Welcome, my herb-inspired friends! I am happy to announce two new products available this month. Before I get into unveiling the products, I will subject you to a bit of reflection...
Some of you may know that I shifted my herbal studies to ACORN School of Herbal Medicine to continue on their clinical training path. It has been an exciting journey for me. Much of the study gains insight from clinical herbalists of yesteryear -- you know, the healers before the medical industry took hold.
I grew up thinking that herbal medicine is much better off through a lens of modern science, pulling apart the active components in order to make specific, standardized extracts (standardized meaning, created and tested in a lab). Yet this approach to plant medicine creates products that make plants into pharmaceuticals. Then these processes can be patented and marketed in order for someone to make a profit on it. It neglects the rich history of most of our existence, where medicine can come from the Earth. It neglects that the plant constituents that have been identified to provide a clinical action may not be the only part of a plant that offers healing.
When my husband was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, we both attended a seminar with the clinic dietician to learn more about the disease. By the time we attended that session, I had already been shifting for some time to a more natural approach to healing. But this experience was the clincher.
I ended up being so angered at that session because the dietician was giving old advice on diet that has been proven to not actually help anyone get better (for those who want more info on this, check out the work of Dr. Jason Fung, M.D.). The dietician was also hammering how important it was to take your medicine. I felt like I was at an infomercial for Metformin. She was not interested in talking about lifestyle changes that can help improve your numbers because "most people don't follow them." To not even give anyone the glimmer of hope that they can get better without drugs was beyond appalling to me.
My husband and I left that session discarding most of what was provided and turned to the trifecta of diet changes, lifestyle changes, and herbal support. And guess what? He got his A1C numbers down to a normal level and now knows what needs to be done to maintain them without drugs.
There are so many threads in my past that continue to lead me on my natural medicine journey. This was just one of the stories. All this to say, my understanding of herbal medicine has grown so much over the years from my initial belief of the superiority of standardized herbal extracts and constituent-based thinking. I appreciate learning from the tens of thousands of herbal clinicians from the past who each had hundreds and thousands of their own clients. I can learn from their experience which will, in turn, help me become a better clinician.
...Well that was a long digression! Now for what you came here for. There are new products to announce!
NEW PRODUCTS
This is a low-alcohol tincture. Carminative Drops is a sweet mixture that offers bitter components to help with digestion and carminative actions that help relieve gas and digestive spasms. This is a well-established formula created by clinical herbalist, William
Cook, in 1869.
This product does contain sugar, which makes it taste delicious, I must say. Beyond the taste, the medicinal reason for the added sugar is that it helps balance the energetics of the formula by adding moisture where the other herbal components are drying. For those concerned about the sugar, each dropperful contains less than one-half gram of sugar. A typical dose is 1 to 2 full droppers.
Elderberry Oxymel
An oxymel is an herbal preparation made from honey and apple cider vinegar. Together with elderberry, rosehips, ginger, cinnamon and cloves, this create a perky, sweet, and acidic syrup that is packed full of nutrients, antioxidants, and immune boosting properties.
Please contact us if you are interested in purchasing these products. You can also see what's available at our Etsy shop.
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