Things I learned in my 1st herbal medicine class

As most of you know, I've been doing a fair amount of research on herbs and natural remedies over the last year or so. Several of you have perfume rollers in your purse that are full of rosemary infused oil as first aid for cuts, scrapes and scratches because - as we all now know - rosemary is a natural antimicrobial that grows well in the desert!

I knew enough to be sure that I didn't know nearly enough. But I also knew that there were a lot of people out that that claimed to be good at herbal medicine that said things that didn't make sense to me. I signed up for this herbal medicine class after attending a free seminar that Kathleen offered. I thought that she would be a good teacher for me - both in approach and communication style. But, seriously folks. I had NO IDEA how cool this would really be!

Now, I should say up front that I won't be putting any herbal recipes here. But I learned a few very practical concepts in the class that I would like to share because it is all just so fascinating.

So, first things first. If you want to use herbs for medicinal purposes, the dried ones should look very close to the way they look as plants. Calendula? Should have the color of marigold flowers. Hibiscus? It better be red! Leaves of any kind? Green, ya'll, not brown. Now that all seems logical, but I never really thought about why is was important. It matters because the plants' volatile oils provide the real medicinal punch. The closer the dried plant looks to fresh, the more of those oils are still present.

Also, as a side note - did you ever wonder why most tea bag medicinal teas don't seem to do much of what they claim? That is because the herbs are diced very finely to fit in the tea bag. That means that there is a much higher surface area to volume ratio - so the oils can evaporate more quickly. Unless the tea bags are stored inside sealed single serving pouches (like some brands do) it isn't likely that those oils hand around for long!

So, that - along with smelling and looking at a variety of herbs - was the introduction to herbalism.

The first body system that we studied was the digestive system. Wanna know why? Believe me, you really do! Anything that is ingested is designed to be absorbed in particular parts of the digestive system. This isn't news, right? I mean, we all studied the way saliva acts on carbohydrates or stomach acids on proteins. But there is another part to this. Pharmaceuticals act the same way. Capsules are designed to introduce medicines through the small intestine and pills mostly break down in the stomach ... IF and only if, your digestive system is working properly. It doesn't matter if you are trying to get nutrients from foods, vitamins and minerals from a supplement, or medicine from ANY source, you won't get the full effect unless your digestion is up to par.

Those were the two general principles that I was taught in the first class. Since I love getting the big picture first so that I can decide how to prioritize things, you know that this is a great class for me. And, just for the record, I currently have 2 different types of medicinal teas in my fridge as well as a batch that I'm sending over to Oxti's house. I can only imagine what I'll be doing after Wednesday - after we study the liver and learn how to make tinctures!