I recently had a conversation with someone considering booking a consultation. One of the concerns they had was about the quality of the herbs I work with in my preparations. I was so happy to hear this question come up because it rarely does, and it is so important.

Herbs are becoming more popular. A lot of folks with very little knowledge or training are using and selling herbal products. There are some shady companies out there making money on this trend, and the result is that either through intent or incompetence, products are found on the market with wrong or inappropriate ingredients.

A fellow herbalist recently shared in her newsletter that a friend had gifted her a tea blend purchased for a company she wasn’t familiar with. She recognised all of the ingredients on the label, but when she actually looked at the contents of the blend, none of them were recognizable to her as an experienced herbalist (she did not drink the tea).

I also recently listened to a class presented through the American Herbalist Guide by a pharmaceutical scientist who had been studying herbal products on the market for 30 years. My takeaway… herbal supplement makers often use adulterated or dangerous ingredients, or extraction methods that make the herbs way more likely to interact with medications, when compared to products made by experienced herbalists.

When I teach herbal medicine making classes, I try to get across the idea that when we get to know the plants one at a time… what they look like as a living plant throughout their life cycle, what they look like (smell like, taste like…) as a dried plant, how to work with them, how they feel in our bodies, what cautions are associated with them… when we really know the plants in our materia medica the quality of the medicine we make is going to be so much greater than anything we can get on the market.

This is why I love having an apothecary and offering this service to my clients. I am able to control for quality. What I cannot grow, I purchase from local herb farmers or reputable herb companies that do third-party testing. But I am always able to use my knowledge of what the herbs look, smell, and taste like, even in dried form.

I do use supplements in my practice as well. But these are vetted as well. I stick with trusted supplement companies with a long and respected reputation.

My advice to anyone using herbal medicine is to only purchase herbs through a trained, qualified herbalist or a company with a solid reputation and third-party testing. But the best thing you could do is to get to know the plants yourself. Grow them, harvest them, work with them in your life. The quality of a harvest you make yourself will always be superior to anything you can purchase online.

In good medicine,

April