Herbs and People

In many gardens you will find Peppermint, Lemon Balm, Thyme, Garlic, Golden Rod, Mullein, Parsley and Fennel.

With these plants we have already a collection for preventing and curing colds and flu, skin problems, stomach upsets and indigestion. Among them are also plants to strengthen liver and kidneys, lungs and bronchi, and the heart.

Lemon balm is a pleasant remedy for curing insomnia. Drinking Thyme tea helps to relieve a ticklish cough. The basic way to use these remedies is as an infusion.

Chop one or two teaspoonfuls of Lemon Balm,Thyme or Yarrow into a cup, pour boiling water over it and leave to infuse for about ten minutes. Drink when required.

The hawthorn bush provides us with flowers in spring, with leaves during summer and with berries during autumn.

It is a beautiful tasting tea that strengthens the heart, helps to reduce blood pressure and improves circulation in coronary arteries – with no harmful side effects!

A tea made with meadowsweet will reduce and balance stomach acid, reduce inflammation and thin the blood. It must not be used when taking Warfarin or other blood-thinning medication. Meadowsweet contains salicylic acid. The blueprint of this chemical has been copied, produced synthetically and is sold as Aspirin.

The most common side effect of this synthetic aspirin is intestinal bleeding. However, if you drink a cup of meadowsweet tea you would enjoy the benefits of natural salicylic acid but without the adverse reactions.

The secret lies in the fact that a plant contains not just one chemical but a group of compounds.

Meadowsweet also contains tannins and mucilage, which protect the lining of the intestine. The future of many medicinal herbs is threatened by European legislation, which intends to impose quality and safety guidelines.

Quality and safety are of paramount importance but the reality of these guidelines will lead to the loss of many medicinal herbs whose efficacy has not been established by Double Blind Studies.

The value of many of these herbs is based on anecdotal evidence gathered over not hundreds but thousands of years.

For the sake of human health, the range of plant medicine should be extended and researched, not restricted.

The more plants a herbalist can use safely, the better the chances of curing illness, without creating new conditions in the form of side effects.

The knowledge about plant medicine must be kept alive, handed on and applied. If this knowledge disappears, we will become more and more dependent on pharmaceutical drugs.

To have a choice means to have alternatives.