Purchase this ebook before midnight on Monday, November 28th you'll receive several bonuses including an ebook on Herbal Gifts for the Holiday season and two fun herbal crafts.
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One of my first memories of using plants for medicine was delivered through Beatrix Potter and her adventures with Peter Rabbit. You might remember the day that Peter Rabbit narrowly escaped a harrowing ordeal in Mr. McGregor’s garden. Once he was safely home his mother gave him a cup of chamomile tea before putting him to bed. How quaint! Perhaps it was because of this pre-school impression that I didn’t take this herb very seriously.
Now, many cups of chamomile tea later, I understand what makes chamomile so extraordinary. It provides significant results while being safe and gentle for practically everyone.
As Peter Rabbit’s mother knew, chamomile is soothing and calming; perfect after those stressful days in the garden or at work. It not only helps to promote rest, but it also helps to mediate pain and inflammation. In fact, chamomile is so effective at reducing inflammation that it has been studied extensively for this ability.
If you type its scientific name (Matricaria recutita) into PubMed (a government listing of biomedical studies), you’ll see it has been proven effective both for addressing phlebitis caused by chemotherapy treatments and for stopping allergies by inhibiting the histamine response.
From an herbalist’s perspective, chamomile is considered bitter, slightly warming, and relaxing. What does this mean and why does it matter?
Herbalists don’t simply study what herb is good for what condition. Instead, each plant is analyzed on a variety of therapeutic levels. One important aspect of this is the plant’s ability to warm or cool a person. Have you ever eaten really spicy wasabi and then felt your sinuses drain? Or eaten a fresh slice of watermelon on a hot day and felt cooled and refreshed? If so, then you’ll know exactly what I am talking about.
Every medicinal plant has these characteristics to some degree or another, and understanding these actions helps herbalists to be more effective at choosing which plant can help a particular person. Chamomile, as just described, is relatively neutral but perhaps slightly warming. Generally, our more neutral plants can be taken by most people and in higher amounts without causing unwanted effects.
The taste of a plant is also very important in understanding the plant’s actions. The bitter taste on our tongue creates a cascade of events that promotes our digestive function. From stimulating saliva (our first digestive juice) to various enzymes in the stomach, liver and pancreas, one can argue that the bitter taste is needed at every meal. A strongly brewed cup of chamomile provides this bitter taste, thus promoting healthy digestion.
Chamomile can be especially beneficial for people with a “nervous stomach” as it both calms and soothes while stimulating digestive function. It can also be used by people with digestive inflammation (such as heartburn or IBS) to mediate inflammatory levels in the gut mucosa.
Furthering helping with digestion are chamomile aromatic qualities which break up stagnant digestion (think bloating and the bowling ball that won't leave your stomach).
Chamomile has many applications for common complaints. Besides helping to relax the nervous system chamomile also can relax muscle tissue. Women may find their menstrual cramps abated with a strong cup of chamomile tea, or diminished by rubbing their abdomen with oil infused with chamomile blossoms.
Any mother whose colicky or teething child has been soothed to sleep (or simply quieted) by chamomile will tell you this is beneficial stuff!
If you’ve ever stuck a chamomile tea bag into a cup of hot water for five minutes, then you’ve experienced chamomile as a delightful and slightly sweet tea. To get more therapeutic results, use more chamomile and steep for longer. I generally use 1/2 cup of flowers to a pint of just-boiled water and I let it steep for 20-30 minutes. The resulting brew is decidedly less sweet than a cup of tea but this stronger concoction provides more relief for many of the issues listed in this article.
Besides drinking this strong infusion, it can also be used on skin as a rinse or added to bath water to relieve itching of mild rashes. Chamomile is also used as a tincture, a glycerite and as an infused oil.
"About 1 man in 6 will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime. More than 2 million men in the United States who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point are still alive today.
"Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in American men, behind only lung cancer. About 1 man in 36 will die of prostate cancer."
I have a family history of prostate cancer, so I have a personal interest in prevention and remedy for this disease of civilization.
According to some people, whole grains and legumes cause or promote the diseases of civilization, including cancer.
If this disease is caused by eating grains and legumes, then any diet based on grains and legumes should promote cancer. If you give men living with prostate cancer a diet rich in whole grains and legumes, you should see a promotion of the cancer.
My friend, Gordon Saxe, M.P.H., Ph.D., M.D., professor of medicine at U.C.S.D., has actually tested this hypothesis, albeit unintentionally.
Gordon has lead pilot research in which men with diagnosed with prostate cancer were taught to eat a diet consisting of whole grains, legumes, vegetables, fruits, nuts, and seeds, while eliminating animal products, based on evidence [discussed here] that this dietary pattern may reduce the risk or progression of prostate cancer.
If whole grains and legumes promote prostate cancer then these men should have had an accelerated progression of their cancers. However, in the first study, over six months, this intervention produced just the opposite effect: a 100-fold reduction in the rate of rise of their disease, as measured by the rate of change in levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA). As stated by Saxe et al:
"The rate of PSA increase decreased in 8 of 10 men, while 3 had a decrease in absolute PSA. Results of the signed rank test indicated a significant decrease in the rate of increase in the intervention period (p = 0.01). Estimated median doubling time increased from 6.5 months (95% confidence interval 3.7 to 10.1) before to 17.7 months (95% confidence interval 7.8 to infinity) after the intervention. Nine of 10 participants in the study had reduction in the rate of rise of their PSA, a marker for progression of disease."
When 9 of 10 people respond in the very same way to an intervention, in this case with a reduction in rate of rise of PSA, this tends to suggest that the effect is no accident and most likely indicates a definite therapeutic effect of the intervention.
"During the first 3 months of the intervention, as both median WHR and body weight declined significantly, the median rate of PSA rise not only declined but became negative, reflecting a slight reduction in absolute PSA and possibly disease regression in patients with absolute reductions. Conversely, during the second 3 months of the intervention, when median body weight increased (though not significantly), median PSA began to rise again, albeit more slowly than during the period prior to Baseline."
This second study suggested that weight-related metabolic changes may have mediated the reduction in rate of PSA increase. In other words, the intervention resulted in a loss of body fat and concommitant metabolic changes related to reduction of body fatness, including an increase in sex hormone binding globulin, that influence prostate cancer.
"Assuming that the attenuation of PC progression was mediated by weight-related metabolic changes, a question arises as to what aspect of intervention brought about the observed reduction in adiposity. Earlier 53, we described large increases during months 0–3 in intake of whole grains and vegetables, food groups which are fiber and water-rich, very low in fat, and therefore of low energy density. However, intake of these foods declined slightly during months 3–6. Weight loss during the first three months may possibly have resulted from replacing energy-rich foods with energy-poor foods, and the slight increase in body weight during the second three months may have resulted from a small degree of dietary recidivism."
So this intervention, based on increasing intake of whole grains, legumes, etc., resulted in body fat reduction during the period when the subjects ate the most of these foods, and body weight increased during the period when these subjects ate less of these foods. This clearly undermines the idea that diets rich in grains and legumes cause two of the major diseases of civilization, i.e. obesity and cancer.
Saxe et al consider the possibility that any diet that induces weight loss may reduce cancer progression.
"A second question that naturally arises regarding the reduction in adiposity is whether it matters, in terms of effects on prostate cancer progression, how it is achieved. One aspect of this question has to do with the preferred dietary strategy for reducing energy intake. Another facet regards whether it is more desirable to increase energy expenditure or decrease intake to achieve this end. Although our study and its findings did not address these issues, they remain important ones that warrant consideration in the planning and design of future behavioral approaches to the management of progressive PC. What can be said is that while both a plant-based diet and a high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet high in foods of animal origin (such as the popular Atkins diet) may both result in weight loss, the former is far more consistent with the dietary cancer prevention guidelines of various agencies (69).54 "
Some people reject those cancer prevention guidelines of various agencies, which emphasize increased consumption of whole plant foods and decreased consumption of animal products, claiming that whole grains and legumes are the true causes of diseases of civilization. These two studies, among others, weaken that claim.
So far, the only studies I can find testing the effect of a low-carbohydrate diet on prostate cancer were done with mice, not men. In this one, researchers from Duke Prostate Center fed mice with prostate cancer either a "Western" diet, "low-fat high-carbohydrate" diet, or a zero-carbohydrate diet. The results:
"Fifty-one days after injection [with xenograft tumors], NCKD mice tumor volumes were 33% smaller than Western mice (rank-sum, P = 0.009). There were no differences in tumor volume between low-fat and NCKD mice. Dietary treatment was significantly associated with survival (log-rank, P = 0.006), with the longest survival among the NCKD mice, followed by the low-fat mice."
I don't have access to the full text, but if done in a typical fashion, all diets would have been pellets made from isolated nutrients (e.g. casein, starch, sugar, etc.) so this can't tell us much about what would happen in humans if we compared a whole foods vegan diet (whole grains, legumes, vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds) to a zero-carbohydrate diet (meat and fat only). The effects of a casein-based zero-carbohydrate diet on mice might be very different from the effects of a meat-based zero-carbohydrate diet on humans.
In a second study, Masko et al fed mice diets containing 0, 10, or 20 percent carbohydrate and again injected them with prostate cancer cells. As a 'control' they fed a group of mice a 12% fat diet, but they did not inject cancer cells into these mice--which to me means they weren't much of a control group, because they differed from the others not only in dietary composition but also in absence of tumor injection.
The full text of this study tells us the components of all diets: corn oil, lard, milk fat, casein, dl-methionine, dextrine, maltodextrine, corn starch, sucrose, and isolated vitamins and minerals.
In the low-fat arm, 72% of calories came from carbohydrate, and 50% of total calories came from sucrose, which means that about 25% of total calories came from refined fructose. Meanwhile, in the 10% and 20% carbohydrate arms, all of the carbohydrate was provided in the form of corn starch.
This makes me wonder again about diet composition in the other Duke University study cited above. Were those mice on the low fat diet also eating a 50% sucrose/25% fructose diet? If so, did this rig the study, intentionally or not, so that the low fat group would have more body fat and shorter lifespan than the zero-carbohydrate group?
Moving on, all the mice got all of their protein from casein-plus-methionine, none ate any meat. Most people eating low carbohydrate diets eat cooked meats, not isolated casein, as their main protein source. Meat is nutritionally complex, and affected by cooking process, in ways that may result in it having a different effect on prostate cancer than casein-plus-methionine. For example, unlike the casein-methionine mix fed to these mice, meat contains heme iron and if cooked at high heat, heterocyclic amines, all of which have been linked to prostate cancer causation or promotion [e.g. Sinha et al full text]. So it is not clear how a study of mice eating a low carbohydrate diet wherein casein is the main protein will apply to people eating low carbohydrate diets wherein cooked meat, poultry, and fish are the main protein sources.
Masko et al found that the survival rates of the mice in the 0, 10, and 20 percent carbohydrate groups were similar. They liked this finding because, as they say, people find it extremely difficult to follow zero-carbohdyrate diets, so now they are ready to test the 20 percent carbohydrate diet on human prostate cancer patients.
Masko et al also found that the mice in the 20% carbohydrate group had the lowest insulin level, about which they comment:
"It was unexpected that the lowest levels of insulin were observed in mice fed with 20% carbohydrate, but there are possible explanations for this phenomenon. First, there is always the possibility for a type I error in the analysis. Second, it is known that low-carbohydrate diets promote insulin sensitivity in animals (38) and humans (39, 40). Thus, it is possible that a diet containing a small amount of carbohydrates may actually improve insulin sensitivity compared with a diet completely lacking of carbohydrates."
Perhaps unknown to Masko et al, it is also 'possible' that a diet containing an even large amount of carbohydrate may actually improve insulin sensitivity compared to a diet with only 20% carbohydrate. In 1971, Brunzell et al [abstract only] evaluated the effect of increased dietary carbohydrate at the expense of fat in humans, both non-diabetic and mildly diabetic. In the New England Journal of Medicine they reported that after feeding these subjects a diet providing 85 percent of energy as carbohydrate for 10 days,
"Fasting plasma glucose levels fell in all subjects and oral glucose tolerance (0 to 120-minute area) significantly improved ..... Fasting insulin levels also were lower on the high carbohydrate diet; however, insulin responses to oral glucose did not significantly change. These data suggest that the high carbohydrate diet increased the sensitivity of peripheral tissues to insulin."
An diet supplying 85 percent of energy as carbohydrate is by necessity very low in fat, so perhaps Brunzell et al could have emphasized that this very low fat diet increased insulin sensitivity. The mice of Masko et al that got the 20 percent carbohydrate diet had a lower fat intake than the mice on the zero-carbohydrate diet; rather than increasing carbohydrate being responsible for promoting insulin sensitivity, perhaps it is reducing fat (replacing it with starch) that does the trick.
Anyway, the Masko et al study has a few features that make me skeptical that they will have similar results in humans. I feel curious to see if their approach will have results as good as those found by Saxe et al.
I wasn't actually planning on presenting a webinar and ebook this month - I have my Facebook friends to thank for that!
You see, I did a presentation on using herbs with children here in my Valley for the mothering group. And I made up this super cute 9-page booklet to go along with it. For fun I uploaded a photo of that to my Facebook page and within minutes had numerous requests for the booklet!
Seeing that we are entering the cold and flu season and many people were requesting a book I jumped right on it. I got in touch with Michael (who was vacationing in Kauai at the time!) and he graciously agreed to do a webinar with me. Jill and Anne at East West School of Herbology helped me to get the announcement in the newsletter (at the very last minute!) and a webinar was born.
I then started to work on my little pamphlet of notes. Over the past three weeks I transformed the little booklet into over 20,000 words and 92 pages of information about using herbs with kids.
The ebook covers the following...
Dosage issues for children
When to see a doctor
Herbs for fevers
Herbs for coughs
Herbs for congestion
Herbs for sore throats
Herbs for tummy troubles
Herbs for earaches
Herbs for teething
Herbal baths
and many herbal recipes
I strongly believe that taking care of our common illnesses by using affordable, effective and safe plant medicines is our human right. That's why I really strive to give out a lot of my information for free. Whether it is through this blog, Facebook posts or the free webinars with Michael Tierra.
By selling an accompanying ebook, it provides a way for those who are interested and able to support my sharings and my work as an herbalist.
Even though these webinars and ebooks are weeks of solid work, I love doing them. And I really appreciate all the support I get from the herbal community whether it is emails and Facebook posts to say thank you, or participating in my giveaways to help spread the word and for those who buy my ebooks.
I couldn't be an herbalist with you all! (Either egotistically or financially!)
The winner of a free copy of my ebook is....
mayamadeherbals
Congratulations! I've already sent you a message.
And for the rest of you who are interested here is the cart to buy the ebook. The cost is $15
Payments safely processed through e-junkie.com
Thank you all again for supporting me whether it is through your kind words, spreading the word, or through your pocket book.
First things first, here is the winner of a year's subscription to Herbal Roots Zine!
Desiree Moonstone
Desiree, I've sent you a message on Facebook to coordinate getting you set up to receive an entire year of Herbal Roots Zine. Congrats!!!
Thank you so much to all of you for participating in this week's giveaway. During this Thanksgiving holiday I've felt especially blessed and supported by our herbal community. Thank you!
I have spent the past few days putting the final touches on my ebook, Herbal Remedies for Children During the Cold and Flu Season.
Besides including everything that was presented in the webinar earlier this week I've added a lot more recipes and herbal information.
This ebook covers
Dosage issues for children
When to see a doctor
Herbs for fevers
Herbs for coughs
Herbs for congestion
Herbs for sore throats
Herbs for tummy troubles
Herbs for earaches
Herbs for teething
Herbal baths
and many herbal recipes
When I first envisioned creating this ebook I thought it would be more of a supportive pamphlet to accompany the webinar. However I got carried away and the ebook is over 20,000 words and is 90 pages long.
On November 26th my ebook will go on sale at 12:00 pm PST. If you would like to win a free copy of this ebook then here's what to do.
Sign up for my list below (which notifies you about my upcoming ebook on Herbal Remedies for Children during the cold and flu season)
For EACH of the above things that you do, leave me a comment below. I'll enter your name in the hat for EACH comment you submit. If you do five things, then make five comments.
You can enter your name up to 5 times!
I'll draw the name for the winner at 12:00 pm PST on November 26th!
I have to say that although I am pretty new to this whole giveaway phenomenon I am quickly falling in love. It is so much fun to give away gifts! Thank you to LearningHerbs.com and Demetria Clark for their generous gifts!
Without further ado our winner of the Wildcraft! game and the book Herbal Healing for Children is....
gardensage
Gardensage, please contact me so I can get these prizes shipped off to you!
Today we have a very exciting gift which was generously donated by Kristine Brown, the beautiful and creative proprietor of Herbal Roots Zine.
A year's subscription to Herbal Roots Zine!!!!
If you've been following me for even a short while you'll know I am a huge fan of this monthly educational zine. It is filled with stories, songs and all sorts of crafts and other learning opportunities. I mentor a ten year old girl and she loves this as well (but really I subscribe for myself!).
This zine has taught me how to use comfrey to fertilize my garden, how to use herbal dyes to make beautiful scarves and how to belt out songs about yarrow (as sung to Annie's Tomorrow)
My yarrow, my yarrow, I love ya, my yarrow, You’’re always an herb I’’ll grow!
I have no doubt that many of you will also want to be singing herbal songs at the top of your lungs while driving your kiddos around!
Here's how this works. If you would like to win a year long subscription to Herbal Roots Zine you can enter your name in the drawing multiple times by doing one or more of the following things.
Sign up for my list below (which notifies you about further prizes and my upcoming ebook on Herbal Remedies for Children during the cold and flu season)
For EACH of the above things that you do, leave me a comment below. I'll enter your name in the hat for EACH comment you submit.
So, if you shared this post on Facebook, simply write that in the comment field and I'll add your name to the hat. This means that you may make several separate comments for each action you take.
You can enter your name up to 5 times!
I'll draw the name for the winner tomorrow night at 9:00 PM PST and announce it here tomorrow morning.
Good luck!
Here's what people are saying about Herbal Roots Zine.
“The information included on each herb is simple and experiential enough to entertain even very young children and in-depth and insightful enough to engage teens and yes, even us old timers. Personally, I find Herbal Roots to be an invaluable treasure in the homeschooling of our 10 year old daughter, Rhiannon. Which gives me a great excuse to read it myself. Even beyond parents, Herbal Roots Zine provides a great resource to any educator or caregiver hoping to find effective and easy ways to facilitate connection between children, the earth and the healing herbs.”
-Kiva Rose
Though directed at kids, Herbal Roots Zine is IDEAL for adults. I love how it keeps things simple, and I love the great, beautiful art.
You get to learn through information and recipes sure, but the REAL magic is in the PLAY…songs, poems, crafts, puzzles and stories. These are the oldest form of human learning. We’re hard wired for it, and this is why Herbal Roots Zine is the most effective herbal learning tool I have seen.
Kristine is an amazing artist and herbalist. As a mom of 4 kids, she has a true gift for connecting with kids. Though my own children really love Herbal Roots Zine, secretly, it’s me who spends the most time with it. Shhhh.”
Today is the second day of our giveaway! But FIRST I have the announcement of yesterday's winner.
As a reminder, this person will receive Lesley Tierra's book, A Kid's Herb Book and a 4 oz bottle of Planetary Herbals Well-Child blend.
The winner is...
Wanderer
Congratulations! I'll be in touch in order to get these gifts shipped off to you. And a special thank you to the East West School of Herbology for donating these great gifts for this giveaway.
Today we have another set of fabulous gifts that will be given as a pair.
The first gift is the Herbal Adventure Game, Wildcraft! by LearningHerbs.com. If you've never played this game you are in for a treat! In this co-operative board game the players travel through a spiral to get to the huckleberry bush to gather berries for grandmother's pie. The goal is for everyone to gather berries and return home before dark. Along the way there are many opportunities to learn about medicinal plants.
Kids of all ages LOVE this game. (Myself included!)
Wildcraft! is great family fun.Gather up the kids, bring out the board game, and learn about medicinal and edible plants in the most fun way imaginable.This is wonderfully cooperative game where everyone is a winner and everyone learns something about plants!
–Rosemary Gladstar,
Author of 'A Family Herbal' and MANY books
The second gift is a very informative book entitled Herbal Healing for Children by Demetria Clark. This book covers a wide range of ailments and herbs for children. A great reference for your bookshelf.
" Demetria Clark gifts us with an enjoyable, thorough parenting guide for anyone who wants empower themselves and their children. 'Herbal medicine is people's medicine' is a constant theme in this book-and we all benefit.
Susun S. Weed, author of Wise Woman Herbal for the Childbearing Year
Here's how this works. If you would like to win these two prizes you can enter your name in the drawing multiple times by doing one or more of the following things.
Leave a comment below about why you would like these prizes.
Sign up for my list in the form below
For EACH of the above things that you do, leave me a comment below. I'll enter your name in the hat for EACH comment you submit.
So, if you shared this post on Facebook, simply write that in the comment field and I'll add your name to the hat. This means that you may make several separate comments for each action you take.
You can enter your name up to 7 times!
I'll draw the name for the winner tomorrow night at 9:00 PM PST and announce it here tomorrow morning.
Today I am very excited to be giving away a spectacular book and a super useful herbal medicine for children.
The book by Lesley Tierra is a must have for your young herbal enthusiast. I use it practically every week with my little herbal mentor Tova Rose (who is now 10). The book contains stories, songs, interesting facts and plenty of great herbal crafts for kids. Because of this book I brush my teeth with cinnamon powder!
The Well-Child formula contains Echinacea and Elderberries - a great combination for young ones with a cold or flu.
Here's how this works. If you would like to win these two prizes you can enter your name in the drawing multiple times by doing one or more of the following things.
I hope you were able to attend the webinar tonight by Michael Tierra and me.
I am almost done with the ebook that accompanies the webinar. This ebook contains all the information presented in the webinar plus lots more recipes and more in depth information about herbs.
You can sign up for my newsletter in the list below to be notified of when it goes on sale.
In the days leading up to the sale of the ebook I am going to be hosting a giveaway! By signing up below you'll find out about how you can win the wonderful herbal prizes this week, including books, games and herbal medicine.
Prizes will be shipped to US only. However if I draw someone's name who lives in another country I'll be sure to give them an ebook (free shipping!).
On Wednesday, November 23rd I'll be giving away a copy of A Kid's Herb Book by Lesley Tierra and a 4 oz bottle of Well Child form Planetary herbals.
On Thursday I'll be giving away Wildcraft! the herbal adventure board game and Demetria Clark's book, Herbal Healing For Children.
On Friday I'll be giving away an entire year's subscription to the Herbal Roots Zine.
Then on Saturday (cross my fingers the ebook will be done), I'll giveaway a copy of my ebook and put it on sale!
