(This is the fourth post in a series on my herbal philosophy. The first three posts were The body is an ecosystem, The body is not a war zone and Escaping the body-as-battleground trap.)

I said I would write about why I’m not a big fan of the body-as-temple theory of health. This might have been a surprise to some people, because a lot of “natural health” advocates teach this theory. It goes something like this:

Your body is your temple. It should be kept pure and holy. Bad health is a result of the desecration of your pure and holy temple by impure and unholy things. Therefore you must constantly purify your body and rigidly avoid everything unholy.

Right. That kind of Puritanism is just as silly as the body-as-battleground business. Same trap, different language. Here are the problems:

False assumptions. Bodies can’t be separated from their environments any more than body systems can be separated from each other. The skin is a permeable membrane, not a brick wall. Human beings are part of larger living ecosystems, and any model of health that tries to separate us from our surroundings just won’t work.

Disrespect. Human beings are vital and resilient ecosystems, not piles of dirty laundry. Human ecosystems have finely adapted detoxification and repair systems that should be respected and supported rather than bypassed and abused by “colon cleanses,” “liver flushes” and other such nonsense.

Rigidity. Puritanism is just not helpful. Sure, sugar (for example) isn’t good for you. But feeling superior and repressed because you didn’t eat any birthday cake is likely worse. Emotions are a part of your ecosystem. Culture is a part of your ecosystem. Sometimes it’s okay to eat birthday cake, sometimes it isn’t. Pay attention and you’ll know the difference.

An herbal practice that respects human bodies doesn’t try to “purify” them or take them out of ecological context. A truly vitalist herbal practice pays close attention to each human ecosystem and works to support its innate intelligence and adaptive capacity. A truly vitalist herbal practice works with, rather than against, human ecology.

Next in this series: My herbal philosophy is very simple.

(And I swear that millet polenta post is on the way—it’s just that it’s evolved into a whole series of posts on grains.)

I found these gorgeous fist-sized locally-grown shiitake mushrooms at Putney Coop.
Perfect for winter chicken soup or just sauteed with butter and garlic, shiitakes are tasty mushrooms.

Shiitakes are also a good example of how much you can learn by tasting. To me, shiitakes taste meaty and solid and strong, and that’s exactly how they work in the body: they’re nourishing and strengthening on a really basic level. Shiitakes give sturdy support to the immune system—they’re often used to help people recover from viruses and cancer. In Traditional Chinese Medicine they’re strengthening tonics for blood and qi (indications include tiredness and frequent colds).

This is my favorite way to eat shiitakes for winter strength:

Slice up shiitakes and saute them in butter until they’re golden brown. Add salt and freshly chopped garlic at the end of cooking. So good.

(The mushroom’s name is sometimes spelled “shitake”, but the “ii” is a better approximation of the original Japanese.)

(This is the third post in a series on my herbal philosophy. The first two posts were The body is an ecosystem and The body is not a war zone.)

Conventional medicine tends to think of the body as a battleground rather than an ecosystem. It takes a divide-and-conquer approach, dissecting the body into little pieces and forgetting how to put them together again.

I have a feeling that a lot of doctors and researchers fall into this trap because they’re drowning in a sea of microbiological information—they aren’t given the time or space or training to think about “macrobiology” or body ecology. So we have a proliferation of gastroenterologists and neurologists and dermatologists and fewer and fewer general practitioners. There really is an immense amount to know about the details of the human body, and specialization makes sense as a way to process those details. But the thing is, health problems are not specialized.

Take Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)—a common diagnosis these days. It’s a condition that usually involves a person’s nutritional status, digestive system, nervous system, immune system and psyche. Say an IBS patient gets violent diarrhea when she eats foods that have wheat in them. Her doctor says “Your allergy tests came back negative. You’re not allergic to wheat.” And she leaves her doctor’s office with a prescription for a drug with serious side effects.

Luckily, there are still doctors out there with enough common sense to say “Okay, if wheat makes you feel bad, just don’t eat it,” regardless of test results. But it’s all too common for doctors to rush in with invasive battleground-style treatments where simple ecological changes—lifestyle, diet, stress reduction—would be enough.

And doctors don’t have a monopoly on the body-as-battleground theory of disease either. There are plenty of herbalists and herbal salespeople out there who use plants with the same mindset. (Don’t get me started on people who tout echinacea and goldenseal as “herbal antibiotics.”)

As an herbalist, I work on the assumption that the body is a vital, resilient ecosystem. Everything I suggest to people is intended to support and revitalize the ecology of their bodies. So the disclosure statement my clients sign that says I work with them to “support health” rather than “treat disease”? It’s not some legal word game to avoid practicing medicine without a license—it’s absolutely true.

I do not cure anything. Herbs as I use them do not cure anything.

Human ecosystems heal themselves.

Next in this series: Why I’m not a big fan of the body-as-temple theory of health.

(This is the second post in a series on herbal philosophy. The first post was The body is an ecosystem.)

In a comment to my post on flu care, Persephone asked me to explain what I meant when I said “I’m not a big fan of the body-as-battleground theory of disease.”

The body-as-battleground theory of disease goes something like this:

The forces of evil (disease) have invaded the body. The forces of good (medicine) shall enter the body and conquer the forces of evil.

This theory sees the body as passive: it’s a battleground in a cosmic war between good and evil—a piece of territory rather than a dynamic, living organism. This theory does not respect the body’s innate vitality and intelligence. This theory doesn’t know the body is an ecosystem. This theory is ridiculous.

The debate between body-as-ecosystem and body-as-battleground has been going on for a long time. In the 19th century, Antoine Béchamp and Louis Pasteur squared off over whether the primary cause of disease could be found in the ecology of the body itself or in microbial “invaders.” Pasteur’s microbes carried the day, and medicine is still feeling the effects.

Sure, microbes are interesting. They certainly play a role in the development of some diseases. But they are in no way the whole story. Exposed to the same microbes, some people get sick and some people don’t. Every ecosystem is different.

It’s a question of science getting ahead of itself: “Wow, look at these bad little critters that make people sick. If we just kill them all, everything will be better again.” Um, no. Wrong approach. Think antibiotic resistance. Think superbugs.

The story of humans and microbes is fascinatingly complex. It turns out we’re covered with them, inside and out. And it turns out we depend on them—to protect us from infection, to manufacture nutrients, to train our immune systems . . . sure sounds like an ecosystem to me.

Next in this series:
Pitfalls in modern medicine: the body-as-battleground theory in practice.

And coming soon:
Traditional foods: millet polenta.

Since the temperature dropped a week or two ago, my skin has been painfully dry.

I don’t generally like to use store-bought lotions and creams because almost all of them (even “natural” brands) have weird ingredients in them: drying alcohols, toxic preservatives, etc. And the ones that have good ingredients tend to be way too expensive for me. So I make my own.

This week I made a thick cream based on coconut oil (Cocos nucifera), green tea (Camellia sinensis) and oats (Avena sativa). It’s a rich moisturizer—the oats and green tea are soothing and healing, and the coconut oil forms a barrier that protects skin from harsh weather.

This is how I made it.

1. Melt 3-4 tablespoons of grated beeswax with 1/2 cup of coconut oil and 1/2 cup of grapeseed or other skin-friendly liquid oil (more beeswax makes a thicker cream). When it’s thoroughly melted, pour the oil mixture into a blender and let it cool completely.

2. Make a strong infusion from 2 tablespoons green tea and 3/4 cup almost-boiling water (don’t use boiling water on green tea; it destroys some of the medicine). Let it steep for 5 minutes or so. Then pour it through cheesecloth or muslin and wring it out. You should have about 1/2 cup of strong tea.

3. Simmer a small handful of oats in 3/4 cup water for about 10 minutes. Let it sit for a while (at least 1/2 hour). Strain. You should have about 1/2 cup of oat water.

4. Mix the oat water and the green tea together. These are your “waters” (as opposed to oils).

5. When both the oils and the waters are completely cool (it’s easiest to just wait until the next morning), put the waters into a pitcher or another container that’s easy to pour. Then get the blender going on its highest speed and pour the waters in a slow, steady stream into the center of the blending oils. When you’ve almost finished adding the waters, pay close attention. When the cream is ready, the blender will start to sputter and choke a little bit. When this happens, turn the blender off. Your cream is done. You can stir it more by hand if you like, but if you beat it too much it might separate. (This is also a good time to add a few drops of essential oil if you want to scent your cream. I used 5 drops of grapefruit oil.)

6. Scoop the cream into jars, and store it someplace cool. (Since it doesn’t have any preservatives in it, it’s a bit perishable. If you won’t be using it for a long time, you can store it in the refrigerator.)

You can vary the recipe in all sorts of ways, but make sure you have 1 cup each of oils and waters, and that they are at room temperature when you blend them. (The basic proportions of this cream are based on the recipe for Rosemary Gladstar‘s “Perfect Cream,” which can be found on Recipenet or in her many books.)

Some notes:

Because this cream doesn’t have drying alcohols in it like most store-bought creams do, it takes a few minutes to soak in. Don’t worry, your skin will absorb it.

Since this cream feels oilier than store-bought creams, people sometimes worry that it might promote breakouts. I have never found that to be the case. In fact, I’ve used it to soothe acne-prone skin with good results. But everyone’s skin is different, so you’ll have to try it and see how it feels.

New note (11 Feb): If it’s on the cool side in your house (i.e., your room temperature is below 68 or so), you might want to use less coconut oil and more liquid oil so that the final oil mix is soft enough for the blender to work with at room temperature. (The day I made this cream the wood fire in our house was really roaring.)

Now that we finally have a bit of winter here in Vermont, people are starting to get sick. The symptoms are familiar: a slight sniffle, rawness in the throat, pressure in the ears, swollen lymph nodes.

Here are my favorite ways to care for this kind of winter cold:

1. Topical tinctures. I like to drip lymphatic and tonic herbs directly onto the surface of the tonsils. (If you want to try this, hold the dropper right up against the back of the inside of your cheek, with your head tilted back. Do a few drops on each side.) Some herbs I use this way: lemon balm (Melissa officinalis), red root (Ceanothus americanus), ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea) and goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis). (Only use cultivated organic goldenseal, NEVER wildcrafted—this is an endangered plant.)

It’s best to experiment and see what feels right, since these herbs have really different personalities. Lemon balm is soothing and stimulating; red root is strongly astringent; ground ivy is astringent too, but gentler; goldenseal is an amazing all-around mucous membrane tonic, but be prepared for bitter if you use it this way.

2. Neck massage helps the lymph system drain (pay special attention to the area under the collarbones—this is where the lymphatic ducts empty into the bloodstream).

3. There’s nothing like a good whole-body stretch or a pleasant walk to get the lymph system moving.

4. Hot herbal face cloths feel really good, and they also encourage circulation and drainage. Just soak a washcloth in strong, hot herbal tea and press it to your face. Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) and lavender (Lavandula angustifolia) are lovely, but you can use any aromatic herb.

5. And, of course, there’s always chicken soup.

P.S. I’m extra geeky about the lymphatic system lately. Check out this amazing drawing.

More notes on allergies and sensitivities:

1. We’re all sensitive to the barrage of toxic crap we breathe, eat and drink.

2. Dealing with the barrage of toxic crap increases our sensitivity to potential allergens and irritants.

3. Allergy and sensitivity are directly related to overall health and stress levels.

Some people seem to think that immune reactions are as fundamental and unchanging as eye or skin color. Not so. Our bodies are much more interesting than that. Our immune reactions are often mediated by stress—psychological or physical.

It’s possible to be allergic to something only when you’re stressed out. I see this often in people who have been diagnosed with “Irritable Bowel Syndrome.”
They can eat a trigger food with no problem most of the time, but if they’re tired or stressed out, the food triggers an IBS attack. So the real trigger is the interaction between the food and the stress. Knowing this, people can learn their triggers and take care of their health much more easily. They can say “I’ve had a long day, and wheat is a stress-related trigger for me, so let’s have rice for dinner instead of pasta.”

It makes sense to me that our nervous systems and our immune systems are so closely connected. If we’re feeling threatened in one sphere, why shouldn’t all our systems be up in arms?

Here’s a funny, geeky bit about stress and immune reactions:

“Psychological stress may be conceptualized as a social pollutant that, when ‘breathed’ into the body, may disrupt biological systems related to inflammation through mechanisms potentially overlapping with those altered by physical pollutants and toxicants.” From The impact of stress on the development and expression of atopy. Current Opinion in Allergy & Clinical Immunology. 5(1):23-29, February 2005. Wright, Rosalind J a; Cohen, Robyn T b; Cohen, Sheldon c

No doubt the best way to prevent the dazed state that comes from staring at a monitor for hours is to get up every few minutes and remember you have a body. But for those of us who seem to have trouble remembering to do this, I’ve been experimenting with some herbal solutions.

First, the problem: computer monitors are a source of emitted (rather than reflected) light. Other sources of emitted light: television, lightbulbs, fires and stars (including the sun). Emitted light is mesmerizing. Think of sitting around a campfire in the dark. You can stare and stare and stare and forget where you are and what’s going on around you. Staring at emitted light for a long period of time can leave you spaced-out and disembodied.

So cutting through computer-fog means coming back to the physical world. The best “enlivening” remedy I know is prickly ash (Zanthoxylum americanum) tincture. Two or three drops on my tongue wakes up my whole body. (Even a few drops will make your mouth tingle and start you salivating. Don’t worry, just swallow the spit. It’ll stop in a few minutes, and you won’t have to spend the rest of the day in a daze.) Bitter herbs are also a good option—a drop of hops (Humulus lupulus) tincture or a squirt of barberry (Berberis vulgaris) will bring you back to earth with a thump.

Really, though, getting up and stretching every few minutes is the best option. If only I could remember to do it.