Tag: herbal wellness

Herbal Medicine, Nutrition + Health, Running, Summertime

Nettles and Rose Herbal Tea

by RebeccaLeave a Comment on Nettles and Rose Herbal Tea

Today I’m sharing a tea formula that’s lovely, sweet, floral, and cooling. Perfect for early and mid-summer, when nettles and roses are growing wild, and we need a cooling “tonic” to drink.

Nettles are one of the nine sacred plants in old Wessex, a kingdom in the south of Great Britain from around 500-900 AD. They were used earlier by the Greeks in at least the first century as a medicinal plant. And they’re just as revered today as a tonic herb in Western Medicine.

Nettles are extremely rich in nutrients including calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, silica, zinc, selenium and chromium and are useful for nourishing the blood and adrenals, and supporting the liver in detoxification. 

Nettles are most commonly used as a general tonic when you’re overworked, chronically tired, and needing nutrients. Nettles are incredibly nutrient rich–so much so, you can taste it, especially when they’re used fresh. Many people use strong nettle infusions for calcium and the other nutrients they contain, as an alternative to taking supplements. If you also start to drink nettles daily for some time, your hair, nails and skin will start to have a healthy glow!

I don’t usually take nettles in high dose amounts, but it’s rare for a day to go by without having at least one cup of tea that doesn’t contain 20 percent or more of nettle leaves.

Energetically, nettles are cooling and drying. Those two components translate to being slightly bitter and astringent in taste. Personally, I like to balance these two flavors in a formula with a touch of sweet from licorice.

Like nettles, roses also have an incredibly long history of use, both as a nutritive food, medicine, and in skin / beauty care. Rose petals have a particular affinity for healing the skin, whether it’s acne, scars, varicose veins or capillary damage, eczema, and more. They are anti-inflammatory and also like nettles, can be used daily as a tonic herb. Rose is also a nervine tonic, meaning it’s supportive of the nervous system!

Energetically, rose petals are cooling and moistening. The flavor, beyond just “floral,” is slightly bitter, sweet, and astringent. In Ayurvedic medicine, roses are often recommended for consumption during the hot summer months, and for overheated Pitta constitutions, a feature of their being cooling and moistening during the time of year when both we and the season are typically hot and dry.

Licorice root is one of my favorite and most used herbs. The flavor is not anise and licorice-candy. Rather, it’s extremely sweet and slightly bitter. Licorice is an extremely important herb in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), where it tonifies the spleen and Qi, and also clears internal heat. It is particularly helpful for the adrenals, soothing an inflamed digestive system, moistening the lungs, and relieving pain.

In herbal formulas, licorice is commonly used in a small amount because it acts as a harmonizer to bring the other herbs together and provide a more pleasant taste.

Energetically, licorice root is warming/neutral, and moistening. It’s flavor is very sweet and slightly bitter.

Nettles and Rose Herbal Tea

Prep:  none  | Serves: 1
Energetics + Flavor: Cooling, Slightly Moistening; Bitter, Astringent + Sweet

1 Tbs. dried nettle leaves (Urtica dioica)
½ Tbs. dried rose petals (Rosa x damascena,  Rosa nutkana, or Rosa canina)
Pinch of licorice root (Glycyrrhiza glabra)
12 oz. boiling water

  1. Bring water to a boil. While it’s boiling, combine the dried herbs in an herbal infuser or disposable tea filter. 
  2. When it has boiled, pour the water over the herbs in your mug. If you have an easy lid available, cover the mug. This will allow more of the medicinal constituents to stay within the tea rather than rising in the air in the steam. 
  3. Let infuse for 10-20 minutes, and longer if desired. 
  4. Drink when warm, or allow to cool to room temperature. 

Notes:
– If you have high blood pressure, omit the licorice root. If you’d like a touch of sweetness, add a couple drops of honey after the herbs have infused and it’s no longer piping hot.
-Good sources of these herbs if you need to order include: Mountain Rose Herbs and Starwest Botanicals. For Roses, you can collect the wild Nootka Rose petals locally during the late spring and summer months, or purchase rose petals. Diaspora Co. has incredibly high quality Paneer/Damask Rose petals, shown in the photo.
Amazon is not a great source for herbs since they are frequently lower quality/questionable sources. 

Autumn, Herbal Medicine, Nutrition + Health, Running, Winter

Rooibos Masala Chai

by Rebecca1 Comment on Rooibos Masala Chai

Let’s talk about tea, and more specifically caffeine.

The last few years, I’ve taken a semi-annual mini break from my morning (caffeinated) black tea ritual. In part because caffeine can be both good and bad, helpful to athletic performance and health, but also contributing to imbalance.

The bad includes disrupting female hormone metabolism and stress hormones, providing another chemical for our often overloaded livers to break down and excrete, drying out the body over time leading to constipation and dryness, raising blood pressure, and being just a little too stimulating on certain days when we’re already naturally over-stimulated (hello, way too many open tabs and general 21st century overwhelm).

Perhaps because of my history with disordered eating and controlling-my-food tendencies, I also think it’s a good idea to periodically question what it is we’re attached to. Why are we attached to it? Can we loosen up the mind’s attachments, and then the body’s? Is it contributing to some of our other health symptoms?

My planned caffeine break coincided with just having finished reading Michael Pollan’s latest book, This is Your Mind on Plants. In his typical great-storytelling pattern, Pollan takes us into the history and politics of caffeine use in one third of the book, as well as his own personal experience going off, and then back on, caffeine. It made me even more curious about my — and our — attachment to the daily cup or two of warm and fuzzy stimulation.

In my case, going off my not-that-much-caffeine daily tea ritual was much more symptomatic than the idea of it I was attached to. (It turns out when you decide to change your mind about what you’re attached to, you’re already no longer attached to it). And though my mind was not suddenly cloudy and unable to do anything productive without caffeine – like Pollan’s– it also wasn’t suddenly more focused and productive when I added a little back in after a couple week break.

While I was on break from black tea, I began making this Rooibos Masala Chai instead, and still am most days. Its’ simple, lightly spicy, and nuanced. Red rooibos is a popular caffeine-free herbal option from South Africa, and is often pronounced “Roy Buhs.” Rooibos literally translates to “Red Bush” in the Afrikaans language, so think of that if it helps you to remember it’s pronunciation.

This is a nice break from caffeine option or when you’d like to enjoy a quick at-home masala chai. When making the masala chai spice blend, using freshly ground spices will result in the best, most potent flavor. Diaspora Masala Chai blend is an excellent alternative to purchase and supports the real cost of spices (premium quality, fair trade / fair wages).

Prep:  3-5 minutes   | Infuse: 10 minutes  | Serves: 1

12 oz. water
1 Tbs. red rooibos tea (loose-leaf)
1/2 -3/4 tsp. Masala chai blend (see below)
Non-dairy milk of choice, optional

Masala Chai Blend (makes enough for about 13-18 cups)
1 Tbs. ground cardamom
1 Tbs. ground ginger
1 ½ tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground fennel seed
⅛ tsp. ground black pepper
1/16 tsp. ground cloves

  1. Bring water to a boil in a tea kettle or in a small pan on the stove. 
  2. In a tea basket, measure out the rooibos leaves and masala chai spices. 
  3. When the water has boiled, pour it over the tea and infuse for 10 minutes. Then add a couple splashes of non-dairy milk and enjoy warm.

To make the Masala Blend: 

  1. Combine all freshly ground spices in a small container with a tight-fitting lid. Stir to mix thoroughly or cap the lid and gently shake.  
Herbal Medicine, Journal, Nutrition + Health, Running, Spring

Answers to the Big Questions and a Hearty Runner’s Brunch Hash

by Rebecca1 Comment on Answers to the Big Questions and a Hearty Runner’s Brunch Hash

Lately, I’ve returned to reading two books. First the Purgatorio, the second in Dante’s Divine Comedy. My former English professor and deacon at my church in Corvallis has been leading a weekly class lately guiding us through the Purgatorio and the timing feels just about right since the class began the Wednesday of Holy Week and is leading us through this continued period of staying at home and distancing. Purgatory—the place between two more known-of places—seems the perfect description for where we all are now.

If there’s anything I can pick up from Dante’s 14th century poem, it’s that it gets easier as we keep going.

The other book I’ve begun again is Sajah Popham’s Evolutionary Herbalism: Science, Spirituality, and Medicine from the Heart of Nature—a reading I encourage everyone, yes everyone to read. For it guides you back to a perspective I think we all had as children and lost along the way.

I’ve been considering a lot these last few weeks. About this space, this encouraging journal and recipe guide of sorts, my role as a nutritionist and in the community, health and true wellness, and of course, nature.

On that note, I wrote in two questions for a couple of favorite podcasts a few months ago and surprising to me, both questions were answered by the respective individuals this past week. Unsurprisingly –if you know me—my questions were on the topics of sustainability and having a lower ‘footprint’ as a company, and on navigating faith and spirituality amongst busy seasons and family traditions that don’t partake in that faith. I know. I know. I like to ask the tough questions.

So why am I bringing all that up here? This past week my big questions semi-paralleled with those of Brett Farrell, the founder of Territory Run Co., for which I am a content ambassador and contribute seasonal articles. Brett spoke about his own big questions, the clothing industry’s own climate footprint, challenges with community, and more. Check out those here and here. As well as recent contributions on the Territory Run Journal – there are several excellent and thoughtful articles there lately.

What I was really reminded of however, was that in a conversation with Brett about a year ago, I spoke about the draw of trail running, the joy and peace and healing it has brought me personally, and about getting to the know the medicine around me—literally coming to know the plants I spend time with on the trails. Though I’ve only written or spoken about it in pieces, I came to an interest in herbs and herbalism like a lot of individuals. I was really sick, in a way that modern medicine wasn’t going to cure or even temporarily fix. And after a while of taking various herbs and formulas which my doctor gave me, and around the same period spending more of my running hours in the forest, the plants reached out to me and pulled me in, sometimes sharing themselves in profound ways –like being pulled to a stop suddenly alongside a trail, staring captivatedly at one, and (internally) asking, who are you? Crazily enough at times, I’d find I had my answer when the plant’s name simply came to the edge of my tongue, when if you’d asked on any other day, I wouldn’t have known it.  In fact, it happened again today.

And then Brett asked me another ‘big question’ about what it is I really want people to know in regards to nutrition and health. My answer is one I still will give and one I’ll likely give for the rest of time. What I really want you to know about nutrition and health is that if you get quiet enough – go deep enough into the forest’s eternal wisdom, and your own—you’ll find you already have the answers to the questions you seek.

To explain this more since the concept can be a little esoteric, I’ll refer to a couple lines from Sajah’s first two chapters:
To begin gathering natura sophia (the intelligence of nature), we must learn to see beyond the limitations our modern world has placed upon our perception and see the living intelligence of the Earth. And this can only be done through gnosis cardiaca—the knowledge of the heart.

and

To truly enter the kingdom of nature we must suspend our rational thought, let go of our knowledge of botany and chemistry, even dispense with our systems of herbalism—for any potential interference of the mind will get in the way of our capacities to directly perceive the intelligence within the plants. To move beyond herbal knowledge and into herbal wisdom, we must tread the pathway down the mind into the inner temple located just inside our chest.

Bringing this back down to earth even a little more, the answers to these big questions don’t come easily, they don’t necessarily just appear when we ask them or when we want them to. There can be many layers to the answers of how to be a better patron of the planet, or how to balance a spiritual life in faith with the goings on of the ‘real world,’ or how to heal – truly heal the body and mind.

Over time, I’m beginning to realize my role here is to educate about true wellness, about true healing, to be more of the guide—the Virgil and/or the Beatrice (though I claim no Godlike abilities)—and no longer the lost and hurting Dante who I was for a long time. To provide encouraging words yes, and recipes to nourish the body yes, and with those working with me clinically, proven scientific strategies to heal root cause imbalances yes. But it’s also to remind you, to remind us, that we also have the answers. That we’re not victims.

In every relationship whether it’s with me your nutritionist, your coach, your chiropractor or PT, your family and friends, your life partner, or with the plants in your window box, yard, locally farmed vegetable box, or forest, there’s an opportunity for a two-way conversation, a partnership to come to the answers that are already within you waiting to be revealed.

Maybe that’s the point of this slow down period we’ve been given, for I know it’s not for many millions to suffer. Maybe it’s the time to return to our childlike ways, picking the dandelions and blowing our wishes into the big questions, letting the answers present themselves in their own time and way.

Now for this hearty brunch hash.

You’ll need a hearty, though not heavy, meal to refuel the system after your time in the forest– or wherever you go to dwell in your own big questions and their answers. I’ve shared the recipe over on the Run Journal at Territory Run Co. Get the full article and recipe here.