In this case a banned substance was in a herbal formula. This is very different to seeing a trained western medical herbalist who would make up a unique medicine specifically formulated for the patient.
I have just bought a new camera! I am very excited by it as not only does it take great photos but it does video as well. I especially like the macro setting which takes really good close ups, fab for taking pics of plants.
So armed with my new toy I hope to keep a visual diary of the changing seasons and a log of the herbs that are growing all around us.
Here are a few shots I took on a very cold a frosty Valentine morning on a walk around Hulme where I live.
The Ethnomedica Project is run by Kew Gardens. It is recording the remembered herbal remedies that have been passed down through families or ones that people remember someone telling them about. This is our oral tradition which is in danger of being lost.
I have just become a collector for this project so if you have any family or old remedies that you would be happy to be recorded please contact me.
Now is the time that the beautiful little coltsfoot flowers begin to appear. These are perhaps the earliest spring flowers, along with the snow drops and crocuses. They tend to grow on waste land so are good one for city dwellers to spot. Mind you if you are gathering them try to find a place free of dogs!
I have make a… cough syrup from these using a similar process to the one I use for my Thyme & Onion Syrup.
I also found this great blog called Eat Weeds that has an intersting page on Coltsfoot with a video by Chris Holland showing how to identify the plant and introducing the culinary and medicinal properties.
These are some pics of Coltsfoot I found on wikimedia common:
Just had a great afternoon at the Chorlton Happy Swap Party on the Chrolton Plant Swap stall. Met John Leech, Lib Dem MP for Withington and had a really good chat with him about Statutory Regulation for herbalists.
Also made some good contacts for possible future events including a grow your own herbal medicine cabinet workshop hopefully in May and for a herb walk/demo/stall at the Chorlton Big Green Festival in March.
Happy New Year! As the winter takes its toll and there seems to be lots of nasties floating about I have written up my recipe for Thyme & Onion Cough Syrup, one of my beat flu remedies.
This is really easy to make, using simple ingredients that you may have in the kitchen cupboard. I developed this recipe from one given to me by my friend Kath which was passed to her through her family. It is therefore a real traditional family remedy which is used because it works!
In fact onions are one of the main plants that people tend to remember being used as medicine. Kew Gardens is currently collecting many of these recipes as part of their Ethnomedica Project. I am in the process of becoming a volunteer for this project so that I can help to record our oral traditions and hopefully revive some of these old remedies.
Just thought I would update you all on my progress with developing my recipes for my talk, Beat Flu with Home Remedies and herb gathering.
I have been concocting several remedies which, although come from traditional recipes, have needed some experimentation to adapt and develop to our modern tastes. Hence I have been up to my elbows in slices of onion and sugar attempting to get the quantities right for my Thyme and Onion Cough Syrup. This has proved somewhat tricky as too much sugar and it turns to jam and too little and it could ferment and explode in the cupboard! I now thankfully have it right and have various patients trialling it on their coughs.
Yesterday was a definite root day. I was digging them up all over Manchester. I started in Whalley Range, just around the corner from my practice with a rather wonderful Elecampane. This was in the garden of a friend of mine who earlier this year asked me to look at a strange plant that had appeared outside her front door. With its giant leaves and sunflower like flowers I immediately recognised it as Inula helenium or Elecampane. As the roots are a fantastic cough remedy I am tincturing them and also going to try making them into cough sweets. I was also on my allotment digging up Horseradish root to make into Horseradish vinegar, another remedy I will be demonstrating on the 7th Dec.
Oh well back too it, I must get that blend of spices right for my Lozenge recipe…..
Is it really a week since I was on Countryfile? It has all been a bit of whorl since then.
Mind you I guess it hasn’t really stopped since I was invited to do it a few weeks ago. At the time it was all the excitement of the filming which was of course great fun! However then came the wait (anyone who knows me will tell you I am not the most patient of people!) and the agony of whether anyone would be able to find this website!
Right in the middle of this I also organised and ran a public meeting about the future of Herbal Medicine at Hulme Community Garden Centre. If any of you do not yet know about this I urge you to visit the NIMH Act Now website as the deadline for the consultation on the statutory regulation of medical herbalists has been extended to Monday 16th November 2009. This gives you an extra 2 weeks to let the government know that you support us in becoming a recognised healthcare profession.
So Sunday finally arrived and there I was! I thought it was great, I hope I put over the medicinal properties of Elderberries well and I liked that Julia introduced herbal medicine as being widely accepted. It was a bit unfortunate that there was not more time to expand on the syrup recipe and the current issues we face as an industry. However I hope that people will find more about this here and at NIMH.
The rest of the week has been catching up with my patients and teaching work, responding to all your enquiries (thanks!) and preparing for my day at the Museum of Science and Industry on Friday.
This felt like another successful day, what a great event. Lots of families came to find out about all aspects of biomedicine. I was on the NIMH stall asking them to decide from a whole range of herbs, spices, fruits and vegetables, which where foods and which medicines. Of course the answer was that they were all both! This led to lots of great discussions about herbal medicine and some lovely remembered remedies from the grandparents which were shared with the kids.
Oh well this week hopefully should be a little easier. I am mainly going into the herb lab to develop some more remedies, so will keep you posted on my progress.
