Christa Sinadinos: I really do love parsley. I do. It's one of those ancestral plants for me. You know, I'm Greek, so my family always included it in cooking. When we think about any of the herbs that people use to decorate the plate often were good for digestion. Right? Because-
John Gallagher: Duh.
Tara Ruth: Oh, that makes sense. Of course.
John Gallagher: You are listening to HerbMentor Radio by Learning Herbs. I'm John Gallagher.
Tara Ruth: And I'm Tara Ruth. Today we're chatting with Christa Sinadinos. Christa is the author of The Essential Guide to Western Botanical Medicine and is the founder and director of The Northwest School for Botanical Studies in Fieldbrook, California, where she has trained hundreds of students. Christa has more than 25 years of experience as a clinician, a teacher, a gardener, and a medicine maker. You can learn more about Christa's work on ChristaSinadinos.com and follow her @ChristaSinadinos on Instagram.
John Gallagher: Welcome, Christa. Thanks so much for joining us.
Tara Ruth: Yes, thank you.
Christa Sinadinos: Thank you both for having me here. It's a pleasure.
Tara Ruth: Yeah. Christa, I met you at the California School of Herbal Studies as your student, so it's so beautiful to be kind of full circle here with you and chatting with you. It was so fun to connect you to Learning Herbs and to HerbMentor. Over the last year you've written a few plant profiles or monographs for HerbMentor, our online community. You did one on spilanthes, and one on aloe, and shepherd's purse.
John Gallagher: Shepherd's purse. Yeah, mm-hmm.
Tara Ruth: Is on its way too.
John Gallagher: Yeah.
Christa Sinadinos: Yeah, thank you.
Tara Ruth: Yeah. They've been so beautiful and comprehensive, so thank you for writing those for us.
Christa Sinadinos: Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for asking me to do that. I really appreciate you connecting me with HerbMentor. I feel appreciative, and grateful, and happy to do this work.
Tara Ruth: Well, my pleasure too. Yeah. I'm just thinking about, in your book, you have so many different plant profiles, but one of the ones I'd love to learn more about from you is angelica. This is a great herb to work with this time of year. I'd just love to hear more about your connection with angelica. For folks who may not know, what is this plant? What does it look like? How do you work with this plant friend?
John Gallagher: Yeah.
Christa Sinadinos: Yeah, angelica. Oh, I love angelica. That was an ally early on for me because, well, I've worked with it almost 30 years. Back when I was a wee little herbalist, I was very thin at the time and cold often because I lived in Michigan.
Tara Ruth: Oh my God.
Christa Sinadinos: I loved ginger. I loved all the warming plants. They quickly became allies, so I'm very fond of angelica. I love growing it in the garden. There are some native species of angelica that are perennials. Angelica archangelica is a biennial, so you don't get the blossoms until the second year. The first year you're primarily getting the basal growth of the leaves. It's a wonderful plant to cultivate and has so many incredible medicinal uses. Really gorgeous. In the Apiaceae family, or the Umbell family, so the flowers look somewhat like an umbrella. There are numerous species of angelica that you can use, but the most commonly cultivated angelica is the European angelica or Angelica archangelica. Then there are native species growing throughout the mountain west. I want to start by saying, with this particular plant family, Apiaceae, how critical it is to make sure you accurately identify them-
Tara Ruth: For sure.
John Gallagher: Yes. Tell people why, please.
Christa Sinadinos: Misidentification could be fatal, so if you're one of those people who-
John Gallagher: Do they have a warning label on the plant?
Christa Sinadinos: They should.
John Gallagher: How come no one's ever thought of that?
Christa Sinadinos: Well, you've seen dead squirrels next to it, and you're like, "Huh, something." I'm kidding.
John Gallagher: Sorry. Sorry.
Christa Sinadinos: No. It's a good point. Things can go wrong quickly with this plant. Really, it's a good reason to learn your botany. One of the things I'll tell my students, "You do not want to mess with this one." It's like mushrooms. You know?
John Gallagher: Yeah.
Tara Ruth: Mm-hmm.
Christa Sinadinos: One wrong mushroom, you won't be able to tell the story, so anyways.
Tara Ruth: Totally.
Christa Sinadinos: This is a plant you really want to get to know in all of its various stages as it's flowering, and then you'll want to go back, especially if you're in the wild, to go back and identify the plant and seed because that's one of the specific characteristics of some of the different Apiaceae families, seed shapes and seed sizes. With angelica in particular, it's really lovely. First year it develops its basal growth or the lower foliage portions of the plant. It's got these really gorgeous ornately compound leaves. They have these gorgeous sheathes at the base of the leaves, and the flowers will emerge from the sheathes the second year. It looks almost like someone's giving birth to a flower. It's just so beautiful. I love, every morning, going in the garden and just watching the flowers grow and emerge from that sheath and eventually spread out into their umbrella shape. Anyways, the flowers typically are a white color. You know, there are many florets on the flowering heads. There are some angelica flowers that have kind of a green color to them, so, depending on which species you're looking at, it'll have different color flowering heads. It has a very aromatic quality to it. The stems are always hollow, so you want to make sure you can look through the stems, or you can cut the stems off and use them as a straw in your Bloody Marys. A decorative Blood Mary. It's kind of fun. I usually use lovage stems, actually, for that, but I use angelica stems as well. Let's see. Usually you can harvest the roots at the end of the fall of the first year, so if it's had a full year of growth and before it's gone into flower. I love the flowers so much that I actually kind of prefer to wait until the plant's flowered, and then I harvest it, because it's a biennial. It has a two-year life cycle, so it's going to pass anyways. Beautiful brown roots. Super aromatic. When you taste them it almost makes your tongue tingle a little bit, and then it's very pungent, aromatic. You can taste those Carrot family or Umbell family characteristics, those high notes, and just that intense pungency. It's bitter. Some of the angelicas have a slight sweetness, but most of the wild angelica do not. Is that an adequate description of the plant for now, and I can talk about its medicinal uses?
Tara Ruth: Yes.
John Gallagher: Absolutely.
Tara Ruth: That's great.
John Gallagher: Yeah.
Christa Sinadinos: Okay. All right, so there's a long history of use. This plants been just used by every tribe where it grows. It's been used throughout Europe, so it's a really fascinating plant to research. They used to make beers with this, or-
Tara Ruth: Wow.
Christa Sinadinos: Ales with angelica because it enhanced digestion. Then it's included in so many other bitter formulas, Bénédictine, Chartreuse, often included in gins, vermouth. People were always taking things that enhanced digestion because we didn't have refrigeration at the time. Well, until the last century and a half. Right?
John Gallagher: Mm-hmm.
Tara Ruth: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Christa Sinadinos: My grandma had an ice box.
Tara Ruth: Totally.
Christa Sinadinos: The ice man would come over and bring a block of ice. She had a real fridge by the time I was around, but she still called it the ice box. Anyways, food went bad, so people used a lot of spices and a lot of different types of apéritifs and digestifs to enhance their digestion and warm their gut, which brings us into some of the uses of angelica. It really has phenomenal properties for the digestive tract. It's one of the few warming bitter herbs. A lot of bitter herbs are cooling in their, but this is very warming. It helps increase blood flow to the digestive tract and then to the middle region of the body. It helps warm all the internal organs. It stimulates both upper and lower digestive secretions. Like I was saying earlier, when you taste it, it causes a slight tingling of the tongue which stimulates salivary secretions. Then it kind of works its way down into the digestive tract. It stimulates hydrochloric acid. It also has both choleretic and cholagog properties. Those can all be really helpful for enhancing fat digestion. Then the lower digestive bitter actions really help stimulate protein, fat, and carbohydrate digestion. You get all these wonderful qualities as an aromatic bitter. Plus it's a carminative, so it helps reduce gas and bloating. A really great one for enhancing digestive secretions, warming the gut. That's one aspect of the plant. One of the other actions of angelica ... I'll use a moderate dose when I'm using it as a smooth muscle antispasmodic. There's smooth muscles and skeletal muscles. Smooth muscles are the muscles that are part of all our hollow organs, so all of our tube-like structures: the bronchi, the stomach, intestinal tract, the uterus, bladder, et cetera. Angelica in particular has smooth muscle antispasmodic properties. It really has an affinity for digestive cramps and can help stop stomach and intestinal cramping, menstrual cramping, or uterine cramping. If you've ever been to a potluck and had a bunch of different types of food, or slightly undercooked garbanzos, or you combined a bunch of things, you get a rock in your gut kind of feeling. Angelica's great for remedying that.
Tara Ruth: When you say a dropper, Christa, is that a tincture that you're talking about? What kind of medium do you intake this with?
Christa Sinadinos: Yes. In this particular instance it would be a tincture, so about 30 to 60 drops is the average dose for intestinal spasms or uterine spasms.
Tara Ruth: Right.
Christa Sinadinos: You can drink tea of this, but it's a little more challenging for some people to drink the tea. The tincture's easier to get down quickly. As far as really wanting relief if you're having bad cramps, the tincture works most quickly. It's also really beneficial for slow-starting crampy menses. A lot of people get intestinal and uterine cramps as they're starting their cycle, and this really helps. If somebody feels really cold or their abdomen feels cold to the touch, that's kind of one of the indicators that I think of with angelica. Cramps that feel better for warmth. People who like heating pads. Stuff like that. Angelica goes in there. It's like a little blanket. It's a little heating pad. It warms everything up and relaxes the uterus. It does actually have emmenagogue properties as well, so it's a real specific herb for bringing on slow-onset crampy menses and helping shed the uterine lining. It's a really lovely smooth muscles antispasmodic. One other thing. We talk about it, encouraging the shedding of the uterine lining. Something I didn't know until I gave birth was, my midwives told me, that it'll actually help the placenta to detach.
Tara Ruth: Wow.
John Gallagher: Oh, wow.
Christa Sinadinos: Yeah.
Tara Ruth: I had no idea.
Christa Sinadinos: I didn't either.
Tara Ruth: Wow.
Christa Sinadinos: It was so funny, because I didn't know this at the time. I just delivered my son, and they're yanking on the cord. I'm like, "Ugh, stop it. I just want to relax and enjoy my little baby." They're like, "Okay. Get up. Walk around. Get around." I'm like, "Oh my God. Please leave me alone." They're like, "No. You've got to get the placenta out. We've got to do this." I'm like, "Why?" I didn't know that you can go into shock within 30 minutes. They were bugging me. No, I'm just kidding. They weren't really bugging me. They were very sweet and incredible women, but I was like, "Just let me relax. I did a lot of work here."
Tara Ruth: Wow.
Christa Sinadinos: Yeah. It was extremely rapid, and I learned. This was a plant I loved and had used, and I learned a whole use for it thank you to my midwives, Kate, and Jenny, and Celine. That's one additional use of the plant.
Tara Ruth: Mm-hmm.
John Gallagher: Yeah.
Christa Sinadinos: So you may want to include this with other mucilaginous herbs or something that's got demulcent qualities. If you notice the lungs are a little too dry, this may not be the most appropriate antispasmodic. It's beautiful for cough, cold, especially when people have clear, profuse mucus or cloudy, profuse mucus. You can combine it with other things like, for asthma and dry cough, aralia. Sometimes elecampane. It depends on what I'm treating. Sometimes gumweed for asthma. Anyways, really lovely lung herb.
John Gallagher: So, Christa?
Christa Sinadinos: Yeah?
John Gallagher: It's a lot of information you're sharing here about angelica. If someone is listening to this, and they're being introduced to herbs for the first time, or they're just being introduced to angelica, when you hear so many things about an herb, where's the best place to start for somebody to establish that relationship and learn that one or two things? You talked a lot about warming qualities, so it seems to be an important element of it, angelica. When you properly identify, you know you have angelica, what's a great first place to experiment as I'm being introduced to this plant? Because some of us learn. They want to go through a list of stuff and try to learn that way, but on the experiential side.
Christa Sinadinos: You bet. Yeah. I love just sitting with one drop of either the tincture or a sip. Sometimes just preparing a decoction and sitting with your face over it so you get all those aromatics wafting up through your sinuses. You can really feel the plant just heating up your body. I love just taking one drop or one sip and just really sitting with the plant, trying to feel how it's moving through your body. I have my students do this at the beginning of a class. We just take a moment, sit with one tincture. I don't tell them what it is because I don't want them to have preconceived notions about it. I just take a moment, get a feel for whether the plant's warming, kind of cooling, neutral. It's really hot. If it's cold, feel your body if it's contracting or expanding. You can kind of get that general idea with a plant. If it's contracting, it makes you shiver and cold, or if it's more expansive energy. I have people get a sense for whether it's got an upward or downward movement in the body. Sometimes you feel all this energy rushing to your head, or you feel your feet more intensely. Just getting a sense for what it tastes like. I have students, "Does it go to any area of your body? Where does it go?" Tracing it in your body, and just really trusting as you're tasting these herbs. Just trusting what comes to you because, your body, we have these wonderful ways of knowing. Long before books existed in written language, we've had this amazing connection with the plants and animals who connect with the plants. That's how we learned the plants originally. Right? Trying little bits.
John Gallagher: Wow.
Christa Sinadinos: Herb shop for minimum wage for many years was you got tea. Right? I took every herb on the shelf, and I would take one week with each herb and just, "Let's try it as an infusion, a decoction." Blah, blah, blah. All these different preparations.
John Gallagher: Hello, Tara.
Tara Ruth: Hello, John.
John Gallagher: This has been amazing, Christa sharing all this incredible information about angelica. When you have these experts like we have on here, and they talk, and they've written this book, and they have these in-depth monographs, and they're going, talking about all the things that you can do with angelica and what not, I can't help but think it might get a little dizzying for some folks listening. It's okay if you're listening and only five, 10% of it got through. Right?
Tara Ruth: Totally. I mean, some of the things she was saying I didn't even know.
John Gallagher: Right. Right. I remember one of my first books was a Michael Moore book. It was specifically about medicinal plants in the Pacific Northwest. He had all these regional lay herbalists that had all these great regional medicinal plant guides, and I felt like I would go through those and understand a small percentage, but I got a little bit. It seems like every time I went back and went through it I learned a little more.
Tara Ruth: Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
John Gallagher: You know? I think that's kind of how, if you want to learn about a plant like angelica, it's going to have to go. You listen to this episode, and then you may go and then look it up on HerbMentor, for example. Right? We're talking about some things about botany. We have botany. Botany in a Day is a book by Tom Elpel, but we have a little course called Learning Your Plants that helps you utilize that book. There are recipes. You may just learn one experience at a time. Maybe you make the recipe and then you go read a little bit about it. Then maybe you listen to this podcast, first part, again, and get a little more information.
Tara Ruth: Absolutely. I mean, just even as you're describing it, I'm really thinking about how being an herbalist is a verb. It's a journey. It's not a destination. We can just be in this continuous process of learning and just following our curiosity. It's really okay not to know everything. You can never know everything, but there's this beautiful resource out there, HerbMentor, that can really help you along the way.
John Gallagher: Yeah. That's why I designed that. My mentorship, my apprenticeship, helped us understand that learning about herbs was like a spiral through every year. Every year is a new level of a spiral. Around the spiral, you're going around the seasons. Every season you're focusing on different aspects. You might focus on roots in fall or fresh greens in the spring. Flowers in the summer when they're happening around you. Every time that happens, to have a place to go and say, "I'm growing calendula. I'm going to look that up, or I'm going to see if there's a recipe here, or see if there's a plant walk, or a podcast, or something to bring me a little deeper around that journey around the spiral for that year." Because then you look back and you go, "Wow. There's so much I know." What I know, what you know, what Christa knows, as so many herbalists knows, what's crazy is that you can have five or 10 knowledgeable expert herbalists in a room, and they all know completely different things.
Tara Ruth: For sure.
John Gallagher: Because they have different journeys, and it's not a box. It's not from a point A to point B thing. It just is what it is, so I am saying that there are great herbal courses out there. We have a lot on HerbMentor you could take, too. There are great herbal courses out there: programs, apprenticeships, schools.
Tara Ruth: Mm-hmm. I've certainly used it as reference over the last few years when I was in herb school and beyond, so I'm really grateful to have HerbMentor at my fingertips along my journey.
John Gallagher: Right. You can go to HerbMentor Radio. That's the podcast you're listening to, HerbMentor Radio.com. You can subscribe there to the podcast, but you can also go there. We might have a little offer for you wonderful listeners here on HerbMentor Radio.
Tara Ruth: A special offer?
John Gallagher: Special offer.
Tara Ruth: Oh my goodness.
John Gallagher: I know.
Tara Ruth: I had no idea.
John Gallagher: We'll let folks sit with that, and maybe go check that out on your phone when you have a chance, or your computer if you're still using a computer, or your tablet. What I think we should do now, Tara, is we should probably go back to our interview.
Tara Ruth: Yeah. We probably should.
John Gallagher: A little more on angelica, so some good stuff. Contras. We're going to talk about contras, right?
Tara Ruth: Oh my gosh. I can't wait.
John Gallagher: I know you talk about contras, but what are contras for those who don't know what a contra is? Contra.
Tara Ruth: Yes. A contraindication, so a reason or a moment when an herb wouldn't necessarily be good for you to take.
John Gallagher: Exactly. Exactly. One of those moments where maybe you don't want to take it. I don't know. Maybe it's not a good idea. All right.
Tara Ruth: Totally.
John Gallagher: Let's get back to it.
Tara Ruth: There are some contras with angelica, one of which is photosensitivity.
Christa Sinadinos: Yes.
Tara Ruth: I just wanted to follow that thread and hear if you had anything else to add about contras and angelica.
Christa Sinadinos: Yes. Just definitely make sure if you are consuming this herb or administering it to other individuals, especially children, to make sure to protect the skin and/or avoid ultraviolet rays or prolonged exposure to the sun. I definitely make sure to tell that to nursing mothers, because it can really increase your ability, and infants' tender skin's ability, to burn. It passes through the breast milk, so keep them covered for sure. Just one to be careful with. Then the other contraindication is that it shouldn't be consumed during pregnancy because it's an emmenagogue. Then the other thing is use caution. I actually tend to avoid using this herb in individuals who have extremely heavy menstrual or uterine bleeding, or if they have any condition like fibroids, ovarian or uterine cysts, endometriosis, or they just have heavy uterine bleeding period, just because it can really increase uterine blood flow. That's bleeding. Initially I talked about how this is such a warming herb. This is not an ideal herb for people who have hot flashes, or at least to consume consistently, or as a tonic. It would not be great for individuals who have heat aggravated conditions, night sweats, hot flashes. One last thing is just a high dose of this can cause slight nausea.
John Gallagher: Oh, wow.
Christa Sinadinos: Yeah. In some people, if their stomach's real sensitive. It doesn't typically happen, and it's usually great for digestion, but who knows. You know how some cholagogue herbs can make people feel a little nauseous and if they're on the edge? Yeah. Those are the primary physiologic contraindications. Then just like we said, making sure you're 150% sure that you've harvested the right plant. This is a great one to just start purchasing initially.
John Gallagher: Right.
Christa Sinadinos: Buy this. People want to grow a lot of their own stuff. Great. Especially if you're wild crafting, or harvesting this in the wild, you've really got to be sure, 150% sure. I do know it has killed people. Even people who are really good herbalists have accidentally consumed the wrong one and ended up in the hospital. They didn't die, because they had a little bit, but it's not fun to mess around with.
John Gallagher: So the underlying thing is if you're a new herbalist, especially.
Christa Sinadinos: Yes.
John Gallagher: You have one of these in the Apiaceae family, the carrots family. Just be really careful of identification. Then you may want to start with ones that you've gotten seeds for or you've gotten starts from, and then just-
Christa Sinadinos: Exactly.
John Gallagher: Get to know them a bit first, and really study their patterns and what not. One I'd like to talk about as well in that family, that caught my eye in your book, Christa, was parsley, because it's a culinary herb we often grow up thinking parsley's just a garnish on a plate in a restaurant. I think that's where I first learned about it, when I put the little sprig on the chicken before I'd take it to a table.
Tara Ruth: Delicious.
John Gallagher: Before I could actually put it in my dishes and go, "Oh, okay. You can eat this. It has flavor." It's in a lot of soups. What about healing aspects, healing gifts, of parsley? How would you work with this plant medicinally?
Christa Sinadinos: Yeah. I love parsley. I'll probably say that about every herb you bring up. I love them. No. I really do love parsley. I do. It's one of those ancestral plants for me. You know, I'm Greek, so my family always included it in cooking. When we think about that introduction, any of the herbs that people use to decorate the plate often were good for digestion. Right? Because-
Tara Ruth: Oh, that makes sense.
John Gallagher: Duh.
Tara Ruth: Of course.
John Gallagher: I never thought of that before.
Christa Sinadinos: It also freshens the breath.
John Gallagher: Nice. Great.
Christa Sinadinos: So it's a good thing to have. I love parsley leaf. I try to eat it in whatever form I can. My favorite is actually doing the medicinal foods, tabouli, with couscous. Cracked wheat is what's typically used, but there are some good recipes out there. You can make some gluten free stuff if you're sensitive to gluten. It is just rich, and easily assimilated, and nourishing vitamins and minerals. It actually contains a pretty high quantity of protein. Yeah. It's got some. A few B vitamins. Then it's rich in calcium, magnesium, iron. It's actually pretty high in iron and a lot of other trace minerals, so it's a great way to kind of replete some of our minerals by consuming it on a regular basis. It's rich in chlorophyll. It's a good one for individuals who have anemia who are trying to replenish the blood. If you've got conditions like gout or arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, that are aggravated by an acidic environment in the joints, this has an alkalinizing effect in the tissues.
John Gallagher: In these cases, because of the aromatics, are we using a tincture, or a tea, rather?
Christa Sinadinos: Actually, consuming the leaf is ideal, or you can juice it. Juice it and freeze it. What else could you do? I'm usually just eating it, putting it in soups. You can make tea with it, but I don't often make parsley leaf tea. I eat it a lot.
John Gallagher: Right.
Christa Sinadinos: Or you can use it as a condiment. One of my favorite condiments, it's called schug. It was introduced from my in-laws. It's basically this delicious condiment that has parsley, cilantro, peppers, a little cardamon, coriander, and cumin. Sometimes they'll include ... What is that sauerkraut herb? What is it? It's another Apiaceae family, but it is so good. It's spicy.
Tara Ruth: Caraway?
Christa Sinadinos: Caraway. Thank you. I have a caraway boom. I don't like it as much flavor wise, so I draw a blank when it comes to that one.
John Gallagher: You wrote a big book so you don't have to remember them all.
Christa Sinadinos: Exactly. You hadn't noticed I didn't write about that one. No. I don't mind it in kraut, but I'm like, "Oo." You know? Anyways, it's a really delicious condiment. You can make it with jalapeños or you can use spicier peppers. You can freeze it, so I usually prepare larger batches. A little lemon and olive oil in there, and then you can cover it up with a little olive oil if you open a jar so that the leaves don't start turning brown. Oh, yeah. I forgot. It has garlic in there. How could I forget that?
John Gallagher: Of course.
Christa Sinadinos: It's so delicious. It really gets your digestion going. I love having it. Putting a little bit of schug and salad dressing or in marinades. Oh my God. It's so delicious. On eggs, omelets. It's like my winter time immune support.
John Gallagher: All right. I feel like you're going to need a blog post for us, Christa, on schug. I think we need to bring back schug to-
Christa Sinadinos: It's so good. Yeah.
John Gallagher: People.
Christa Sinadinos: Yeah. I started doing a recording on it, because I'm like, "People have to know about this." It's such an amazing medicinal food. I mean, garlic, peppers, parsley, cilantro. All the digestive herbs. I'm like, "This is so good." So, anyways-
John Gallagher: It's like a digestive immune system hit.
Christa Sinadinos: Yeah. Yeah. I absolutely love it.
John Gallagher: Yeah. Love it.
Christa Sinadinos: So, a few other things that parsley is good for medicinally. It is a phenomenal antioxidant, and it actually is antiallergenic. If you have any type of inflammatory conditions like allergies, eczema, dermatitis, asthma, inflammatory type asthma, or atherosclerosis, this is a great antioxidant and really helps decrease inflammatory body-wide and helps protect the body from oxidative stress. Just nice, gentle detoxifier. It helps excrete certain toxic minerals like cadmium.
Tara Ruth: Christa, it's so sweet to just hear about a culinary herb like this that I have used as a garnish many a time and haven't even thought about how, of course, a garnish herb is specific for digestion.
John Gallagher: Yeah.
Tara Ruth: It's so cool. I love how much detail you go into each herb. It's making me think about, in your book, The Essential Guide to Western Botanical Medicine, just these beautiful comprehensive plant profiles and monographs that you offer. You've just put so much research and care into it, and I just want you to share with our listeners a little bit. What is this book that you've created? Can you talk a little bit about what inspired you to write it, and why listeners might want to check it out?
Christa Sinadinos: Why did I write this book? Well, honestly, I was like, "There's something missing." I love studying plant medicines. When I began my journey as an herbalist it was the '80s, so there weren't that many reference books available. At the time there was just John Lust's book, or John Lust, The Herb Book. There was a Dr. Christopher book which I didn't quite connect with as much, and then there was A Modern Herbal by Maude Grieve. I love that book. I love the depth of the botanical descriptions and the historical uses. It was really fascinating. I loved how organized it was, but there weren't that many other books available at the time so I just used those. All were like my little bibles. I'd read them all the time. I started studying this, actually, in high school, so-
Tara Ruth: Oh, cool.
Christa Sinadinos: During reading time. Yeah. I was like, "Oh, what can I learn about herbs?" I got very interested in them. There were very few herb books by females other than that Maude Grieve book. Then a few years later we really had, during the "Herbal Renaissance", when a lot of the students of Dr. Christopher started practicing herbs. That's when we get that whole generation of Rosemary Gladstar, David Hoffmann. Just tons of books started coming out at that time.
John Gallagher: Right.
Christa Sinadinos: They had practiced for many, many years, so I really came to value that as both a student, and eventually as a teacher, but as a student and a reader. There were many, many people rewriting the same thing in herb books that had not practiced herbalism or had just had a few clients. I'm like, "Huh. They're all rewriting the same things."
John Gallagher: Yeah.
Christa Sinadinos: Sometimes they're myths that are-
John Gallagher: Yeah, right.
Christa Sinadinos: That everyone keeps writing about. I'm like, "That is just simply not true." Anyways, I eventually, after collecting all this information. I love Materia Medica. I eventually read a lot of the eclectic manuals and their real detailed uses of herbs. I love how they characterize plants. There's kind of this war between the homeopaths and the herbalists. The eclectic herbalists and the time and physiomedics, they were all trying to outwrite each other. "I'm smarter than you." They came up with these very detailed monographs on herbs. I loved just reading about them. I'm like, "Okay. When someone has a tongue that's purple and sleek like beef, that's an indicator for this particular plant." You know? It just really-
John Gallagher: Wow.
Christa Sinadinos: Kind of developed my image of the plant and who to use it for. Anyways, you didn't see that in a lot of the current herbals. Over all the years of bringing all that together, and then administering herbs in both my practice and students, and then having an herbal company, I really wanted a tincture company, basically. Using these plants on hundreds of people, it's like, "I want to. It's about time." You know?
Tara Ruth: Yeah.
John Gallagher: Mm-hmm.
Christa Sinadinos: "I'm 25. Better do this before I lose my memory."
John Gallagher: So, Christa, it's like I have gone to many bookstores. People might go to bookstores and look for herbal books, and they see all these different ones. They're not sure which ones to get. Many of them will have 300 herbs, and 500 herbs, and all this kind of stuff. Now, thing is, your book, this book, because people can't see the book that we're talking about now, it's a big book. This looks like a college textbook or bigger. It is detailed. I just want to point out, too, that it's also self-published. Right?
Christa Sinadinos: Yes.
John Gallagher: Making this, and doing this, it costs a lot to do.
Christa Sinadinos: Yes.
John Gallagher: So when you look at the book and you're considering it, I just want to point out that this book may replace 10 other books that you might mess with and go, "Oh, this isn't information I can trust," or, "I don't know if this is good information." Your book is. This is information you can trust, and it's always great to invest in information that you know is being written and created by herbalists who know their stuff. I think this may be one of those books that people should put on the gift lift for themselves, whether holidays, or a birthday, or something, because it's not like other books. It's kind of one that's always going to be at your fingertips. Has so much that you need, and I think that was your goal. Right? In making it, to be that book.
Christa Sinadinos: Yeah. I wanted it to be a textbook that people could use for their programs. I'm really excited because four schools picked it up as their primary clinical text which I'm thrilled about.
Tara Ruth: Wow.
Christa Sinadinos: Yeah. Then I wanted it to be really comprehensive. To be honest, a lot of publishers will not include as many photos as I wanted to include. They want your book to be a lot shorter, and they don't want the details, so I'm like, "I'm going to do this exactly how I've always wanted to do it." I was a little selfish about it because I wanted it to be a long comprehensive book with more detail than is available. Like I said earlier, I just really wanted to feature multiple pictures of each plant. That was something as I spoke with other authors. They're like, "Wow. You have so many incredible photos in here. How did your publisher let you do this? They don't normally do that." I'm like, "Well, that's why I self-published, because I wanted more than 1,000 color photos." This woman who I worked with, Barbara Landy, who designed the book, was incredible. I thought we were going to spend four months designing this book. It ended up being more than two years. Because it's self-published, it cost a lot. I hired an editor. Two editors for six years and this designer. I was like, "Okay. Why am I doing this?" You know? But I did it, and I'm so glad it's done. I love the feel of the pages. I love doing weightlifting with it because it's almost a pound.
John Gallagher: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is 100% handcrafted, artisan, GMO-free, organic book.
Christa Sinadinos: Exactly. Gluten free.
John Gallagher: Think of that, because the herbalist created it. All the love, all the years, and everything. No matter what level, or herbalism, or experience you have, from beginner all the way to clinical, there's going to be information in there that you can use. I love that in a book. It stays with you for the long run. I mean, I have a few books that I've been referencing for two decades. Now I have this on my shelf that's one of the ones that are right at my fingertips. Just wanted to kind of make sure people kind of got that.
Christa Sinadinos: Yeah. It's a special book. It's like you're treating yourself. You know?
John Gallagher: Yeah.
Christa Sinadinos: Start dropping the hint before the holidays. A lot of people have done that. They're like, "I told, you knos, this is what I want for whatever, my birthday." I'm like, "It's a special book." It's like, "Yep. Keep dropping the hints to your friends and family."
John Gallagher: And bring your copy with you if you ever take a class by Christa. She'll autograph it, I'm sure. Speaking of which, Christa, at your website, ChristaSinadinos.com, you have everything. I know you've got the book there and people can find that there, but also classes, if you're teaching. Do you have all that on there, too, that you might be doing?
Christa Sinadinos: You know, I have a separate website for-
John Gallagher: Oh, okay. Tell us about that.
Christa Sinadinos: My classes.
John Gallagher: Tell us about that.
Christa Sinadinos: Yeah. For my school, The Northwest School for Bontanical Studies. I'm actually in the process of updating that, but you can access the information there. It's just HerbalEducation.net.
John Gallagher: Good URL. Yeah.
Christa Sinadinos: Thank you. It's what I do. You know, things have changed a little bit now that I have the book. Post-pandemic, I'm primarily teaching online. That's fine. Then I'll be teaching some conferences as well. Keep an eye out and I'll post those on the website when I'm up and at it. As far as the newsletter, I tell people when classes are happening. You can sign up for that through the book website, or ChristaSinadinos.com. Now we can go back to conferences. I'll probably be at the International Herb Symposium this June. Yeah.
John Gallagher: Oh, okay. Kimberly will be teaching there too.
Christa Sinadinos: Oh, great.
John Gallagher: I think Tara will be there, so you can all meet.
Tara Ruth: Yeah.
Christa Sinadinos: Oh, yay.
John Gallagher: I'd like to. I have a conflicting thing, but I'm trying. I'm trying. It would be wonderful to be there.
Christa Sinadinos: I hope you make it there.
John Gallagher: Yeah. Yeah.
Christa Sinadinos: Yeah.
John Gallagher: So I imagine you'll have some copies of the book there, too, but get it before that.
Christa Sinadinos: Thank you. I'm like, "I'm not sure I'm going to schlep them across the country," but that's okay. I'm like, "I'll give people discounts, and I'll sign them and send them." I was like, "Yeah. I don't think." They're heavy.
John Gallagher: Yeah.
Christa Sinadinos: I'm giving myself carpal tunnel shipping these things out.
Tara Ruth: Yeah. You don't want the book itself to be a cause of disease, for sure.
Christa Sinadinos: I'm like, "I've got to turn this into an ebook so I can keep it going as I get older."
Tara Ruth: Totally. Well, Christa, thank you so much for chatting with us on HerbMentor Radio. Just a reminder to all our listeners, you can check out Christa's work on ChristaSinadinos.com and follow her on Instagram as well. It's just been such a pleasure chatting with you today. Thank you.
John Gallagher: Yes, absolutely.
Christa Sinadinos: Tara and John, thank you so much. It was wonderful. So good to connect with you, and thank you so much for having me on HerbMentor. It was fun.
John Gallagher: It was an honor. Thank you.
Tara Ruth: Thank you.
Christa Sinadinos: Aw. It was a joy. It was an honor as well, so thank you both.
John Gallagher: HerbMentor Radio is written and produced by John Gallagher and Tara Ruth. Sound engineering by Zack Frank. Visit HerbMentorRadio.com to subscribe on your favorite podcast app and for information on how to be part of HerbMentor, your home for herbal education. HerbMentor Radio is a production of LearningHerbs.com LLC, all rights reserved. Thank you so much for listening.
