Semester 3, Week 2, Day 2

The kids were both plagued with bad dreams last night. My son fell and hit his cheek on a metal grate yesterday so he has a bruise on his cheek and couldn't sleep on his tummy so he kept joining me in bed last night. I'm tired...  LOL  On the bright side, the bruise is smaller than yesterday.  Katy Kaboom has been in a bad mood all morning. I think a nap will happen with both of them today.  Last night I played (tried) Beauty and the Beast and the beast scared her. I switched to Return of Jafar and Jafar also scared her. She went to sleep in my arms seeking refuge from him.  I hadn't even gotten her ready for bed yet.  Both movies have been put up.  They are probably the cause of the nightmares last night. We can try again when they are older. We have already eaten breakfast and I have checked my California Poppy tincture and it's almost done so I can soak a few more weeks. I also started rose and chamomile yesterday.  I'm going to start rosemary once I have a few empty jars.  I technically do now but I'm trying to put a case of jars up and I'm trying to empty the one type and put them back in that case. Yes, it sounds OCD but I don't care.  I think there will only be a few more days of these discussion posts but the one for today needs to be shared.  I have a few tinctures of last semester's herbs done and many in the works - some are not from the kit but plants I have around here. I think next time the rose bush blooms, I'm making some rose water. The recipe I found yesterday is a 1:3 ratio of petals to water. An oil might be good to. I'm off here to go study the effects of diet on aging because that is the discussion for homeopathy this week. This could be good! Have a great day!

Option 3: Source and Quality of Herbal Remedies
Many people obtain their herbal remedies from retail outlets. How do you find out the source and quality of materials used by herbal products manufacturers? Consider issues such as certified organic vs. wildcrafted; what do these terms indicate about the plant populations? Which manufacturers grow their own source material; who is willing to divulge and verify their sources? Can they guarantee that their medicinal plants are ecologically wildcrafted or sustainably harvested?
This was a hard chose of options for this week because I wanted to answer them all!  I chose option 3 this week because I was recently on a post on Facebook where a Young Living seller was bragging that their oils never expired.  I physically cringed when I heard that.  I don’t use their oils and this is just another reason. I prefer herbal products that are as close to the original thing as possible. I don’t want anything that has preservatives added. It’s part of the drive to become an herbalist.  I want to know the products I use are trustworthy. A lot of companies will not reveal the source of their plant material. They call the information “proprietary”. To me, that means they do something a little “extra” and I don’t want that product.

I like the sourcing data from this school.  When the herb says “organic” it means it came from the greenhouse. I do on occasion see “wild crafted” which means it wasn’t grown in the greenhouse. It was collected from nature somewhere.  Personally, in today’s polluted environment, I trust green-house grown plant material more than I trust wild crafted. The toxicity of our soil is terrifying. Also, wild crafting takes more and more from nature and she is suffering enough. To determine where companies get their plant material, some post it on their site, others respond when you call.  If they don’t want to provide the information then they don’t want my business. 

I use Eden’s Garden but there are others that are good in terms of oils. They have this written on their site “Our oils are unadulterated, free of synthetics and entirely pure. EG is an eco-conscious company and we choose sustainable practices whenever possible from soil to bottle. Certificate of analysis, specifications and MSDS are available upon request.” This tells me they are not hiding their practices. I think my favorite thing is this quote “We do GC/MS (gas chromatography mass spectrometry) tests on each of our essential oils and reports are available within each product page. This will give the breakdown of the naturally occurring components found in any given oil.” If something has been sprayed with toxic chemicals, the mass spectrometer will tell you. This company buys their organic material from other companies. They can’t really guarantee anything except they do their best to ensure their growers are using sustainable practices and are not adding any chemicals to their plants.

I have not purchased bulk herbs for anyone in a long while but I like what Mountain Rose Herbs has to say about sourcing of their material. “Thankfully, most herbs and spices are not in danger of industrial genetic modification, so organic certification is our go-to for insuring that our herbal goodies are grown without synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, GMO seed stock, or irradiation. Taking this commitment one step further, we also have products verified through the Non-GMO Project! Many of the products on this list have been chosen for this certification because they are produced from plant crops that are known to be at risk of GMO contamination.” I have a huge proponent of the Non-GMO project going so far as to call it the ”seal of approval” for our family.

While very few companies grow all of their own source material, there are a lot of ways to check the product before it goes to the market. I’m glad there are companies out there that do.

Eden’s Garden. Retrieved from https://www.edensgarden.com/pages/edens-pledge
Mountain Rose Herbs. Retrieved from https://www.mountainroseherbs.com/principles/organic-agriculture