Herbal Recipes for Tea and Medicine

Part 1: Who Needs the Knowledge?

I’ve been drying some herbs my youngest daughter requested from me to make some good-for-breast feeding tea when she was here with hubby and 2-month old daughter Sunshine for the Memorial Day weekend. Seems she’s tried to stay as ‘natural’ as possible while living in the city and being a new mother, and has been steered a bit astray by the not-so know-it-alls at her local herbal/natural food store, who have supplied her with some useless, some highly questionable, and some downright dangerous herbal teas that have of course had their poor effects on the baby’s digestive system. She named a few, I was horrified!

She doesn’t need milk thistle or motherswort or black cohosh or rue. My goodness, don’t these herb dealers have to do ANY homework before prescribing? A couple of these are downright dangerous to hormone levels, and because Sunshine’s a baby girl, will of course affect her as well. I tut-tutted and promised a nice batch of dried herbs that will actually work to help the quality of her milk as well as her (and Sunshine’s) digestion and sense of calm.

So I hiked the half-mile driveway gathering the goodies. A whole lot of nice new black/raspberry leaves from developing canes, some brand new kudzu leaves for bulk and general nutritional value, then raked the garden for peppermint, apple mint and pineapple mints. I’d have added some wild rose hips, but my harvest last winter got thinned seriously when #1 daughter cut the bushes back so we could drive past them. This year I’m merely roping them and staking them back toward the hill, so by October there should be plenty.

Anyway, the berry leaves are excellent sources of vitamin C, and are also great tonic toners for bladder and urinary tract as well as a fair regulator that tends to even out the hormone levels so you don’t get big swings. The kudzu is a highly nutritious legume that is about the highest protein green in existence and would make excellent cattle fodder if it weren’t so prone to eating the cattle first (it grows about a foot a day). Goats are the only critters that can keep it at bay, and right now we have no goats, thus have plenty of kudzu. The mint is for flavor and as a stomach calmative, it’s an excellent tea ingredient in every kind of herbal tea. When the leaves are dried and ready to crush and mix, I’ll add some shaved citrus peel (orange, lemon) as well. Brew it in a ball and add some honey and it should work fine and have no adverse side effects (such as colic in the baby or hormone swings in Mom).

It got me to thinking about how little actual knowledge too many herbal suppliers in cities actually know about herbal things. Worse, some herbs are seriously NOT indicated for certain conditions, or for when people are taking actual pharmaceuticals that will clash. Damage can certainly be done, as not all herbs are “harmless.” Most pharmaceuticals are in fact synthetic versions of compounds that occur in natural herbs and roots, as traditional knowledge of these remedies has faded through the years since Big Pharma patented the alkaloids and compounds.

I’m lucky in that I learned quite a bit about various medicinal herbs from my Father-in-Law, who as a child helped gather and prepare herbs with his grandmother who raised him out in Oklahoma. She had learned at the feet of her grandmother, who was Medicine Woman for the tribe long before Indian Territory became a state. Father-in-Law got to be her apprentice because there were no granddaughters, the knowledge usually passed granddaughter to granddaughter. I learned about other herbs (more serious ones) from my older sister, a Ph.D. plant physiologist who specialized in plant alkaloids and was for a time the world’s foremost expert on American Mandrake as a treatment for cancer.

My sister is retiring from world-hopping this year and has built a log home near here, so we’ll finally get the chance to write the book we’ve been planning since we were teenagers - the definitive herbal Materia Medica for the 21st century. She’ll offer the chemical knowledge, I’ll offer the practical lore (and illustrations). Should be a big hit…

So in several upcoming posts I’ll offer some of the knowledge I’ve gained per the various medicinal herbs available at your local herb shop, but which the sellers of those herbs may not know enough about to properly prescribe. I’ll note that Great-great-grandma-in-law was famous for curing skin cancers caused by sun exposure, and that I once concocted a cream that my mother used on her basal cell carcinomas that flat cured them in between allopathic treatments she’d been getting from her doctor. He was so amazed that he requested a jar and planned to have it analyzed.

So stay tuned for upcoming recipes for various herbal concoctions useful against a range of semi-minor health issues and concerns. With the increasing price of pharmaceuticals and complete unavailability of regular health care in 21st century America, a little knowledge about traditional remedies can go a long way. Trick is not to have so little knowledge as to be dangerous. If in doubt, avoid all herbs with notable (and/or patented) alkaloids and hormone precursors!

Posts to This Series:

Part 1: Who Needs the Knowledge?
Part 2: More Herbs and Their Uses

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Filed under Alternatives, Cultivated Herbs, Health, Herbal Medicine, Medicine, Wild Herbs |