2) How are herbs different from prescription drugs?

3) How can I tell whether an herb is helping me?

4) Is it best to take my herbs in pill form or as a tea?

5) Is it true that the soil has been so severely depleted of nutrients that it is impossible to grow herbs without chemical fertilizers?

6) What is the best way to keep dried herbs fresh and potent after purchase?

7) How are herb tea remedies used?

1) What is an herb?

Herbs are plants, bushes, or trees. They grow best wild in their native habitats. Ancient cultures used herbs to bring out the flavors in their foods and to heal their bodies from illnesses. They used the appropriate parts of the plants (roots, bark, seeds, fruit, flowers, leaves, stalks) corresponing with the desired remedy.

Herbs can be naturally processed into various forms depending on the use.

Apple Cottage herbs are in dried form (for tea remedies), distilled (for essential oils), liquid (for extracts), and in homeopathic pellets.

2) How are herbs different from prescription drugs?

First, some background to give perspective...

Before mass industrialization, prescription drugs were herbs. All primitive cultures had a member of the tribe who knew ways to heal using the leaves, stalks, seeds, bark, roots, fruit, and flowers of plants. For example, white willow bark is the origin of aspirin. The knowledge of growing, harvesting and using herbs was passed on from generation to generation until factories took over the mass production of prescription drugs. The focus of families shifted from the home to the workplace. Family meals transformed from home cooked to fast convenient food. Symptoms from illnesses became commonplace in families. The use of prescription drugs to stop the symptoms has become an everyday occurrence. The high volume demand for these drugs drove the manufacturers to shorten the time to produce and distribute them to market. As a result, today's drugs are made from the chemical constituents of herbs but no longer the actual plants themselves.

Differences between herbs and prescription drugs:

Herbs work in conjunction with the symptoms to resolve the root causes of imbalances in the body and eliminate illness over the long term. They work with the body's immune system to help it do its job of natural healing. In some cases, herbs help relieve the symptoms while the healing is taking place. More often they work "behind the scenes" quietly assisting the body's natural processes. After a course of herb therapy, the disease is gone, the body's imbalances are cured, and you forget you were ever sick. Prescription drugs work to suppress symptoms but leave the disease intact where it can become more serious and eventually chronic.

Herbs must work in concert with correct food choices and a balanced lifestyle. Herbs do not have the ability to fight against poor food choices and a stressful lifestyle. Everything we put into our mouths goes to work in our bodies, and has predictable health consequences. One cannot eat poorly and then expect to make up for it by taking herbal vitamin and mineral supplements.

The body heals based on the following Five Elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. Each element corresponds to specific organs and body functions. If there is a deficiency in the Wood Element, for example (meaning the body functions that correspond to Wood), then you strengthen it by strengthening the Water Element (meaning the body functions that correspond to Water). This is because WOOD is created by WATER. (Water a tree to make it grow.) If there is an excess in the Wood Element, then you control it by strengthening the Metal Element. This is because a metal axe chops down a tree. This is ancient aboriginal knowledge known and derived from observing nature. All Tribal and primitive peoples have come to this conclusion.

The Control Cycle of the Healing Elements

The Creation Cycle of the Healing Elements

The control and creation cycles exist to keep all living organisms in balance.

3) How can I tell whether an herb is helping me?

The answer to this question is not a simple one.

The United States Department of Agriculture has catalogued the chemical constituents of herbs in a massive database. Since the emergence of large scale production of herb-based products, it has become common practice for some manufacturers to use the chemical constituents instead of growing the actual plants.

Our bodies know the difference and respond to plants differently from the way we respond to chemicals. Each body has its own unique DNA and unique natural healing responses. The best way to tell whether an herb is helping you is to:

• know your body's natural rhythms and patterns
• learn what is normal for you
• keep track of your experiences
• read labels on products
• ask questions of health care professionals, practitioners, and merchants
• weigh their answers and keep on questioning until you feel satisfied that you have enough information to make your own assessments
• trust your instincts (if a claim sounds "too good to be true", then it probably is...)
• do your own online research and understand that there is a great diversity of information on the internet
• check the sources of the information
• check the origins of the products before you buy them.

The closer the products are to their natural sources, the less processed they are, the better.

4) Is it best to take my herbs in pill form or as a tea?

Traditional herbalism teaches that the resistance of an herb plant is passed on most effectively to those who partake of the plant in the least invasive manner to the cellular structure of the plant. Tea is the most favorable form to capture the optimum healing properties of plants. Dried herbs are not meant to be ingested as in the swallowing of pills. Some herbs such as feverfew, for example, are extremely bitter and difficult to drink as a tea. Instead of taking bitter herbs in pill form, it is preferable to blend them with more pleasant tasting herbs and drink them as a tea. After all, medicine is not supposed to taste pleasant. However, a spoonful of local honey helps the medicine go down and strengthens the immune system in the process. Alternatively, a strong brew of a pleasant tasting blend of herbs can be taken cold and added to an organic juice.

5) Is it true that the soil has been so severely depleted of nutrients that it is impossible to grow herbs without chemical fertilizers?

Forests and wildflowers do not need chemical fertilizers to grow. Neither do herbs. Trees drop their leaves in the fall. Year after year, the leaves naturally mulch into fertile compost and, by springtime, the growing cycle begins again. Nature's fertilizers (compost and horse manure) used in a cultivated garden provide more than enough nutrients for herbs. Large scale farming with chemical fertilizers and pesticides depletes the soil of nutrients. Organic farming returns nutrients to the soil as nature does. Herbs are essentially weeds. They have the ability to survive in most any soil. They also readily return nutrients to the soil so they are beneficial to vegetable plants and other plants that require more nutrition.

6) What is the best way to keep dried herbs fresh and potent after purchase?

Light and heat contribute the most to diminishing the potency of dried herbs. It is best to store the herbs in a glass container at room temperature (below 80° F) in a dark place. Wide-mouth mason canning jars are the best containers to use. Do not store medicinal dried herbs in the refrigerator or freezer. Condensation will form on the herbs and cause mold to develop.

7) How are herb tea home remedies used?

Home remedies are used for everyday health problems.

The word "tea" has many cultural meanings, all having one characteristic in common: the ingredients in tea are dried parts of plants (including various species of tea plants and medicinal herb plants). The dried plant parts are broken down into small pieces to fit loosely into jars, tea bags, or into a tea diffuser.

Uses of teas in home remedies:

• Diffusion is the most convenient way to brew tea. Dried herbs are placed in a tea bag and sealed, or in a wire mesh tea diffuser.

  

  The tea bag or diffuser is placed in a cup or teapot. Boiling water is poured over the herbs. The herbs steep in the water for 2 minutes or longer (to the desired concentration of the tea). After the herbs are removed from the water, the tea may be taken hot or cold.

• An infusion is an intensely concentrated tea. The dried herbs are placed loosely into a mason jar (1 or 2 quarts) with enough herbs to cover the bottom of the jar up to about .25 inches deep. Boiling water is poured into the jar up to about an inch from the top. The jar is covered and left to stand at room temperature for 4 to 8 hours.

  

  Then the jar is opened and a piece of unbleached cheesecloth is attached to the top of the jar with a rubber band

  

  (NOTE: a knee high nylon stocking may be substituted for the cheesecloth). The tea is strained through the cheesecloth or nylon into a wide mouth glass container with a spout on it (a large measuring cup) so that the mason jar can be cleaned, the herbs discarded, and the jar reused to store the brewed tea. The discarded herbs may be composted or used in a compress or poultice. The tea is poured back into the mason jar and stored in the refrigerator up to about 4 days or until the tea begins to develop a filmy surface.

• A poultice is made from herbs that have been steeped in a tea bag. The tea water is saved along with the used tea bag. The used tea bag is dipped into the tea water and applied directly to a wound or skin irritation. The poultice is kept moist during use.
• A compress is a cloth that has been soaked in tea and applied to the skin.