Make Your Own Herbal Medicines

[WVsnowflake]

One of the advantages of herbal medicine for gardeners is that many herbs are easy to grow. In fact, a number of medicinal plants commonly are grown as ornamentals. And why go to the store to buy echinacea when you can grow this lovely flu-fighting herb in your own yard?


Make Your Own Herb Teas
Alfalfa mint tea, strawberry ginger tea, cinnamon rose hip tea, anise elderberry tea and celery lea...
Even if you don't choose to grow herbs yourself, the basic ingredients for many herbal remedies can be purchased in health food stores and prepared in your own kitchen. When I first started working with medicinal plants, I discovered the trick was not in finding the herbs I needed but in knowing how to use them. Then I found Making Plant Medicine, a book by Richo Cech, the owner of Horizon Herbs in Williams, Ore. That book changed my life because it taught me how to make first aid, health and beauty products right at home.

Below are directions from the book for making the basic applications often used in herbal medicine — capsules, poultices, tinctures, infused oils, salves, balms and teas — along with examples of easy-to-grow herbs to use for each kind of preparation. (For more information on herbs and holistic medicine, see "Holistic Health Care," Page 90.)


www.motherearthnews.com/Natural-Health/2004-06-01/Make-Your-Own-Herbal-Medicines.aspx



I order some of my herbs at Mountain Rose Herbs... I love alot of their herbal blend teas. They are really good !!!

www.mountainroseherbs.com/

[naturelovr]

thanks, snowflake, for the links........

natural cures are somethin' i believe in mightly......

[Sinker]

I almost didn post here, cause a few of ya know where I live! But here goes anyway; I ain't skeert much.... Except fer usin plantain poultices on bites, stings, an itches, I have found that most of these natural cures manifest their potency mostly by tastin horrible! I ain't sayin this ta be offensive, but there must be a lotta placebo effect involved. Mebbe I'm jus doin it wrong. I have been accused of this behavior in other areas. If any of ya happen ta be big believers in these natural cures, mebbe ya could tell me somethin that works without havin ta believe in it.

[naturelovr]

sink, in your talkin' 'bout havin' to believe in natural cures, it brought to mind somethin' i read recently in the news 'bout conventional medicine....found it kinda' interestin'...

Many US Doctors Give Patients Placebo Treatment
Among 679 primary-care doctors and rheumatologists, who treat arthritis patients, about half reported prescribing placebos.....Many American doctors give their patients a placebo, usually a relatively innocuous drug such as a pain reliever, in the guise of medical treatment and view the practice as ethical, researchers said on Thursday.

.....they did not explicitly tell patients they were getting a placebo.

The idea may be to trigger the "placebo effect" -- a genuine improvement in health driven by psychological expectations of a benefit and not due to the physiological effect of a given treatment -- in cases in which normal treatment might not be warranted, the researchers said.....

But studies also have shown that giving a patient a placebo sometimes triggers true health improvements inspired by a patient's expectations that a treatment may help them.

www.javno.com/en/lifestyle/clanak.php?id=195628


all that to say, a body's gotta' do what they gotta' do to take care a themselves.....i've been very blessed with good health so far, but if, as i get older, i was to get real sick, dependin' on how scared i was 'bout it, i might be singin' a real different song.....who knows... .....cross that bridge if and when i get there, but i'm thinkin' i'll probably keep on doin' things naturally no matter what... ...

an' as for the yucky taste of natural stuff....might try thinkin' of it as just a different twist on "no pain, no gain"........an' if it's teas you're tryin', honey and lemon generally help a whole bunch... ...

goin' way far back, ya probably didn't know that mary poppins was an alternative medicine devotee.....she musta' been since she sang that song 'bout "a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down......"....... ;D.......

p.s. sink, there is a lil' note in the comments on "hospital chart bloopers" 'specially for you......