herbal practice and self-treatment

[Guest guest]

Dear CHA,

 

I am continuing my study of herbs with herbal tinctures, largely from Herb

Pharm and Gaia Herbs. I use a base of unsweeted soy milk then add a variety of

tinctures and boil gently for several minutes. I think most of the alcohol is

gone, but I don't know. Ed Smith of Herb Pharm in his manual seems to

discourage cooking as it would damage the volatile oils, but then perhaps his

main point is that the herbal tinctures qualify as raw food. Since they intend

that people either take the herbs as simples or buy the ready made formulas,

they discount the alcohol content. Here I'm putting may be 6 to 9 eye droppers

of tincture into one cup of soy milk: either I cook off the alcohol or get

drunk.

 

I'm using a mixture of Chinese and western herbs, but I would love to find the

most solid information about the western herbs.

 

One interesting side note: as I put tinctures into the soy milk they react

quite differently. The schisandra congeals and disappears downward, the

rosemary explodes outward as does the nettle. One time I added a yin chiao san

tincture (with echinacea and goldenseal) and it absolutely jolted outward

through the soy milk and set up a standing network of filament lines through the

milk that seemed to pulsate. I thought of the terminology of netting, or was

this is an image of wei qi -- or was it meridians? After it cooks these

phenomena disappear and the milk becomes homogeneous beneath the surface skin

that retains an offprint of the original colorations.

 

I welcome any guidance or suggestions.

 

Carl Ploss

 

 

 

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