It is interesting to note that healing herbs as supplements are not a new craze. Worldwide, more people use healing herbs to ensure their good health that use pharmaceutical drugs. As Americans, we sometimes find that hard to believe.
Herbs have been studied for more than 5,000 years and have been proven to be consistently safer than chemical drugs. So called “modern medicines” only began in the 1920s so there’s much less known about their long term effects. The fact that they have grown into a 1.3 trillion dollar a year business is the reason that even drugs that harm people manage to stay on the market. Big money talks.
First, let’s remind you that no disease has ever been shown to be caused by a deficiency of a pharmaceutical drug! Abnormalities in the body are due to deficiencies of important nutrients the body needs to make and maintain healthy cells. Herbs are concentrated nutrition. High quality herbs are even more highly concentrated nutrition.
You know how cold pressed, first pressing, extra virgin olive oil costs more than other oils? Do you know why? The correct process for making the good stuff takes more time, uses higher quality assurance standards and starts with the very best ingredients. As long-time herbalists, we often say we’re more like chefs than doctors because we use that same standard.
Una de Gato is a wonderful herb used for its anti-inflammatory, anti-viral and anti-bacterial properties. There are two varieties which strangely enough have the identical Latin name. The highlands variety is the one that contains high levels of the actives that give it those healing properties. The lowlands variety contains far fewer of them. There’s a very expensive piece of equipment needed to tell the difference between the two. Most companies do not own or use one because it would make their product too expensive. NSP has one of the handful of these machines that exist worldwide today.
St. John’s Wort is a wonderful herb with anti-depressant properties. All of the actives are in the flower. If this herb is harvested before or after the flowers form, there will be no anti-depressant properties whatsoever. It’s costly to determine the level of actives in the raw herbs.
This just underscores the importance of quality. This of course also applies to the foods you put on your table daily. The difference between organic and conventional is big enough to drive a truck through! Nutrition-wise, a cup of iceberg lettuce contains 400 IU of Vitamin A while a cup of dandelion greens contains 40,000 IU. You tell us which one you think should be called a weed? Dandelion is a great herb for detoxifying the liver, balancing the electrolytes important for the heart and high amounts of Vitamin A & D are helpful in reducing pain associated with arthritis! Since you probably shouldn’t pick the dandelions off your lawn, supplementing with Dandelion capsules sounds like a better idea.
The biggest mistake people make when taking herbs and nutritional supplements is that they do not take enough. This is because they think of herbs like pharmaceuticals rather than the food that they really are! If you were invited to dinner and your host put two peas on your plate, you’d raise a quizzical eyebrow. Herbs contain more nutrients than the foods on most plates and are a handy way to fill the nutritional void that makes us hungry all of the time, snacking on foods devoid of nutrients and wondering why weight problems are epidemic.
Taking herbal supplements can stabilize weight because hunger is the body’s only way to tell you it needs nutrients. Then it’s up to you to figure out which ones and how much. Daily supplements help take the guesswork out of that equation. Super Algae is a complete food. You can get all the nutrients you need from just that supplement. Kelp contains more than 30 vitamins and minerals and can alkalize your body, protecting you from all of the ills caused by over-acidity. Coral Calcium Powder is easy to add to all sorts of foods and it doesn’t change the flavor or texture which is helpful for getting calcium and other minerals into even small children. (We don’t want them drinking milk, but that’s another story!)
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