Herbs A-Z: Sambucus & Sassafras

We’re continuing our “herbs on our shelf” series from A to Z today! This time our herbs are elder and sassafras.

The most famous part of elder (Sambucus nigra) is the berry, which is indeed an effective remedy for viral infections including colds, flu, and COVID. It’s a rather safe one, despite occasional herban legends do the contrary. (No, the berries will not kill you with cyanide. No, elderberry does not cause cytokine storms. No, it is not a risk for people with autoimmunity.) But it’s so much more than that! We can break elder berry out of the ‘cold & flu’ box, and appreciate it as an anti-inflammatory, cardiovascular tonic, and traditional alterative. Plus, we can also work with the flowers! They make an excellent relaxant diaphoretic, for releasing both physical and emotional heat.

As for sassafras (Sassafras albidum), its root bark is its most famous part, and it’s a key component of ‘root beer’ flavors. We like it that way, with sarsaparilla (whether that’s Smilax, Hemidesmus, or Aralia), ginger, & birch – and why not add some adaptogens too? That’s how you get Rooted & Ready. But wait! Sassafras leaf is also quite nice. It’s one of those interesting herbs which combines demulcent and astringent qualities all in the same herb, like purple loosestrife, and it’s one of Katja’s preferred herbs to correct for too much dryness in a formula.

Elder and Sassafras both turn up in our course Elements of Detoxification. This course takes a fresh look at the concepts of “toxicity” and “detoxification”, a holistic perspective that goes beyond “cleanses” and products. Learn a memorable, practical model for understanding how the body’s detox functions work, along with the roles herbs can play in supporting them. And, take a look at some key formulas like Rooted & Ready, that bring together taste, action, and energetics for maximum effect. Check it out!

Like all our offerings, these are self-paced online video courses, which come with free access to twice-weekly live Q&A sessions, lifetime access to current & future course material, twice-weekly live Q&A sessions with us, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more!

If you enjoyed the episode, it helps us a lot if you subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you!

Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:13

Hi, I'm Katya . And I'm Rinn . And we're here at Commonwealth Holistic Journalism in Boston, Massachusetts, and

Speaker 2: 0:19

The internet everywhere. Thanks to the Power of podcast. Woohoo. Intermittent as it may be .

Speaker 1: 0:25

<laugh>. It .

Speaker 2: 0:25

It's still

Speaker 1: 0:26

Powerful. It is , it is . You know what, there are so many episodes that when we get really busy , um, and don't make a punctual episode, then , um, that's okay, because people can listen to old episodes. They're still good. They're still good, even if they're old <laugh> and actually like many things. Yeah. Yeah. It has been, it has been really busy. So we , um, have an , uh, we moved here late last fall, and that means all new gardens. Um, and there were never gardens here before. So , um, it has just been lots of, lots of work getting things in, but it's paying off because the St . John's ward started blooming yesterday. Oh , yeah . The first little bloom. And then today there is like a Sea of St . John's wear flowers out there. It's very excited about it.

Speaker 2: 1:22

Yeah. It's pretty great. Well, today we're gonna be talking to you about Sambucas and Sassafras. Uh, sassafras is Sassafras.

Speaker 1: 1:32

<laugh>. Sambucas. Yeah. That's a Latin name. That's easy to learn.

Speaker 2: 1:35

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yep . Uh , Sambucas is elder. And , uh, it's not just Berry . No .

Speaker 1: 1:42

Cause

Speaker 2: 1:42

Sometimes you see elderberry, elderberry, El El , but there's elder flower . There's other elder bits as well, but yeah. Elder. So we'll talk about that . But before we jump in , uh, we wanna remind you that our podcast is in fact just a small part of what we do. Uh, first and foremost, we are teacher herbalist. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> , uh, you can learn from us. You can learn herbalism online. Our courses are centered on video lessons, just as if you were right here in class with us. Uh, every lesson in every course that we teach has an integrated discussion thread right there built into it, so you can ask your questions and get answers as you go along, as you learn. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , um, courses have MP3s of all the materials, so you can download the audio and listen as you go.

Speaker 1: 2:26

Right. So if you like to watch and learn, or if you like to listen and learn, both work, there's audio versions of every video. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,

Speaker 2: 2:35

Your course access with us never expires. So you can take as much time as you need and you can review the material as often as you like.

Speaker 1: 2:42

And we update the material pretty regularly. In fact, I, today I'm editing a video about chronic venous insufficiency for the cardiovascular course, and I'm gonna put that in the course. And everybody enrolled in the course is going to get that new video. They don't have to do anything special, it just automatically autom automatically appears, you know , on, in their student dashboard. So any time that you enroll in a course, whenever we say, Ooh , here's something we should add to the course, you get that for free autom automatically.

Speaker 2: 3:12

Yeah. And we know a lot of people are worried about learning online and feeling like they won't have community connection or, or other people to bounce ideas off of , uh, or that they'll be kind of all alone with a book, you know, in a monastery somewhere, <laugh>

Speaker 1: 3:24

Or their couch or

Speaker 2: 3:25

Laptop, you know. Yeah. Um, but we try to get around that. Right. We try to find ways to keep community and keep direct connection mm-hmm . <affirmative> , uh, with our students. So you get to talk to us directly. Uh, we have a live q and a session twice a week , uh, if not more <laugh> every week.

Speaker 1: 3:39

Yeah. Twice a week for the general student body , um, every other week for international students. Then we also have special sessions for the more advanced students in the clinical program. There's a lot of live in-person interaction. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And there's also our online community. We have a private, not on Facebook, like private, on our own website community where you can chat with other students. You can swap herbs, you can just talk about what you're up to. You can find accountability buddies. You can say, Hey, is anybody else struggling with this concept? Anybody wanna talk about it? Whatever is going on for you, you can chat about it there.

Speaker 2: 4:18

Yeah. So if you ever find yourself being like, I'm gonna check Facebook for some herbal group discussions, and then you find yourself looking at, like, comic book movie memes for 30 minutes. <laugh>, not Did that happen to me yesterday, but if that ever happens to you, then our community is way better than Facebook in that regard .

Speaker 1: 4:35

You're way better than Facebook. Yeah. Guaranteed herbal goodness every time. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 4:40

Yeah. So you can find all of that and more , uh, with all of our courses and all of our programs, including free courses. By the way , uh, you can find all of this@online.commonwealthherbs.com.

Speaker 1: 4:51

Woohoo .

Speaker 2: 4:52

Okay. All right . And because we're gonna talk about some health stuff idea today and some herbal stuff, we wanna remind you first that we're not doctors, we're herbalist. I think you probably knew that <laugh> we're holistic health educators.

Speaker 1: 5:04

The idea that we'll discuss in this podcast do not constitute medical advice. No state or federal authority licenses herbalist in the United States. So these discussions are for educational purposes only. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 5:17

<affirmative>, we wanna remind you that good health doesn't mean the same thing for everyone. Good health doesn't exist as an objective standard. It's influenced by your individual needs, experiences, and goals . So, keep in mind that we're not attempting to present a single dogmatic right way that you should adhere to.

Speaker 1: 5:34

Everyone's body is different. So the things that we're talking about may or may not apply directly to you, but we hope that they'll give you some new information to think about and some ideas to research and experiment with further. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 5:46

<affirmative> finding your way to better health is both your right and your own personal responsibility. This doesn't mean you're alone on the journey, and it doesn't mean you're to blame for your current state of health, but it does mean that the final decision, when you're considering any course of action, whether it's discussed on the internet or prescribed by a physician, that's always your choice to make.

Speaker 1: 6:05

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Speaker 2: 6:06

Okay. So let's start out today talking about elder. Oh,

Speaker 1: 6:11

Elder. How much I love you. Yeah. Listen. Okay. So I almost don't even wanna talk about elder berries.

Speaker 2: 6:20

Yeah. You get a , there's a kind of , um, saturation. Yeah. You know.

Speaker 1: 6:24

Yeah. Um ,

Speaker 2: 6:25

There's a , a bajillion, I think is the technical number. <laugh> , uh, you know, of blog posts and articles and podcast episodes, and like all kinds of other things about elderberry and fight cold and flu combat, those viruses boost up the immunity. Yeah. And none of that's wrong,

Speaker 1: 6:44

<laugh>. No. It's all accurate and good and Right. Elderberry

Speaker 2: 6:46

Is amazing stuff, you know, it's really good. It's really reliable. It's all, I think it's worth pointing out very safe. Yeah. You know, you

Speaker 1: 6:53

Know. Oh boy. All right . So we have a , a little mini course on elder berries and elder flowers. It's like a little $10 mini course . Um, but it has some really great stuff in it. And one of the things that's in it is like this ginormous explainer because so many people have heard the myth that elder berries are toxic if you don't cook them first. Um, and that is just plain not true. Now we are talking about black elderberries, sambucus, Niagara , um, there are some red elderberries species, and I, I am not , um, I don't work with those, and I would not eat those raw either. Um, though I have seen foraging books that say you can do it.

Speaker 2: 7:39

Yep . We've got some students who've reported back, yeah, I had a handful today and I'm still here, <laugh> .

Speaker 1: 7:43

Yep .

Speaker 2: 7:43

Yep . Didn't even throw up, you know, that kind thing .

Speaker 1: 7:45

Yep . But they don't grow around here. So I think that the reason that I would not do that is more because I'm not familiar with that plant. Whereas I am very familiar with black elderberry.

Speaker 2: 7:56

And I mean, that's a good point too. You know , uh, it is better to not start grabbing berries at random and chewing on them. Yes. You wanna know the plant , you wanna have done a little research first. You want to compare notes with other people. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 8:08

Okay. But like in the us , elderberries are , are never really a thing that were available in the grocery store. And although they do grow wild , um, they, they're just not common in our culture. But if you go on recipe websites that are based in the uk, there's like granola and elderberry on yogurt with yogurt, like recipes. I don't know why you need a recipe for granola with yogurt and , and fruit, but they have them,

Speaker 2: 8:37

It's all about the ratios.

Speaker 1: 8:39

It's <laugh> and , and like, they do not like, they just, the recipe just calls for fresh, raw elderberries, like as if they were blueberries or any other kind of berries. So, you know, I mean, go ahead, eat an entire bag of cherries. It's Cher season right now, so cherries are on my mind. Eat an entire bag of cherries and yes, it will make your poop a little different. Um, if you eat the whole bag in one sitting. It's true. And if you eat a whole bunch of elder berries all in one sitting, yes, it will, you know, like loosen things up a little bit. That's the dainty technical, I don't know what term you

Speaker 2: 9:17

Have term diarrhea folks.

Speaker 1: 9:19

<laugh> . No, it won't be all the way to diarrhea. It'll just be like soft serve . Mm . You know,

Speaker 2: 9:24

Fun .

Speaker 1: 9:24

But,

Speaker 2: 9:25

And look, there are some folks who are more susceptible, you know, can get nausea from eating that. Okay . Smaller humans. Okay. If they eat a whole pile of black elder berries, maybe they'll get some nausea, maybe they'll even and vomit. But I

Speaker 1: 9:37

Mean , but the same is true if you get an entire pineapple. Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 2: 9:41

Yeah . Yeah. But people get the idea with elder berry that it's like, that it's comparable to something like, say bittersweet nightshade berry where Yeah . You, you know, if you eat a whole pile of those, you are , you are quite likely to vomit. Uh , if a kid eats them, they can get pretty seriously sick. Um , so people have that idea about elderberry as well,

Speaker 1: 9:58

That it's , yeah . And it's just not, that's

Speaker 2: 9:59

Really dangerous.

Speaker 1: 10:00

It's, it's more like if you eat an entire watermelon, it does make you have woogie belly, but nobody thinks that that's because watermelon is poisonous. They think that's cuz they just ate an entire watermelon. Yeah . And that's because you buy watermelon at the grocery store and you don't buy elder berry at the grocery store. So if you eat a ton of raw elderberries and you have that same experience, you don't think, well that's cuz I just ate a whole watermelon. You know, be just, because that's not our relationship with this particular berry in this country.

Speaker 2: 10:29

Yeah. Yeah. So it can be a food and then of course it can be a medicine, you know, we can be making decoctions, we can be making syrups. A lot of people prefer that cuz honestly, Berry decoction, I mean,

Speaker 1: 10:40

It's, it's kind of weird. It's kind

Speaker 2: 10:41

Of weird. It's weird . It's not like a , it's, it's not like you imagine if you took a bunch of blueberries and cook 'em for

Speaker 1: 10:47

A while , it does not taste like blueberry juice. No, no , no, no. It doesn't taste like raspberries

Speaker 2: 10:52

Juice and there's a smell, you know, and some people feel like that's a little, little ny kind of a smell to it,

Speaker 1: 10:57

Or dirt a little bit like, it tastes like, like blueberries and dirt together. Like there's just a , there's some kind of weirdness about they're, they're fine when you eat them. Yeah. They're fine when you make them into syrup. Okay . But that weird thing about making them into tea.

Speaker 2: 11:12

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and with syrup, you know, you have honey and then you often add some spices too. You know, cinnamon and ginger and all spice and cardamon and a touch of clove and all of that. And if you do wanna make an elderberry, decoction, go for it. But my advice is put some spices in there, you know? Yeah. Uh , mix up a bunch of powerful flavors. Aromatics and pungents and things like that.

Speaker 1: 11:32

Like chai spice, that's enough. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , you know.

Speaker 2: 11:34

Yeah. Put that together. Would that even

Speaker 1: 11:35

Like just elderberry and cardamom , it would be enough. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Speaker 2: 11:39

Yeah. Um, uh, yeah. And then, you know, it's funny cuz there was this other sort of like safety question around elderberry, especially early on in Covid , uh, when there was a big spike in, in elderberry , uh, product sales and, and people buying those things and, and being super hyped about elderberry as an antiviral. Um, and there was this warning going around about elderberry causing cytokine storm, which briefly is just like a , an excessively inflammatory immune response. Um, as if the fiery part of your immune response has gotten really out of control and there's nobody around to corral that or point that in a productive direction or say, okay, you've done the job, you can put the fire on there . Calm

Speaker 1: 12:21

Down now. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 12:22

Yeah. So cytokine storm is real, but it's generally happening to people who are severely sick , usually hospitalized in a , in like a , you know, a modern context. Um, it's not something that's gonna happen to you spontaneously on your third day of feeling kind of crappy and taking some elderberry

Speaker 1: 12:38

Syrup. Yeah, no, no,

Speaker 2: 12:40

No , no .

Speaker 1: 12:40

Um, and I mean, okay, people, especially at the beginning of Covid, people were that sick. They were in the hospital, but those people didn't have elderberry like cuz Yeah . They were <laugh> , they were in the hospital and they were on ventilators and you know, like , so they, they were definitely the kind of people who were candidates for a cytokine storm, but it, it wasn't like the two factors didn't come together.

Speaker 2: 13:01

Yeah. Yeah. Elderberry is innocent in this regard. And honestly, that was a situation where , uh, much was made of some, you know, micro scale , scientific study looking at effects of elderberry to , uh, increase the activity of certain inflammatory cytokines. But looking at that evidence in a vacuum and not noticing the other papers right next to it, that said, elderberry also increased the activity of anti-inflammatory mm-hmm . <affirmative> cytokines in the body.

Speaker 1: 13:27

So it like increases stuff in balance.

Speaker 2: 13:29

Yeah. Yeah. It is a , a nicely balanced nerve . And I mean, connected to that, we've also, okay, I've heard one or two reports, but I have never encountered directly any cases of somebody with say, an autoimmune disorder taking elderberry and getting a flare up . Right. Which is a concern with some immune stimulants. Right. It doesn't happen every time, even with every one of them, even with echinacea, which we are careful about. Yeah,

Speaker 1: 13:54

You do in cases . You do see that with echinacea. Yeah . Not across the board, but frequently enough that it's worth remembering. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 14:02

Yeah. We pay attention with that one. But I'm not, you know, if somebody comes in and says, Hey, I've got, you know , rheumatoid arthritis, it's mostly controlled, you know, through diet and movement and other things. Um, I wanna take some something to boost up my immunity cause I'm about to get on a plane. Do you think elder is safe for me? I would say go for it. I'm not worried about that.

Speaker 1: 14:20

I mean, I think if somebody with rheumatoid arthritis, or I'm even thinking in my case of MS or any other autoimmune thing, if they were not feeling awesome and they were like, I think I'm getting a cold, I think I'd like to take some elderberry, does that feel safe? That feels safe to me. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> that, that , um, you know, if, if you wouldn't be afraid of blueberries, you know, you wouldn't think, oh, I shouldn't eat these blueberries because it might , um, cause some kind of autoimmune flare up then , um, then elders also 99% of the time not gonna be a concern.

Speaker 2: 14:58

Yeah. So, you know, in all these ways it's an example of a plant that is like wildly popular and heavily commercialized. And also that's fine. <laugh>,

Speaker 1: 15:06

Right ? Yeah .

Speaker 2: 15:07

Because again, it's safe. It, it, you know, it largely accomplishes what people are trying to do with it mm-hmm. <affirmative> , um, uh, even in the doses that are recommended on these products and everything. Yeah. So that's all to the good. There is one small area to, to attend to though , um, with this, and this is really a general idea around buying supplements and herbal products, make sure that it's a good quality brand, make sure that you have some idea of how long they've been in business and what they're up to. Um, it's not to say that you don't buy some local elderberry syrup from a , a small scale producer, but you do wanna know who it is. You don't wanna grab the cheapest one off of Amazon. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. There have been some reports and the botanical adulterants prevention program recently had a bulletin around , um, adulterated , uh, elderberry products that were like, they took a bunch of, you know, purple pigments from some other cheaper plant and squirted that into their syrup juice thing and they sold that to people. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:00

Like purple corn syrup. Right, right . You know ? Yeah. Yeah . And listen, I mean, whenever something becomes a moneymaker, that is something that you do need to be concerned about. Um, it's not just elderberry. There are lots of , um, products out there that are found to be adulterated regularly. So it's worth , um, the adulterated project is shepherded by the American Botanical Council, if I remember correctly. I

Speaker 2: 16:28

Think it's like a collaboration between ABC and also apa .

Speaker 1: 16:31

Yeah, I was gonna say , uh, shepherded by ABC and supported by apa , which is the American , um, uh, American , American Herbal Products Association. That's the

Speaker 2: 16:42

One. Yeah. Yeah,

Speaker 1: 16:43

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 16:43

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 16:44

Um ,

Speaker 2: 16:44

Yeah. So that's good. You know, I mean, they are industry groups, but it's a collaboration and, and you know, the goal is like, let's not have a bunch of poorly made mm-hmm. <affirmative> bad quality, potentially problematic or even dangerous , uh, supplements running around out there and look like these folks do have a profit motive for that <laugh> . Right. If there's crappy products, if like the, the whole like, you know, range of supplements in general is more and more regarded as snake oil or, or falsity or whatever, that's gonna be bad for the bottom line, right. For

Speaker 1: 17:13

The whole industry. Yeah. Yeah .

Speaker 2: 17:14

So I like to point that out because, you know , I'm not in the habit of like making apologies for, you know, corporations or whatever <laugh> , um, or groups of them , uh, working together, but occasionally, you know, their interests align with the rest of ours mm-hmm. <affirmative> and , and that's nice.

Speaker 1: 17:28

Yeah. And I mean, as lobbies go, APA and ABC are pretty, pretty , um, pretty good. Good. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> . Yeah. Um, okay. So I really wanna talk about elder flour , but since we talked about the berries, I need to say one other thing here, which is that I, I , I just wanna get elder out of the colon flu box because that's where people, I just realized I'm wearing purple for the elder , um, segment. You're on theme . I like just looked down and I was like, ha , this is all elderberry colors. Um, okay. Anyway , um, if , if you're listening on the pod, you can't see, so you're just gonna have to trust the whatever. Okay. Anyway, sorry. Um, but the thing that I, I really wanna get elderberry an elder in general out of the cold and flu box because it's great there, but it does so much more. And so we can even before we launch into flowers, we can still talk about that with the berries because , um, the berries are that deep, dark, black, purple, blue kind of color, and that is bioflavonoid content. Like those colors are the, are the phytochemicals that are doing that anti-inflammatory antioxidant kind of protective action in the body. Um, and so you don't have to say, like, you don't have to find some book somewhere that says that elderberry is helpful for cardiovascular health because it strengthens the vasculature. You don't have to find that in print. You know, it is true because of the color, the cu the color is what does that job mm-hmm .

Speaker 2: 19:07

<affirmative> . Yeah. It

Speaker 1: 19:08

Just, you know, you don't, you don't need to lab test . It's like, it's one of those things where you can actually see the chemical who does the work because the chemical, the phytochemical is the thing that makes the color right . It's just , it blows my mind all of the time. It's so cool.

Speaker 2: 19:23

Yeah. And I mean, to get out of the cold and flu box, also, we can think about the way this plant's been understood historically and traditionally, you know, and one word that would kind of sum that up would be that this is an alternative . This is a nerve that can help to improve the quality of your circulating fluids. It can help to eliminate wastes, things like that. Um, in fact, some of those, you know , uh, some of those doses of elderberry that would affect your bowel movements that's connected to mm-hmm . <affirmative> , that sort of cleansing idea. Right. It's not somebody's maybe first thought as a laxative , uh, you know. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 19:56

I mean, you have to have a lot of it to get that kind of action, not like just a sprinkling on your granola, but like the whole, the whole container, you know?

Speaker 2: 20:04

Yeah. Or you can take them, you can cook them down, you can cook the water down, you know, to like a quarter of the original amount and drink that. Yeah. You're gonna get more of that kind of effect going on. Sure. Um , but again, historically it would be thought of as like an herb that aids in your body's capacity to clear wastes out of the system. And obviously that has much broader implications than, I have a cold right now, you know, I have runny nose or whatever mm-hmm . <affirmative> , um, indeed runny nose wouldn't even be the thing that would make you think of elderberry , um, in, in like a, you know, a pre virus , uh, knowing world.

Speaker 1: 20:36

Right. Right, right. Right. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> , um, although elder flour , maybe because elder flower does have a long , um, mm-hmm . <affirmative> association with fever and respiratory illness, but specifically the fever aspect of it because of the diaphoretic. Um, and, you know, it is super effective in that way. But when I think about the diaphoretic action of elder flower , honestly, I think a lot more of that on the emotional level than on the physiological level almost, because nobody really even needs to talk much about elder flour as a, as a fever herb. It's, it's like if anybody knows anything about herbalism, that is often like one of the few things that they will, you know, like it's , it's one of the things that you learn very early on. Um, and so I feel like it doesn't need a lot of emphasis, but that diaphoretic action has emotional aspects as well. And in particular, when we think about the diaphoretic action of elder flour, it is like a , just think about champagne bubbles, right? How they're bubbling up all of the time. Like you have this beautiful flute of champagne and all the little bubbles are just so pretty bubbling up. When I think about elder flour, I think about it's diaphoretic action in that way. So when you have collected a lot of heat and tension in your head, often in the form of anger, frustration, even anxiety, but maybe anxiety that has a little edge to it , you know , um, a little , a stabby anxiety kind of, not just like run of the mill , like soft, cuddly anxiety, but like <laugh> Yeah .

Speaker 2: 22:26

Yeah. That , that easy anxiety. Right ,

Speaker 1: 22:28

Right, right, right, right, right. Um, yeah. Um, but it's like very urgent anxiety. Right. Um , all of those kinds of feelings is like all of those champagne bubbles, like bubbling up and putting all the pressure on the cork of the champagne bottle. And then like, when you, when you start to open it, it like pops and champagne goes everywhere. When you are feeling like that emotionally, like you're about to pop and champagne will go everywhere, or your feelings of anger will go everywhere or whatever. Um, that's when I really think about elderflower to kind of just turn , like, turn those emotions into the very pretty sparkly bubbles that are gently floating to the top of the champagne glass instead of the force and power that will shoot the, the cork all the way across the room and hit someone in the eye and

Speaker 2: 23:22

Whatever. Yes. Do not point at your friends while opening. Yeah, exactly. Pretty sure that's what the little warning says on those

Speaker 1: 23:27

<laugh>. Yeah . Or do, if you're so angry that you need elder flower mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 23:32

<affirmative>. Yeah . Yeah. When we're making a formula like that, I feel like we often put elder flour together with lemon balm mm-hmm . <affirmative> , and often with catnip

Speaker 1: 23:44

Or linden or a chamomile mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 23:47

The linden , the linden and the lemon balm and the catnip both have that same kind of relaxant diaphoretic quality that elder does. Uh, Linden is a little different. Linden can be a relaxant diaphoretic, I suppose, but

Speaker 1: 24:00

You know, I

Speaker 2: 24:00

It's much more on the relaxant side than the specifically diaphoretic side .

Speaker 1: 24:04

Yeah. Okay. So I think about it this way, if you, if you have very head-based anger and anxiousness and like edgy, sharp feelings, it's really in your head, maybe you don't even feel the rest of your body. Um, then I'm thinking about elder flour , maybe even just straight elder flour . Um, if you have that kind of feeling and your whole body is kind of buzzing , you feel like just a buzz everywhere in your body in the nerves. That's when I'm adding Linden . When you have that kind of anger in your head and a pit in the, in the lower part of your guts or maybe lower gut cramping, that's when I'm thinking chamomile. When you have that anger in your head and heartburn or, and angry butterflies coming up out of your stomach. So like the up isn't just all in your head ready to pop, but also your whole body is roiling up also. And I think roiling is a really good word there. That's when I'm thinking of catnip also maybe lemon balm there. Um, lemon balm I feel like can be like when, when the heat of your anger is in your whole body and in your head, that's, that's really when I'm thinking about lemon balm , and like, more than one of those could be true at the same time. And then now you have a , a more complex formula. That's okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 25:36

Yeah. We can put all of them in there together.

Speaker 1: 25:39

But if you think about those descriptions, you can also see all the energetics of that. Like if you think about all your nerves buzzing, that that is a dryness and like a , like afraidness and Linden has that moistening action right. Directly to the nerve cells. And you , you could go through all of those examples and look like, oh, okay. Yeah. I see the energetics in that we're matching up in each of these situations. Right.

Speaker 2: 26:09

Right. And these are things that we might take as an infusion , uh, you know, nice hot cup of tea, but you might also try it as a tincture. And that could be easy to carry around. And especially if you realize that you're prone to this feeling of like the hot, angry heat building up in your emotional body and your liver and your heart and your brain and your face and all these places, then you might wanna just be able to reach into your little bag and grab some elder lemon balm and take a squirt of that and let it out. <laugh> .

Speaker 1: 26:38

Right . Honestly, I , if you're gonna make a tincture anyway, make it an elixir mm-hmm. <affirmative> because you're already feeling pretty bad. And if you're going to take droppers of something, take droppers of something that will be sweet and delicious and delightful. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> , because that will be a really nice surprise in that moment. Like, oh, no , okay. Something is nice. Sorry. Yes , yes. You know?

Speaker 2: 27:03

Yeah. Yeah. You know, you can always treat yourself like a four year old

Speaker 1: 27:07

<laugh> . It's okay . It's okay . Oh, sugar.

Speaker 2: 27:11

Great. I'm happier now. Yeah .

Speaker 1: 27:12

Yes. I'll have my elixir and a cookie please. <laugh> . It's all right . Yeah.

Speaker 2: 27:17

Uh , and hey, I mean, keep going with sugar. Right? Let's make a syrup

Speaker 1: 27:21

<laugh>.

Speaker 2: 27:22

You know, you can , you can do it if you have fresh elder flowers , you can just , uh, layer them, you know, flour layer, sugar layer, flour layer, sugar layer all the way up your jar. Leave that , leave that alone.

Speaker 1: 27:32

Usually, like traditionally, a a a little bit of lemon goes in there as well , like a very thin slice of lemon. And then not , not big thick slices cuz that overpowers the flavor, but just a little bit. Makes it really lovely.

Speaker 2: 27:44

Yeah. Yeah. You can also do a syrup by , um, making a honey infusion, you know Yeah . Of your, of your elder flowers and having that be the base. And

Speaker 1: 27:52

That's a little better because we aren't actually advocating for all the sugar here. But listen, life is real <laugh> , and if all the sugar is what's required, then no judgment here. Sure.

Speaker 2: 28:02

Yeah . Yeah. Uh , yes. And if you're , uh, whatever the proper age is for whatever jurisdiction you find yourself in , uh, there's also elder flour laur , and that's pretty nice stuff.

Speaker 1: 28:13

Yeah. Yeah. I really think we should make an elder flour mead. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . That would be quite lovely too.

Speaker 2: 28:20

Yeah, yeah . Yeah. That's a good idea.

Speaker 1: 28:22

You know,

Speaker 2: 28:23

We could , we could get the honey infused first and then we could also have that mixed with an infusion, and then we can throw some extra ones into the bottle while it's, while it's fermenting. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 28:32

Yeah , yeah , yeah. Okay . But, you know, we do have the , it , it needs to be fresh elder flowers. Right. Because dried elder elder flowers have that same flavor thing that elder berries have. When you make tea out of elder flowers or make tea out of elder berries, there's like this lovely flavor and then this additional dirt flavor or like sweat flavor or some weird, there's like a weird flavor that goes beside the lovely flavor that is not the case with the fresh flowers. I it, yeah. Fresh

Speaker 2: 29:06

Special. Yeah .

Speaker 1: 29:07

Yeah . Fancy. Yeah . Right .

Speaker 2: 29:10

Um, yeah, that's elder

Speaker 1: 29:13

<laugh> . That's elder. Okay . So you also will see sometimes , um, I like when covid was first kind of new people were like, have the bark. Have the leaves.

Speaker 2: 29:26

Yeah. Look ,

Speaker 1: 29:27

I , there is some toxicity there. It's not poisoned to kill you toxicity, but it is like , um,

Speaker 2: 29:36

Those parts are much more likely to cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, you know, that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1: 29:41

You don't have to eat a whole watermelon worth to get those feelings. No . Yeah,

Speaker 2: 29:46

Yeah, yeah. And there was, there was , um, a little bit too much made , uh, by certain authors about , uh, the antiviral proteins found in the elderly leaf . Um, this is a similar issue to something called poke antiviral protein. Um, which some of those same authors have also proposed as a , as a major factor in the way that poke preparations can infect , uh, immune activity and phy off viruses and so on. Um, the read that I get from people who are a little more rigorous about their phyto chemistry is that these things are not actually gonna be functional outside of a Petri dish. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So you can take poke leaf, you can take , you can take elder leaf, you can make an extract from it, you can squirt it onto a virus colony in a Petri dish and you can see them die. That's cool. But that's not necessarily relevant to drinking infusion of these things in a human body and somehow getting those constituents to the site of the viral infection. Right. Yeah . That's always the problem. That's always the first thing to ask yourself when you read about something like this, oh, you're gonna take this by mouth and it's gonna go have impacts. Where, where in the body, where's the covid ? Where's the flu hanging out? Is it in my mouth? Is it in my stomach? Is it in my intestine?

Speaker 1: 30:58

Is it in my blood vessels?

Speaker 2: 31:00

Is it if , if not, like we need a , we need a , we need a way for the constituents to get there. And sometimes that can happen, right? You can take garlic and you can have a strong impact on your respiratory mucosa. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , because of the way the sulfur compounds in garlic move through your body and get eliminated through the lungs as a pathway of, of excretion. But that's not gonna happen with every substance you ingest. So anyway, the , the takeaway here is that I'm, I'm not very sanguine about the idea of elder bark or elder leaf preparations as being a hundred times more powerful than elderberry or, or whatever other claims you're gonna

Speaker 1: 31:33

Hear about that. Yeah. No, yeah . Hey, but you know, whose leaves are awesome is sassafras. And this is , um, this is a little trend that I'm kind of on lately anyway, of enjoying the leaves of plants where we typically work with the root , um mm-hmm . <affirmative> , we just got a big bag of Angelica leaves. Yeah . And I don't usually have a lot of an , i I enjoy Angelica leaves a lot and also the stock , but I, I can't usually get it. But , um, we did just get some, and it's really, really exciting. Mm . Um, but that is true for sassafras leaf as well. And , um, it's, it's really a lovely, a lovely tea.

Speaker 2: 32:26

Yeah. Yeah. Um, <laugh> , I, I'm sort of wondering in this moment if this is our Yankee showing here, you know, because like

Speaker 1: 32:33

Your Yankee, I was raised in Texas.

Speaker 2: 32:35

Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, <laugh> .

Speaker 1: 32:37

Sure,

Speaker 2: 32:37

Sure. But that's still not like, you know, Louisiana situation where you're gonna have , uh, food items such as , uh, say a gumbo made with sassafras leaf as a thickener, that kind of thing.

Speaker 1: 32:51

We will not be doing that in this house. No, no,

Speaker 2: 32:54

No thickeners,

Speaker 1: 32:55

No gumbo.

Speaker 2: 32:56

Ah , I see. But like, that is a place you hear about people working with sassafras leaf though, right. Is as a thickening agent. And what does that mean? That means that you throw it into a pot of some liquid and it gets more viscous, it gets more, one might even say collagenous . Haha .

Speaker 1: 33:12

Haha .

Speaker 2: 33:13

Yeah. So that's what's interesting about the sassafras leaf is that like the root is a , is a fairly drying agent. Right. It's gonna act on your liver and your kidneys, and it's gonna get those draining, like eliminative actions going on. But the leaf has a moistening quality.

Speaker 1: 33:27

The leaf is one of those, you know, it, it does, but it also has a stringency, it has a very similar astringency to black tea. Mm . And even like a little bit of a black tea flavor. It's, it is really, it's, it's like fancier than black tea

Speaker 2: 33:56

Uhoh . They're gonna come for us <laugh>.

Speaker 1: 33:58

The ,

Speaker 2: 33:58

The , the Chael crew is coming. <laugh> ?

Speaker 1: 34:01

No, no, no, no. It's,

Speaker 2: 34:03

It's nothing is fancier than a well-made puer .

Speaker 1: 34:05

Okay. But like Earl Gray is fancier. Right? There's like some, some little bit of extra in there . Right . It's like black tea with a little bit of fancy in there . Sassafras has that kind of flavor, and it is not moistening on the level of Linden, you know, it's , uh, maybe, maybe with a cold infusion, but like a hot infusion is not, it certainly isn't like marshmallow. And yet you can feel it, you can feel that there is something there. And then it just has like a little jacket of as stringency on top. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: 34:39

<affirmative>. Yeah. You know , um, the sassafras leaf, we've been adding it to a lot of things recently for, like you've been saying, like a touch of moistening quality mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, a lot of times I'll sneak this into a formula that I'm mostly making for you,

Speaker 1: 34:55

<laugh>,

Speaker 2: 34:56

You know, maybe it's some calendula and self-heal and Heather Flowers.

Speaker 1: 35:00

Yep . That's

Speaker 2: 35:01

For me. Well, I'm gonna drink this too. So I'm gonna put in a couple of spoons of the sassafras leaf, because I know that it will mitigate those drying , uh, effects for me and make it more tolerable. But also this is, I think this may be the like , uh, moistening cogent that you're most happy to have included

Speaker 1: 35:22

<laugh> because it's so gentle. It's like, I'm not gonna slime you. Don't worry. You're just, we're just gonna just, just a little bit of moistening. You can handle it. And I appreciate that. I, I really appreciate it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I, I like knowing, oh, don't worry. There's still a smidge of like, just a little bit of a stringency in here too. Like, we're, we're balanced. We're, we're not, we're not gonna slime you. That's what it comes down to. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 35:50

It could be good to compare this to purple loose strife, because purple loose strife also shares that capacity to have both some ul some silage, but also some astringency. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , some tannins. Mm-hmm . Like plants are allowed to have both these qualities at the same time. Um, you know, it's, it , it can feel a little confusing and confusing. Only if you assume all astringency ultimately equals drying. And all demulcent uls ultimately equals moistening. And those two are in a strong conflict. It'd be more accurate to say that Yeah. The demulcents are gonna bring moisture, the astringent bring tone. Right. Tonification. And this is, this is like, I feel like it's a good illustration of why we really do need that third term when we talk about energetics, hot and cold, moist and dry. That's super important. Foundational. You find versions of that turning up at the roots of, of every traditional, you know, energetic , uh, system that, that we've encountered. Um, but tonifying versus relaxant or tense versus loose, that one really adds a lot of depth. It adds that third dimension mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, to this kind of work. Um, and it really, I think, helps to resolve some things that seem contradictory. If you were only to have hot or cold or moisture dry as like energetic qualities indicated by taste or by flavor, you would feel the astringent scene. You'd say like, well, this has to be drying, but when you can add in that element of toning, and you can keep tonifying and moistening as two separate, possibly concurrent actions of the same plant, then some really cool stuff opens up for you.

Speaker 1: 37:22

Mm-hmm . Yeah . You can kind of think of it like you , since we mentioned gumbo, which I know lots of people love, but I just don't, but you can think about it like okra, like , um, is it, is it slimy like okra or is it a more refined kind of moisture? <laugh> , like sassafras <laugh>. Okay . Growing up, the only way I could possibly eat okra was if it was deep fried. And that's not, that's not very helpful. I mean, don't get me wrong, it is very tasty. It's not

Speaker 2: 38:06

A particularly eg preparation of this.

Speaker 1: 38:08

It's not No, no, no. It's basically they have like dried all the mucilaginous aspect up and , uh mm-hmm . <affirmative> and then, yeah. So, but, but, so, you know, you think, or like, while you were describing the toning part, it's like, you know, if you fill a Ziploc bag and not a freezer bag, the , the thin sandwich bag kind of zippo bag, if you fill that up with water and then zip it, it's like very , um, it, it , it's extremely lax. It doesn't have any, yes, it's full of water, great. But it has no integrity of its own. It, it just flops wherever you put it. Versus if you take a mason jar and fill it full of water, it's full of water. Um, and it is very contained. It will stay exactly where you put it. Um, it's, it's like a , a hard container. And so you can think about if you have moistening action with no toning action to it, you have your Ziploc baggy full of water versus if you have this lovely sassafras leaf where it's like, here's my teacup with the sassafras inside it. And it's not floppy. It's not wobbly , uh, it's neatly contained moisture.

Speaker 2: 39:39

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Valuable.

Speaker 1: 39:42

Yes.

Speaker 2: 39:43

Okay. Well we should talk about the root though, or the root bark.

Speaker 1: 39:49

Yes. Because delicious mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Oh, and also functional. Yeah,

Speaker 2: 39:53

Yeah. Yeah. I've made , uh, that's the, the leaf infusion over there. I have this decoction, which I did not just go with straight up sassafras root bark here. I put it together with some friends , um, as is usual, I put it together with some sars, barilla sassafras, and Sars barilla and a couple of others are kind of the core of a root beer type flavor. Um, today though, instead of using smla , sars Barilla, I had some Heus indicus, the , um, the Indian Indian SARS Barilla.

Speaker 1: 40:25

Do you know this morning , uh, when I was , um, making space for catnip in this dirt that was not previously gardened, but is becoming garden , um, there was a little bit of wild sas barilla out there . Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , which is an Aurelia species mm-hmm . <affirmative> . Um, and I did not want to dig any of it up. I wanted it to stay, so there will be catnip with interspersed wild TAs , perilla, and that's fantastic. But I was not paying close enough attention. And there was one that was small and I dug it before I noticed. And wild TAs perilla this , um, Aurelia species has , um, long roots. So like when you see them in the woods, they're all connected. Actually. They , they're like, their roots are like

Speaker 2: 41:19

Runners.

Speaker 1: 41:20

Yeah. Underground. Yeah . Underground. Yeah . Um, and so this was just one little, little, he was only like maybe three inches tall or four inches tall, but the root underneath was, was , um, also , I mean, not super thick, but long and thick enough. And my point here is that, oh, we can put it in with the Yeah,

Speaker 2: 41:42

We should, yeah.

Speaker 1: 41:43

Yeah. In the decoction.

Speaker 2: 41:44

Yeah. Cuz I had run out of Slacs and I was like, oh, that's no good. I , I need, I want some SAR per in here. But fortunately we had heuss instead, now we can have Aurelia. Yeah. Yes. We can have a whole bunch of sa

Speaker 1: 41:56

So many different sa barilla plants. Yeah . And they're not like, listen, these aren't related. They just are related by the name SAEs Barilla.

Speaker 2: 42:04

Yeah. And to some extent, by their actions,

Speaker 1: 42:06

You know, the right, the name SA Barilla and also like a similar functionality, but that similar functionality is not happening because it's like peppermint spearmint. Yeah. You know, it's not that kind of si similarity. These are plants that are not necessarily related, but but still have similar mechanisms mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Speaker 2: 42:28

Yeah . Yeah. Right. Um, and then also I put in a touch of ginger and some birch bark for the , uh, for the , uh, the methyl salicylates . Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , that winter greeny type of flavor. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . So yeah. So this is kind of , sort of a root beer type of a blend. Um , this is a combo where I often like to sneak in some adaptogens. Today I put in , um, goji berry, that was the , the major one. And I was gonna throw in some licorice, but I know you don't like it. Thank you. So I went with goji berry instead as an alt alternative , uh, sweetened , uh, sweetening. Adaptogens. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yep . Got that in the mix there today . This is the way that I usually take safras . I gotta say, is this in a , in a decoction this way ? In a combination like this. Yeah . Yeah.

Speaker 1: 43:13

And, you know, root beer in general, like when we say root beer today, we have a very specific flavor in mind. Yeah. But root beer traditionally was , um, a category of uh , a category of recipes who did the same thing in the body, but did not always have the same ingredients. And so that the thing that they were doing in the body was this like kind of spring cleaning type of action , um, getting all of your juices flowing, helping with pathways of elimination. Right . This is alternative action, sort of just doing a nice fluid refresh throughout the body.

Speaker 2: 44:06

Yeah. Wake up the liver and the kidneys. Make sure your bowels are getting everything out that doesn't need to stay in. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 44:14

And not, not in a like purgative kind of way. Nope . Um, just in a, oh hey, you know, I should probably vacuum over there. Like not , you know what I mean? It isn't like, oh, we're just gonna tear everything down and build it again. No, no. We're just gonna tidy up.

Speaker 2: 44:31

Yeah. Yeah. But I've always liked to , um, to take this kind of a formula and say, well, that's great. Let's do some, you know, some, some cleaning, some some inner detoxification. Uh, and at the same time, we can also work with some adaptogens to boost up some stress resilience and that kind of thing. Mm . Um, they fit in together really well. You're making a decoction anyway , so throw some MOA in there, throw some ashwagandha in there. That's fine. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , the , um, even, even the ones like ashwagandha by itself, it's not the most delicious decoction Right. But you put in these herbs, you brought in the effect of the formula , you make it taste better and then somebody might actually drink it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Cause uh , I know you podcast listener are willing to drink things that are bitter and earthy and <laugh> taste like peppery mud and all kinds of stuff like that. Cuz you're, you're, you're cool with it. Right. Um, but you know, sometimes you want to give these things to a friend who hasn't had a , a , you know, hasn't had the delightful opportunity to chew on a root that they just dug out of the ground. <laugh>.

Speaker 1: 45:33

Okay . That part is pretty ,

Speaker 2: 45:34

Have those like emotional connections to it, whatever. Yeah. Um ,

Speaker 1: 45:37

<laugh> . But, but on the other hand , like, listen, even when you've been in our blessed for a long time, sometimes you're like, I just can't do bitter today. It's just this is not the day for bitter. I would like, I would like my medicine to taste like root beer please. And that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that. Yeah . You know , um, a couple other ones who would be nice in that blend would be co opsis and astragalus. Um, both have a mild sweet flavor. Both of them actually taste quite lovely even by themselves. Um , but they have a little mild sweet flavor. So you're getting that kind of root beer sweetness that you, that you expect , um, in there. Yeah. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Speaker 2: 46:21

Yeah. Okay. One other thing with sassafras, right? Because it is, it is this herb that acts on your liver and, and it can, you know, get things moving and flowing through there. You also will see warnings about sassafras in regarding the liver. And this is connected to a constituent called SAF roll . Um, the FDA doesn't allow sassafras extracts to be used as flavoring agents unless they go through a process that eliminates this constituent from them. And the reason is that they're worried about saff being carcinogenic. Uh , but as is the case with a number of herbal constituents and therefore the herbs that they travel in , um, this is situation where the constituent is present in the root in relatively low amounts mm-hmm . <affirmative> compared to the amounts that were administered to the test animals that did lead to cancerous growth. So by this, I mean, you know, if you take an extract of the plant and you distill it down and you isolate one chemical and you concentrate that and give it to an animal at whatever, you know , uh, milligrams , uh, of substance per gram of, of weight of the mouse, and then you scale up that amount to a human size, and then you look at how much of a giant pile of sassafras root bark it would take for you to eat or drink or do whatever to, to ingest that equivalent amount of saff roll that's threatening to, to liver function. It's not actually possible under normal circumstances if we're talking about going from the chopped up root bits in a jar on your counter to something that you prepare at home. Um, yeah.

Speaker 1: 48:01

It , it especially requires lab work to concentrate it enough to create the dangerous situation.

Speaker 2: 48:07

Yeah. Especially with, with water preparations, which are the most traditional, you know, and , and have the longest history of, of being applied. Uh, there's some evidence that a tincture is gonna extract a , a somewhat higher proportion of sled than a , than a water extract is, but of course we take much smaller doses of tincture mm-hmm . <affirmative> than we do of decoction. And so that, that sort of balances that out. Um, if somebody was really worried about liver function, if they had had previous liver damage or, you know, cirrhosis or other issues like that, I could, I could see a rationale for wanting to steer clear of this plant just on, on a , an abundance of

Speaker 1: 48:42

Caution, but Right, right, right.

Speaker 2: 48:44

Um, but for most folks who are doing pretty well and have a functioning liver and all of that , um, I don't think that there's any particular need to get worried about, about having some sassafras now and again , um, especially if it is now and again, especially if it is in formulation with other herbs, especially if it's in , uh, a decoction or a water extract, you know? Yeah . So that's where we come down on that particular issue. Yeah .

Speaker 1: 49:06

But definitely don't extract the ral content and concentrate it and then inject it into your bloodstream that will cause problems. Don't do that. I think

Speaker 2: 49:17

It's, I think it's a bad idea.

Speaker 1: 49:18

Yeah. That be be about it idea . But

Speaker 2: 49:19

Honestly, I think that's a bad idea for a lot of constituents in plants. Yes. You know, even ones that are pretty benign otherwise, <laugh> ,

Speaker 1: 49:25

I mean, really like, just like injecting things is that's a , that's serious. You gotta

Speaker 2: 49:31

Know what you're doing. Right. You know what you're doing. We gotta know. We gotta have, yeah. We gotta know . That doesn't , I

Speaker 1: 49:34

Don't think I would just inject chamomile tea either. Like

Speaker 2: 49:38

Yeah , no , you , but of course we're being a little facetious here, but our broader point is just like, that's not identical physiologically, chemically, you know, in terms of safety or whatever mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, so conclusions that are made based on is isolating a compound and in , and injecting it intravenously or, or whatever, those don't translate directly over to what happens when we make him drink tea.

Speaker 1: 50:01

Right . Which is kind of a bummer. Like, like basically what they did was they said, oh, at high concentrations, this can be dangerous. That should not be the end of the story. That was the end of the story. That's what got published and what everybody learned about. Yeah . But that should actually be the beginning of the story. And then they should say, okay, how, how relevant is this in each type of preparation that we might make? Yeah . And that's the data that we actually Right . Needed that study to get to.

Speaker 2: 50:31

Yeah. I guess to be, to be , uh, an advocate for whoever this may be. I don't think it's the devil exactly. But , um, but one thing that I, I do try to bring back to my own mind sometimes when I get a little frustrated about these, like prohibitions on various herbs or extracts or whatever, is that these regulations are built around like extraordinary unusual behavior. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, like somebody who I don't know , uh, took some, took, I'm trying to think of a sassafras example. You know, somebody who was like taking a product that was made with a bunch of sassafras extract before all of these changes went into the law, but they were consuming like 30 of these things in a day, or they were Right. You know, they were drinking nothing but sassafras extract for a month. Or, you know, like , cause we have other examples from other plants like that, you know, somebody who died from comfrey because he ate nothing else for like a season or somebody who, you know, had heart high blood pressure from licorice because they ate two boxes of this really concentrated extract candy thing. You know, so a lot of times these laws are built around behavior that seems absurd to most of us. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and that can be frustrating, but I'm also like, well, people are gonna do that stuff

Speaker 1: 51:46

<laugh> . Yeah . Somebody out there has done it. Like that's, you know , that's how, that's how it occurred to people to study it. Yeah . So, okay.

Speaker 2: 51:54

And , and so I can kind of get to a place where I'm like , all right , sure. For the , for the, for the mass market, for somebody who, who wants to, to, you know, make a candy product or whatever, it's probably better that we keep these kind of rules on the books, but at the same time, we need to be able to acknowledge that for an individual herbalist at home who likes to make a root beer , decoction every now and again, sassafras is not a threat to their liver health mm-hmm. <affirmative> , you know, and to just to be able to distinguish these cases really

Speaker 1: 52:19

Clearly. Right. Right. Right.

Speaker 2: 52:21

Yeah. Okay. Um, cool. Well, I think we're, we're gonna wrap up here. I did wanna , uh, make a , a brief add for one of our courses. Um, and this is our course, elements of Detoxification wanted to bring this one up because both, both elder and Sassafras, they can turn up in, in discussions of detox. Mm . Whether those are ancient or modern. Right. Um, <laugh> , you know, in the modern world, a lot of people look at detox and they're like, I'm gonna cleanse myself. I'm gonna get all those wastes out. I'm gonna empty my colon. This is gonna be wonderful. I'm

Speaker 1: 52:53

Going to like detoxify my, you know.

Speaker 2: 52:56

Yeah. Thinking of it as a sort of , uh, a thing that is done in a short timeframe with some kind of an intense intervention. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> usually involving a lot of poop

Speaker 1: 53:06

<laugh>. Um ,

Speaker 2: 53:07

This is sort of the modern approach to detox and what a lot of kits and products and, you know , wonder cures or whatever are gonna, are gonna be built around is that , is that model of detox. What we offer in this course is a really different view. Um, we look at detoxification as a natural process of your body that's going on in every cell and every system of your body all the time that it's necessary to life. That it's an ongoing process, one that we can support and we can improve and we can , uh, we can like energize , uh, through herbs and through holistic practices, but not something that you need to like, block off a couple days where no one's gonna see you

Speaker 1: 53:49

<laugh>, where you're just going to drink like lemon juice and, and uh , maple syrup or whatever, you know? Right . Yeah.

Speaker 2: 53:55

Yeah. Um, so, you know, we offer this , uh, this elemental model of detoxification, looking at it from the lens of earth, air, fire, and water, ways that those can manifest in our herb choices and also our, our holistic actions. You know, sleep and movement and things like that.

Speaker 1: 54:10

You know, it's kinda like the clean as you go , approach to detox, which is gentler for your body, healthier because you're not letting stuff pile up. And then what , like , just, just constant maintenance and repair. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> .

Speaker 2: 54:25

Yeah . Yeah. Uh, so you can find that course elements of Detoxification along with all of our other courses at online dot Common and wealth herbs.com . Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. All right . We'll see you there. Um, we'll be back soon with another episode of the Holistic Herbalism Podcast. Until then, take care of yourselves, take care of each other, drink some tea, drink

Speaker 1: 54:48

Some tea,

Speaker 2: 54:49

And put some leaves and flowers in it.

Speaker 1: 54:51

Yes, yes , <laugh> .

Speaker 2: 54:53

Bye everyone.