between 2 and 1 1/2 cups of liquid left.  Add between 3/4 and 1 cup of honey to hot infusion.  Stir well and put into a glass jar or bottle.  Keep this in the fridge.  It’ll last about 3 months, if it’s not all used up first!  This syrup is great to take as is by the spoonful for stress or use in tea  to sweeten (especially nice in black tea or added to a glass of oatstraw infusion) or to add to mineral or seltzer water.

Lemon Balm Jelly.  Seriously.  I made a batch of this last year.  It was great on scones.  The basic recipe is lots of fresh lemon balm (I mean lots of it, about 4 - 6 ounces).  Put it all in a pot with 4 cups of water to make a strong infusion.  Then follow the recipe on Pomona’s Pectin for jelly (not jam).  Sweeten as you wish.  Last year I used sucanat.  This year I’ll probably use organic sugar so the lemon balm flavor is stronger.  Sucanat has a rather strong flavor.

First, though, we’ll go over what herbs make excellent herbal infusions.  Nutritive herbs are those plants which you could eat as food and in as much quantity as you’d like.  These are the herbs you can eat (or drink the infusion of) every day, all year long.  They’re high in nutritional value, and have medicinal qualities that are best utilized over the long term.  Nutritive herbs include (but not limited to):  red clover, oatstraw, nettle, comfrey leaf, rose hips, blue violet leaf. 

I’ll briefly go over oatstraw and nettle,both are nutritional powerhouses.  Oatstraw is extremely high in magnesium, chromium and protein; high in calcium, niacin, Vitamin A; and has good quantities of riboflavin, thiamine, B6 and choline.  Niacin, riboflavin, thiamine, B-6 and choline are all vitamins found in the B-complex which are extremely important for brain function, including mood regulation.  Traditional uses of oatstraw include relief of “hysteria” (i.e. woman having nervous tension/depression), balancing the menstrual cycle (old physician speak for PMS and/or menstrual irregularities).  Modern uses also include prevention of osteoporosis (the balance of calcium and magnesium in oatstraw enables the body to utilize the calcium.  Without enough magnesium, the body can’t use calcium).  Oatstraw can be made into an infusion with part lemon balm (up to 1/2 oz of lemon balm to 1/2  oz of oatstraw).  Lemon balm made into an infusion is very strongly flavored.  You can also use the oatstraw infusion as a base to make lemon balm tea (tea = 1 tsp herb steeped in 1 cup of water for 10 - 15 minutes).   Lemon balm is a tranquilizer and anti-depressant herb that also hase anti-viral and antibacterial actions.   I find oatstraw good hot with honey or cold.  It also works great as the liquid part of a smoothie.  It’s especially tasty with peaches.

Nettle is also full of nutrients.  It is very high in calcium, magnesium, chromium and zinc; high in potassium, protein, riboflavin, selenium, thiamine, Vitamin A, Vitamin K and Vitamin C.  Nettle also has good amounts of niacin and iron.  As you can see, nettle is full of  B-vitamins as well.  Nettle, too, has an excellent amount of both calcium and magnesium giving the body what it need to be able to absorb  and utilize calcium.  Nettle’s traditional use has been as a ”blood purifier” meaning that it increases the efficiency of both kidneys and liver function.   Nettle is also a great help to women who experience menstrual cramps.  Nettle has a very strong flavor.  I generally chug nettle infusion really cold although it’s good added to soup broth or heated up with miso for a quick miso soup.

Here’s how to make the infusions

What you need:

• 1 ounce of herb
• 1-quart Mason jar (or any heat proof container that will hold 1 quart)
• metal lid for Mason jar (plastic lids made for Mason jars don’t work well in this application)
• something to boil 1 quart of water in
• 1 quart of water
• chopstick or knife
• scale to weigh herb
• large-mouth funnel (optional, but keeps the mess down)

Equipment for making the infusion

How to Proceed:

1. Bring your water to a boil. 
2. While the water is coming to a boil, weigh out 1 ounce of herb into the Mason jar.  You may need to use the funnel here.
3. Pour boiling water over the herb until the water reaches about 1 inch from the top of the jar.
4. Stir with chopstick to release any trapped air.
5. Fill Mason jar the rest of the way.
6. Cap tightly with lid.
7. Let steep for at least 4 hours or overnight.

   

   Weigh herb

   

   Pour water into jar

   

   Stir to release air bubbles

   

   Cap

    

Straining the Infusion

What you’ll need:

• Jar of infusion
• Large-mouth funnel
• Strainer or potato ricer
• Tea towel, muslin, cheesecloth, etc.
• Another container

Equipment for straining

How to Proceed:

1. Take lid of your finished infusion (you may need a bottle opener, since the lid will vacuum down).
2. Line your strainer or potato ricer.
3. Put wide-mouth funnel into empty jar and put strainer on top of funnel.
4. Pour liquid into strainer to catch the herby bits.  You may need a spoon to get the herb out. 
5. Press the remaining liquid out of the herb.  If you’re using a regular strainer you can gather up the corners of the cloth and squeeze out the liquid or press with the back of a spoon.
6. Once you’ve all the liquid into the new jar, cap it & store it in the fridge.  It’ll keep for about 36 - 48 hours.  If it smells “sour”, it’s done.  Don’t drink it, use it to water your plants or put it in the compost or dump it in the yard.
7. Compost the herb.

Remove the lid

Pour

Squeeze

I wrote this article for my 2008 herbal honeys class.  Here I’ve added some recipes.  Honey is an excellent food and medicine all by itself.  It heals wounds and burns.  The conventional medical community has even started using it for treatment of burns.

Unlike vinegar, which mainly extract the minerals of the infused herb, honey also extracts the medicinal properties of the herb as well as much of the flavor. The honey essentially dehydrates the herb material.  You’ll notice that the herb becomes crispy in the honey.  The dehydative action is also how honey contains and kills bacteria.  It dehydrates the bacteria, and in the case of aerobic bacteria, honey cuts off the air, too.

Honey itself is a potent medicinal. Its uses as a wound dressing go back to prehistoric times. We have written records of the ancient Egyptians using honey for dressing wounds. Most recently science and the medical community have verified honey’s antibacterial and antiseptic properties. Honey acts in several different ways to kill and contain bacterial. It draws water out of bacterial cells through osmosis, is acidic enough to kill certain types of bacteria and also contains hydrogen peroxide. Doctors have started using honey to treat antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections and severe burns with honey.

Honey is also a nutritious food. In Healing With Whole Foods the author states “All types of honey, both raw and heated, work naturally to harmonize the liver, neutralize toxins, and relieve pain.” p. 191. Aside from containing glucose, fructose, and other carbohydrates, honey also has several antioxidants, Vitamin C, B Vitamins and trace minerals. Honey may even contain naturally-occurring probiotics. It’s an excellent preservative, too – edible honey has even been found in the tombs of pharaohs!

Many people feel that honey is best unheated and unfiltered. I’m personally a proponent of local honey.

How to Make an Herbal Honey

• Chopstick
• Jar (any size) & lid
• Knife
• Cutting board
• Labels & pen
• Honey, preferably local (must be runny)
• Fresh herb of your choice

Making an herbal honey is easy. Cut enough fresh herb to fill your jar. Chop fairly fine and put it into your jar. Fill jar with honey, poking and stirring with the chopstick to get all the air bubbles out. Cap your jar and label it with the herb and date made and date that it will be ready. Let sit for 6 weeks and then your honey is ready to eat!  The infused honey can be strained or you can eat the herb, too. It’s fine if it crystallizes also.

Ways to Use Your Herbal Honey

• Eat it by the spoonful (medicinal purposes or just because it tastes good!)
• Spread it on toast with or without the herb
• Use as a sweetener in an herbal syrup
• Sweeten your tea or use it as an instant tea:  one tablespoonful to a cup of hot water 

Other Honey Recipes

Nan’s Cough Syrup

• 1 Onion
• Honey

Chop onion, put on a plate, cover with honey & stir. Cover with another plate. Leave out for at least for hours or overnight. Take the juice that results. Dose is 1 tsp for an adult.  And, seriously, this is what my grandma used, along with the addition of bourbon whiskey, of course!

Another Cough Syrup Recipe from herbalist Heather Nic An Fleicher

• 1/3 cup Garlic honey
• 2/3 cup Lemon balm vinegar

Mix together & use at a rate of 1 TBS per cup of hot water for cold & cough relief (adult doseage).  Very warming.

 Lemon-Honey Cold Relief

• Juice of ½ lemon
• Honey to taste (plain or herbal honey)
• Hot water

Options:

• Pinch of sea salt
• Lemon balm or echinacea tincture
• Hot rosehip tea as the base instead of hot water

Juice the lemon into a mug (12 ounce mug works best). Add honey to taste. I add a lot; I like this sweet! Add the optional ingredients and fill with hot or boiling water.

This is really great if you feel like you’re getting a cold or already have one. It’s very hydrating as well as comforting and gives you a shot of Vitamin C (from the lemon) and all those good things from the honey. It’s best taken just before bed. If you use an herbal honey, I’d recommend lemon balm honey for its antiviral properties as well as flavor or ginger for its warming properties.

Garlic Honey - ready in 24 hours

• Small jar
• Unpeeled garlic cloves
• Honey

Stuff your jar with the unpeeled garlic cloves & then add the honey to cover. Put a lid on the jar & put the jar on a plate. It will ooze somewhat. This is ready in 24 hours. It’s yummy by itself but is also good for colds, flus, coughs, etc.

References

• Edwards, Gail Faith. Opening Our Wild Hearts to the Healing Herbs. Ash Tree Publishing, 2000
• Weed, Susun. Healing Wise. Ash Tree Publishing, 1989
• Weed, Susun. Be Your Own Herbal Expert part 8, 2006 at www.susunweed.com
• Pitchford, Paul. Healing With Whole Foods.
• Wilson, Ananda. Herbal Honey article from March 2006 Weed Wanderings E-Newsletter
• Honey   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honey
• Downey, Charles. Sweet Solution; 2000;   http://www.webmd.com/content/Article/14/1668_50175.htm