Since I am still having trouble raising the funds to get my rosemary book published, I am going to have to switch my focus for now.

My home is in need of work on the electric and I have been packing as much as I can when I can because it involves opening the walls, meaning I can't have my kids in this house while the work is getting done.  Yes, some of the funds I'm asking for will go toward this effort since I write in my home. This means all of the herbal books I use as sources are in boxes so I can't push on with my herbal blog until this work is done. 

What this means is I had this as a daily thing before I switched to focus on my Rosemary book full-time.  I will switch to posting on my spiritual blog, attempting to do this daily (things are still crazy here).  I am a home-school mom and just started my daughter in preschool.  I taught a lot while I was in the military but all those students already knew how to read and write...  This is a whole new monster!  Fortunately there are a lot of resources out there and I bought books for a friend a few years ago and she gave them back when she was done.  Preschool didn't even exist when I was growing up so this is a very new thing.  I introduced my daughter to scissors yesterday and a white board and dry-erase markers today.  She is quite happy!

Love and Light!

It has been 2 months since my last book update and I don't have much to report.  I was able to fix the issue with my images so the book is able to be published but the finances to get it published are still not there.  I have begun the process to go LLC and have been hit with 2 bills on that that I cannot currently pay.  My husband, a truck driver, has gotten one paycheck in the past 5 weeks.  The household bills have not been paid for the month much less to get this portion taken care of.  I have started a GoFundMe but have not gotten any help through it yet.  Someone told me I needed a bio and my initial thought was "that's on my website."  Then I realized there is a bio section on GoFundMe so I have now completed that portion. 

I am not accustomed to asking for help, in any way.  As my followers know, I'm retired Air Force.  I'm used to serving others, not having others helping me.  This entire process is foreign to me.  This has been a serious "swallow my pride" moment.  I'm always the strong one, lending my shoulder when others need one.  Now I find myself needing a shoulder and I realize there isn't one.  It's a very difficult situation to be in. 

On a brighter side, my daughter turns 4 next week.  She will have a fairly good day thanks to having a mommy that likes to buy things on clearance and put them up until these special days come around.  The struggles mentioned above will not be apparent to her young eyes.  We, as always, will celebrate when daddy gets home next. I have started her on pre-school.  I was going to wait until she was officially 4 but I got the development questionnaire from her doc and discovered there were a few things she is supposed to know how to do so I decided to go ahead and start her on the collection of books I have accumulated over the past few years on how to teach your child pre-school stuff.  I spent over a decade teaching other people's grown kids.  Now I get to experience teaching children that have yet to learn to read and write.

She and her brother will never understand how difficult these last 4 years have been.  Being a full-time student while raising children in their most tender ages was the biggest challenge I have ever faced.  I had to sacrifice a lot, including friendships of people who simply couldn't understand there wasn't enough time on the clock to fulfill their expectations.  Being a veteran doesn't make me a super hero.  I'm still human.  This has been a very lonely ride but at least I can say I've gotten this far, somehow.  I know the next leg will be incredible for myself and my family.  I just have to get over this last hurdle, which feels like a monstrous one from where I'm standing right now. 

Part of me wishes I had decided to go through a regular publisher but I don't want to be a "starving artist".  My work takes a lot of time and effort and a publisher will not compensate me appropriately for the effort these books take.  I MUST continue to go it "alone".  But this "alone" needs a leg up.  Not one person builds their business by themselves and I am no exception.  Once I get the help I need, I can then resume helping others with my published works.  Thank you for reading and understanding and sticking with me for as long as you have.  Much love and appreciation! 

Love and light!

I wanted to give everyone on update on how publication is going.  I have to say "not good" but I'm working on it.  I edited the book for errors (I do not have the money to pay an editor yet) and went to upload it to find out my images were not high enough in resolution.  Without images, there is NO book because that is what the botanical portion of the book is about: images of the rosemary plant in various stages of growth.  This morning I discovered that Word is set to default reducing the resolution of the images so I may be able to get this fixed and go on with publication.  The real sticking point is going to be not being a LLC.  We recently had a major issue with my husband and got hit with a huge debt as a family because he is a sole-proprietor instead of a LLC.  I will not risk that happening with me.  Therefore I can get it ready to go but I can't hit that "publish" button until I can change my status to LLC and have this function like that form of business.  I have learned first-hand just how expensive and painful being a sole-prop can be and I cannot risk that even further.  To file as a LLC requires money I do not have.  I will get as far in the process as I can and let you know when my book is available.

Thank you all for your continued support.  Once I have the book set to publish, I will resume normal blog posts and the next herb book will be about peppermint and spearmint.  They are both growing really well outside my front door for the second year in a row and I'm quite pleased with it! 

Also, I am writing a book on runes as well as planning to release a poetry book.  I have been writing poetry for 30 years.  I know that not everyone likes poetry and I think even less like mine but poetry is an art and that is my form of artistic expression.  When I was in school, my creative writing teacher told me it wasn't poetry unless there was a twist at the end.  I disagree.  He was speaking about Shakespearean poetry.  I am not him, I am me.  I am quite excited to see how my person art is received by the community.  Once I get over this hurdle of learning the formatting they need, I expect this to be a great experience that will expand my horizons farther than I can imagine!

Chifiriuc, Grumezescu, Grumezescu, Saviuc, Lazar, and Andronescu (2012) examined the possibility of coating nanoparticles with rosemary essential oil. The problem they are trying to solve is antifungal resistance to pharmaceuticals as the common fungi that people are subjected to are becoming highly resistant. The idea they had is to look at natural antifungals (plants) and see if they can combine them with nanoparticles and circumvent this.  The two strains they looked at were Candida albicans and Candida tropicalis. 

The plates that had been treated with this combination had practically zero evidence to the protective film that both strains of fungi use to protect themselves from fungicide. This is both the 48 hour plates and the 72 hour plates. 

C. albicans had little effect on the 24 hour plates but the 48 hour had a 85% reduction and the 72 hour plate had a 98% reduction. They did not provide these numbers for C. tropicalis but they said the significant decrease for it was at the 24 hour mark.
 
Have a Great Day!
 
Chifiriuc, C., Grumezescu, V., Grumezescu, A. M., Saviuc, C., Lazar, V., and Andronescu, E. (2012). Hybrid magnetite nanoparticles/Rosmarinus officinalis essential oil nanobiosystem with antibiofilm activity. Nanoscale Research Letters, 2012(7):209.

I am in the process of trying to figure out how to upload a digital version of my book for sale to members only on my website.  I will be publishing on Amazon but I wanted those who follow my website to get first access for all the support I have gotten.  While I work out the kinks and try to make it do what I want it to do, there may be some glitches. 

I wanted to make a monthly paid subscription but this platform apparently doesn't do that.  With this being the first book, I'm okay with just doing the one payment but my ultimate goal was to provide recurring access to all of my books for my paid-subscription members since these books are reference books.  It will take me some time to get this ironed out.

I still have over 200 studies to read but I would like some feedback from my readers to determine if this is something I should be spending a lot of time on. 

Zamberlan, Amaral, Arantes, Machado, Mizdal, Campos, and Soares (2016) conducted a study to see if rosemary was connected to anti-aging.  They used Caenorhabditis elegans which is a non-parasitic nematode to model this as it seems to modulate aging and stress.  DAF-2 is an insulin receptor that is expressed with C. elegans and mutations have shown links to longevity because it increases the resistance to oxidative stress and heat for C. elegans.

The dose of 25 micrograms per mL was effective at increasing the life span of the worms in both the oxidative stress test and the heat-induced test. 

They also mutated some of the pathways in the worms and in these mutants, the rosemary oil was not successful.  They did succeed in extending the lifespan of the worms by 2 days through the DAF-2 pathway but not through the mutated pathways.  

The prevalent compounds found in the essential oil tested here were the flavonoids quercetin, rutin, and kaempferol and the phenolic acids chlorogenic acid, caffeic acid, rosmarinic acid, and carnosic acid.

While this study proves the extract protected the worms against heat and oxidative stress, it further points out the importance of the other pathways which help the body communicate to itself to modulate healing.  When those pathways were cut off due to the mutation, healing was not possible.  These pathways were HAF-1 (guides DAF-16, helps in the process to protect against heat shock), DAF-16/FOXO (development, stress resistance, heat tolerance, metabolism), and SKN-1/Nrf (regulates resistance to oxidative stress).

When these mutations were induced, the worms were more susceptible to oxidative stress.  This indicates these pathways are required for rosemary to protect against oxidative stress. 
 
Have a Great Day!
 
Zamberlan, D.C, Amaral, G.P., Arantes, L.P., Machado, M.L,. Mizdal, C.R., Campos, M.M.A., and Soares, F.A.A. (2016). Rosmarinus officinalis L. increases Caenorhabditis elegans stress resistance and longevity in a DAF-16, HSF-1 and SKN-1-dependent manner. Brazilian Journal of Medical and Biological Research, 49(9): e5235, doi:10.1590/1414-431X20165235

Cardoso, Dantas, Sousa, and Peron (2014) looked for cytotoxicity of rosemary using the roots of an onion, Allium cepa.  The made rosemary infusions at .02, .04, .06, and .08 mg/mL with .02 being the standard dose recommended.  The onion roots were exposed to the infusions for 24 hours and 48 hours, meaning they were placed in the infusions instead of water.  There were at least 6 roots in each group.  Cell division was inhibited in all groups. 

The authors then summarized several studies of rosemary inhibiting cell growth in various parts of the body such as cancer and other illnesses.  They recommend additional testing to ensure safe levels are utilized.

Have A Great Day!
 
Cardoso, Dantas, Sousa, and Peron. (2014). Cytotoxicity of aqueous extracts of Rosmarinus officinalis L. (Labiatae) in plant test system. Brazilian Journal of Biology, 74(4):886-889. doi: 10.1590/1519-6984.07313

Zheljazkov, Astatkia, Zhalnov, and Georgieva (2015) decided to compare extraction techniques using both dried and fresh rosemary leaves to determine if one technique was better to treat one ailment while another technique is more suited for a second ailment.  In this case, they specifically looked at the length of distillation.  These times were 1.25, 2.5, 5, 10, 20, 40, 80, and 160 minutes.  They grew the plants from the exact same species and in the same soil using raised beds to control soil content.  The dried leaves produced more oil but the yield was not increased after the 10-minute mark. 

The amount of verbenone was not seemingly affected by the length of boiling while camphor and borneol were more prevalent in the 80- and 160-minute samples. 

Myrcene and linalool were not affected by time but the dried material produced more.  Myrcene was most prevalent in the dried herb. 

The short boiling time had more a-pinene, camphene, eucalyptol (1,8-cineole), and b-pinene.

Camphene was not affected by whether the leaves were dry or not dry but eugenol was more prevalent in the oil made from the fresh leaves, as was eucalyptol. 

Borneol and b-caryophyllene were more prevalent from the dried herb at 40 minutes.

Bornyl acetate was more prevalent in the fresh samples. 

A-pinene, camphene, b-pinene, myrcene, eucalyptol, camphor had differing results between the dry and fresh herb. 

The highest amount of a-pinene was at the 2.5-minute mark from dry leaves. 

For b-pinene, it was fresh leaves at the 2.5-minute mark. 

Camphor was the highest at the 160-minute mark from fresh leaves while b-caryophyllene was the most at the 80-minute mark with dried leaves.

They tested some of the oils against various microbes and the oils were not effective.  In the discussion portion, they discuss the optimal time for distilling the oil is 20 minutes but all of the studies they refer to are between 2 and 4 hours. 

The study they conducted didn’t go longer than 2 hours.  The distillation methods for these studies were not necessarily the same (some didn’t mention the method).  They also mention the distillation time had a direct relationship to the concentration of the chemicals in the oil, more so than harvesting stage (not further described). 

They mention the studies where the oil worked against various microbes used a much higher concentration of the oil that that used in this study.  The chemical profile was also different for this study. 
 
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Zheljazkov, V. D., Astatkia, T., Zhalnov, I., and Georgieva, T. D. (2015). Method for attaining Rosemary Essential Oil with Differential Composition from Dried or Fresh Material.  Journal of Oleo Science, 64(5):485-496.  doi: 10.5650/jos.ess14258.

Barbosa, Probst, Andrade, Alves, Albano, Cunha, Doyama, Rall, and Junior (2015) looked at bacteria that are becoming resistant such as Streptococcus pneumoniae, Escherichia coli (15 strains), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (15 strains), Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) (15 strains of the resistant version and 16 strains of the sensitive version), Salmonella Typhimurium (15 strains) and Salmonella Enteritidis (16 isolates). 

Herbs they looked at were rosemary, Baccharvis dracuncutifolia (alecrim do campo), Vernonia polyanthes (assa peixe), Matrivaria recutita (chamomile), Cinnamomum zeylanicum (cinnamon), Caryophyllus aromaticus (clove), and Eugenia uniflora (pitanga).  All essential oils were distilled using steam. 

There is a lot of data in this study with the number of bacteria and herbs being tested.  For rosemary, the top 5 ingredients identified were camphor, limonene, myrcene, a-pinene, and b-pinene. The authors provide a chart which breaks these out for each herb tested. 

They also tested some combinations.  For the rosemary and alecrim do campo, the top 5 ingredients were limonene, merolidol, camphor, a-pinene, and myrcene. When rosemary was combined with cinnamon, the top 5 were cinnamaldehyde, camphor, limonene, myrcene, and a-pinene.  Combined with clove, the top were eugenol, camphor, ethyl eugenila, limonene, and b-caryophyllene.

Rosemary by itself took 79.35 mg/mL to be effective against all but S. aureus, MRSA, and MSSA. It was only 8.6 mg/mL these.  It took 24 hours to get a full kill ratio for E. coli and S. aureus. The combination of cinnamon and rosemary was also very effective against E. coli and rosemary combined with clove was very effective against S, aureus.

Of the plants tested, rosemary produced a larger amount of oil than most of the others. 

The authors mentioned the antimicrobial activity in the oils tested are a result of the composition of terpenes, stating most of what was extracted was a terpene or a derivative. 

NOTE: This study can be a bit confusing to read as the charts are many and the graphs were probably in color originally but are not in the paper.  Fortunately, I’m on a computer and can use the zoom feature! The rest of the herbs in this study will be broken out when I use this study in the books about each of them. 

Also, the amount needed to kill salmonella and the rest in that group explains why it performed so poorly in the study with chicken.  Putting that much rosemary on the chicken would have made it so strong, no one would have wanted to eat it because rosemary has a very powerful flavor. This rosemary is also from a different region with a different chemical compound, though it was the same species.
 
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Barbosa, L. N., Probst, I. S., Andrade, B. F. M. T., Alves, F. C. B., Albano, M., Cunha, M. L. R. S., Doyama, J. T., Rall, V. L. M., and Junior, A, F. (2015). In Vitro Antibacterial and Chemical Properties of Essential Oils Including Native, Plants from Brazil against Pathogenic and Resisant Bacteria. Journal of Oleo Science, 64(3):289-298. doi: 10.5650/jos.ess14209.

Kahraman, Issa, Bingoli, Basaran, Kahraman, and Dumen (2015) wanted to help solve the problem of food safety and tested rosemary to see if it could be used as a meat preservative in replacement of other methods.  The essential oil they used came from fresh leaves that were air-dried then steam distilled.  The oil was diluted to .05%, .1%, ;2%, .3%, .5%, and 1%.  After being added to broth, they were tested sat the 0, 4, 8, 12, and 24-hour marks.  They were tested against Salmonella Typhimurium and Listeria monocytogenes. 

For the taste portion, they established a panel with four males and two females.  The panel was then trained on terminology such as too sweet and given a scale on 1-5 where 1 was dislike extremely and 5 was like extremely.  The chicken samples were refrigerated for 1, 3, 5, and 7 days prior to cooking. 

The components of the oil used in this study were 1,8-cineole, a-pinene, camphor, 2a-pinene, camphen, and caryophyllene. They reminded the reader the composition of the oil depends on region the plant is from, plant variety and the extraction method.  The sample they used came from Turkey.  

In this study, the bacteria growth was inhibited at concentrations of .2% and higher.  They mentioned another study where the oil was not effective against Salmonella Typhimurium.  They mentioned the strain of bacteria used may account for the difference as well as the reasons mentioned for the differences in the oil composition.  It is believed the anti-bacteria properties are from 1,8-cineole and a-pinene.  1,8-cineole is most prominent in the samples from the region of Turkey containing at least 40% of the oil. 

For the tasting portion, no meat was actually consumed because the bacteria was not deteriorated enough to qualify for consumption despite how effective it was on the broth.  At concentrations higher than .2%, the rosemary scent was stronger and the color decreased in brightness.  The oil was effective at reducing the oxidation of the meat. 
 
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Kahramany, T., Issa, G., Bingoli, E. B., Basaran, B., Kahraman, B. B., and Dumen, E. (2015).  Effect of rosemary essential oil and modified-atmosphere packaging (MAP) on meat quality and survival of pathogens in poultry fillets. Brazilian Journal of Microbiology 46(2):591-599.