From HerbMentor.com, this is Herb Mentor Radio.
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Herb Mentor Radio. This is John Gallagher from Herb Mentor on LearningHerbs.com. And today, my guest is James Jungwirth, from Nature Spirit Herbs in Williams, Oregon.
I met James last year at the Northwest Herb Fest and, did this great interview with him, but then the file got corrupted. So maybe I should just go back to using, audio tape. But the good news is that James agreed to be interviewed again.
James and his wife, Kari, are WildCrafters, herbalists. And when you go to nature spirit herbs dot com, you see a very simple, elegant site. Just download their catalogs to see an impressive list of their wildcrafted herbs and their remedies.
Though, I wanna ask James a question or two about wildcrafting, I was I was really interested in what James had to say about sea vegetables. Some folks call them seaweeds, but, we correct term would be excuse me, sea vegetables.
And his table at the festival was just lined with these beautiful dried sea vegetables, that were all harvested by by himself. And, James, I guess your your wife too does that with you. Right?
Yeah.
Yeah. And, and probably apprentices and whatnot. And, it was really it was really amazing amazing to see just that loving care put into put into the work. So if anyone's ever ordered, sea vegetables from, Mountain Rose Herbs, you might have very well ordered James and Kari's work there. So how's it going, James?
Good. Thanks.
Great. And, to many of our listeners here, well, they don't really live by the ocean.
But I do wanna ask some harvesting questions. But just to start off with, why would, someone want to incorporate sea vegetables into their lives?
Well, I mean, that's a difficult one to answer in a reasonable amount of time. But, you know, to try to, you know, make it short or whatever, first of all Hey.
We've got nothing but time here. We don't have any commercial breaks.
Okay. Well, Steve, vegetables are like, you know, as far as a source of vitamins, I mean, of minerals are one of the most I would say without a doubt are the most concentrated source of minerals and trace minerals of anything we have, any natural thing we have to eat on this planet.
You know pretty much every element that exists is found in them, every natural element that is.
And so you know all of our minerals and trace minerals, basically our blood is like we have an internal ocean. We keep all of our cells bathed in a mixture of minerals that's somewhat similar to seawater. And the easiest way to replenish our inner ocean is by eating seaweed basically. It's got that pretty good ratio of elements in relation to what our blood is.
And some of the most important minerals in the macro minerals would be like potassium and calcium, magnesium, sodium that are often very useful in treating a number of different or preventing a number of different nervous system conditions.
A lot of people notice improvements with things like muscle spasms or blood sugar, hyperactivity or ADD, depression, insomnia, often they're related to mineral deficiencies. And so if they are then seaweed will often help with things like that.
And all these minerals are really alkalizing in the body and help your body conserve calcium in your bones and tissues.
So it would also be a way of keeping your bone density up just by maintaining a constant abundance of minerals in your blood, alkalizing minerals?
Oh gosh, the seaweeds, especially the brown seaweeds are all really high in iodine.
And iodine is essential to thyroid function, healthy as well as healthy salivary glands and breast tissue and ovaries and testes.
Those are the places where your body concentrates iodine and uses it.
And seaweeds have been used for thousands of years for preventing thyroid problems and in treating thyroid problems like low thyroid, goiter, you know with the slow metabolism and all that kind of stuff.
You know, how would you say, all over the world people have been using seaweeds for maintaining or whether they understood it or not, their iodine levels in their bodies and preventing thyroid disease that way.
I could go on and on about the thyroid component, but I'm just kind of giving an outline here.
Right, right.
So what do you mean by brown? Which would be examples of brown seaweeds or sea vegetables or Yes.
Well, of the ones that we sell, ones like kabu, wakami, Bull kelp or kelp fronts, Seapalm, Bladderwrack, those are all brown seaweeds. Most of the seaweeds in the market are brown seaweeds.
And then there's red seaweeds which would be ones like Dulse, Nori, and then the different what we call red marine algae, which are red seaweeds like gigatina and other, or grape stone, snow also known as gigatina are all red seaweeds, they're red marine algae.
And they've got a little different nutritional and therapeutic profile.
There are two different classes or phyla or whatever.
So, if some of the benefits that health benefits we're talking about, would we get some of those in the red seaweeds like the nori or the dulse too? Because I know a lot of people know about nori from Usuishi or something, right?
Right. And there's also the green seaweed.
So there's like red marine algae which is Rhodophyta, brown marine algae which is Phaophyta and the green marine algae which is Chlorophyta.
Sea lettuce is the only widely used green seaweed and that's got a whole another nutritional profile.
I don't harvest any green seaweeds. We have sea lettuce out on our coast, but it just doesn't keep very well. It turns bitter after some months in storage.
Oh, I see. Yeah. I think it might work. Right.
But anyway, so the brown the brown seaweeds are, probably the highest in minerals and they've got different kinds of gels or polysaccharides than the reds do. And so they have different strengths and weaknesses as far as minerals and so on, you know, like the reds tend to have more iron and less potassium, you know, like that.
What's one brown seaweed that that if someone was just going to take one or two kinds or something, because they want to incorporate it in their diet, to keep it simple, What would you recommend, kelp or something like that?
Or Well, if if a person was gonna be eating if they want a snackable brown seaweed, then there's ones like kelp fronds or sea palm.
Mhmm.
You know, that you can just snack on as a, you know, easy way to, you know, get them into your diet every day.
And my kids love it. We'll keep a little bit out there and they'll go by and they'll just eat the kelp, you know.
Kids love dried seaweed. You know, they're often ambivalent about cooked seaweed, but they almost universally love to nibble on, dried seaweed.
And then, for cooking, probably wakami is probably the would be the wakami or kambo would be the two main ones for cooking with.
Okay. Great.
And you know in general I would just encourage people to eat the kinds of seaweed they like to eat.
You know, ideally get some brown and some red seaweed so you get a variety.
But just to eat the kinds you like to eat because they're all so, you know, so nutritional.
Now that leads that leads me to, I'd like to, like, explore next, which is, okay, people know that here we we we mentioned some health benefits, you know, it's like, yeah, this is obviously something that's gonna be really nourishing for us.
And I was just getting started on the health benefits.
Oh, oh, oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. Get get don't let me stop me. Go ahead.
Okay. Well, the the, the seaweeds are also, you know, have a lot of antioxidants and lignans, that everybody knows about antioxidants, lignans, well well they help to lower estrogen levels when they're high in women, you know, among other things.
All kinds of glycon nutrients, which I'm not going to go in and on and on about that, and all the known vitamins including B12 in significant amounts.
And then, so we have the minerals, which is the main thing and then secondarily all these seaweeds like I was saying, they contain large percentages of these sulfated polysaccharides, which have all they're responsible for a large amount of the seaweeds, the minerals and then the polysaccharides are the other major health component or what's responsible for a lot of the broad spectrum health benefits of using seaweeds.
And these polysaccharides are like Algen, Fucoidan and Laminarid which are in the brown seaweeds and then in the reds we have different kinds of carrageenins, agar and porphyrin. And so these gels have got all kinds of really special qualities that the Elgin and the brown seaweeds help take heavy metals out of your body. They, it's just been well researched that using them regularly will increase your rate of excretion of heavy metals from your body and lower blood levels of heavy metals.
And let's see, and as well as radioactive elements, which are essentially also heavy metals.
And as I probably explained in that last interview, we're all being we all have been exposed to massive amounts of lead from the lead and leaded gasoline for all those eighty years when we put hundreds of millions of tons of lead into our atmosphere and soil from leaded gasoline.
And the average person's got a thousand times as much lead in their bones as we did one hundred years ago.
And then mercury from seafood and dental fillings things like that.
And then we're all being continually dusted with radioactive iodine which is I-one hundred and thirty one from all the nuclear weapons facilities, weapons production facilities and as well from all nuclear power plants are regularly releasing plumes of radioactive I-one hundred and thirty one gas which then settles down to the ground and dust and water and enters the food chain, gets absorbed into people's bodies and gets concentrated in their thyroid gland and then it breaks down and has a relatively short half life and it breaks down pretty quickly and it starts irradiating the thyroid gland causing which is probably the main cause of autoimmune thyroid disease in the world today.
And the other places where it gets concentrated in the body would be in the, like in the areola, the nipple area of the women's breast where it also breaks down and irradiates those tissues.
And then the, like I said, in the salivary glands and in the ovaries and testicles.
And so I personally believe that that's one of the major causes of these cancers in these areas in the world today.
And so anyway, making sure that you, first of all making sure that you have adequate iodine in your diet will help you prevent you from absorbing the radioactive iodine.
And then the Elgin and the Brown Seaweeds also helps take other heavy metals and other radioactive elements out of your body.
So we're talking about different aspects of cancer prevention in that way.
Mineral deficiencies and heavy metal toxicities and radioactive iodine are major factors in cancer risk.
So anyway, back to the these gels, they help remove heavy metals and radioactive elements from our bodies.
They like the flucoidan in the brown seaweeds and the carrageenan in the red seaweeds have really strong antiviral properties.
A lot of these therapeutic polysaccharides in the like Elgin, they and flucoidin inhibit cancers and metastases in cancers that are already formed, help prevent strokes, they have blood thinning properties, reduce chronic inflammation.
That's a, you know, in regular use, especially the brown seaweed is, helps reduce chronic inflammation and that's a broad spectrum effect. We're not just talking arthritis.
Yeah. Or even like heart disease or something.
Well, that's what I was saying. It's chronic inflammation is they're starting to realize that it's, like, one of the major factors in heart disease.
Right.
And so chronic low grade inflammation, you know, in broad spectrum, what do you want to say, anti inflammatory effect and reduction of things like high blood pressure, not only the potassium, but things like the, let's see, it would be the laminarone, and leukoid and they tend to lower blood pressure in the blood a little bit, tend to lower like low density cholesterol levels, improve cholesterol profile in people's blood.
Seems just like the cure all to me.
Well, yeah, and then prevention and even reversal of arteriosclerosis. These are researched aspects of seaweed health benefits.
And wow.
I don't know about cure all, but something that can help prevent chronic disease across a broad spectrum of areas you might say.
Part of a overall natural health routine if you're doing all the other good things and adding this is huge.
And so how but that's the thing James.
This is, where we really try to help people with is what you're saying here is, you know, really important and then it's, how does somebody incorporate?
So if I want to go, wow, this is great, I want to start incorporating these brown seaweeds, start start with some brown seaweeds into my diet.
What's enough and in what form, how often to use? Is it like someone buys something they feel good that they bought it, but yet it sits on the shelf and it never ends in the rice dishes or you know what I mean? Like what can people do to make sure that they get enough in what amount, you know? Because we do on the this site, just so you know, really stress me. This isn't just a, just kind of a generic type of, like, our focus and what we do on HerbMentor is really herbs and nourishment, basic first day, that kind of thing. And also, we're really stressing all the time as, food is medicine and encouraging people to do the nourishing infusions, cook with burdock and dandelion and throw some stragulus in the pot when you're during the cold flu season, that kind of stuff. Where we're just so you know, we're like who we all are here.
So, out of line, what kind of We're on the same page, you know.
I mean, it's it's like, do it mostly with your food and lifestyle, you know. I mean, like, you know, good water and good food and, you know, and avoiding stress and getting lots of sleep and and all those basic things are the those are the bottom line, you know. If you can't get that together, forget the herbs.
That's what I say. Yeah. Exactly. Right on.
So there is this extra, you know.
Yeah. That's what I say. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. Alright. Okay. Because I'm starting to get verification in what I'm doing here.
It's It's crazy. See people see everyone? It's not just me.
So yeah. I mean, as far as putting seaweed into your diet, well, you know, the the the two easiest ways to start with that is to use the snackable ones, which most people can make friends with pretty easy.
Mhmm.
You know, the kelp fronds and the sea palm. You know, some people like to snack on nori. They're they're they're like salty snackable seaweeds, you know, like, kinda like eating chips or jerky or something like that, you know. So that's a easy way. And, you know, as far as kids goes, they don't usually need any encouragement to eat those, you know. They just kinda they just go for it. Usually, like, kids just go for it.
But for us, you know, I have a little bowl of kelp fronds out. And, you know, say I'm saying to myself, someone says to themselves, well, that's really salty. And well, it's not preferred, but I'm going to do this, but it tastes fine. I can do it. But like how much should they make sure they have in a day?
Yeah. Well, in general, you know, three to five grams a day is a good average amount for, you know, ongoing dietary, nutritional, therapeutic purposes.
That's probably about, you know, I mean, if you use the the Japanese diet as a as a example, you know, the Japanese got, you know, one of the longest lifespans and, you know, they hardly have, they have very, very little thyroid disease or breast cancer or prostate cancer.
There's probably, you know, there's good reason to believe that their consumption of seaweed, they have the highest consumption of seaweed per person in the world too.
And it has something to do with that.
And you know that's somewhere along the average dietary intake of the Japanese as I understand, three to five grams a day or that's about an ounce a week for herb.
So this seems like an herb that you could almost actually beneficially use as a capsule.
That's the other I mean, you know, we have a you can also get like a I'm not a capsule person really.
I've really never used them, and I don't encourage them. But it seems like this is one actually you or you. I then, I mean, that that might be one that actually would work. You know, people buy, like, nettle capsules.
And it's like, what? What's this for? You know? Well A little bit of nettle dust.
Yeah. Well, I mean, it's better than nettle tincture.
You know, that's like Yeah.
Yeah.
That's like carrot tincture or something.
You know? It's like Yeah. But, you know, with with seaweeds, we're definitely, you know, another another easy way to use them is to get a good quality, seaweed powder. You know, a lot of the commercial kelp powders taste kind of fishy.
But, like, you know, for example, we got a mixture of kombu and wakame that's got a nice taste and you can just kinda sprinkle it on your food. You know, that's another easy way to make sure you're getting it regularly.
But no, you can also get capsules. Like we have we have, capsules like a mixture of six different seaweeds in a capsule and we have just a straight combo, it's, you know, bladder ac, you know, and a a red marine allergy in the capsule. We'd like, you know, that for a general purpose like a sea vegetable blend or kombu is is good.
And And I mentioned that because folks when they that are out there learning this stuff sometimes it's just a bit of a journey from hopping from what they're used to in capsules earlier in that progression, you know, Yeah.
It might be useful to use a capsule.
Well, you know, you know, to to start off with, you know, that's a good way to to make sure you're getting, you know, like, how would I put it? You know, the capsules, they cost more for what you're getting, but you can make sure that you get some with every meal every day, you know, so you're kinda making better use of that small amount.
Exactly. And, so so anyway, yeah, the the capsules are also really good for traveling and things like that, you know.
Of course.
And and the the convenience and, you know, and and and there again, you know, some people just they don't make they end up not making never making friends with the flavor of seaweeds, you know.
Right. So It means for someone might be too salty. Like, some people love salt, but me, I'm I'm not, like, I never put salt on my food. I I put seaweed on my food. We make the we have, like, a we have a recipe on our mentor that y'all can find it.
It's, you know, like a a gamachio kind of a Oh, yeah.
You know, I I put that on everything, which to me, which is much better than salt. And and it's salty, but it's not to me, salty. Salt itself sometimes is too strong.
Sure. Well, you know, the the the brown seaweeds and, you know, seaweeds in general, but the brown seaweeds in particular got, like, four or five times as much potassium salt as sodium salt.
Wow.
And, and so, you know, that's a pretty near to what's in your what's your ratio of potassium to sodium in your body.
So, you know, when you first start eating something like kelp runs, you think, oh my gosh, that's so salty.
The thing to remember is that it's mostly potassium salt. And if I remember correctly, potassium salt tastes like eight times as salty as sodium salt.
Right.
So it tastes like, wow. That's, like, really salty. But you find out after getting to know it better that you can eat a whole handful of it and not get salted out. You know.
It's it's mostly potassium salt.
And again It seems it seems like some of the red seaweeds like the dulce and the nori are maybe more desirable to throw in rice dishes and things.
I mean, I'm looking at these ones that you separated out. I'm looking at like, wow, I've used dulse and nori that I've harvested. Yes.
And they throw it in the rice dishes and it's really nice.
But, the brown ones, they seem to just use, you know, and more in teas or to just take some Okay. Well, you know, rice, our favorite one is wakame. Oh, okay.
It cooks tender in about the same amount of time.
You know, you just toss it in there right with the rice. And, you know, it's kinda taste it's it cooks into consistency of a vegetable of its own, if you know what I'm saying.
Right.
And and then it's the broth that cooks out of it kinda flavors flavors up the rice kinda nice.
Nice. So you probably have all, like, a whole, like, you know, I can imagine your kitchen, you must have some bunch of glass jars with all kinds of different sea vegetables in there.
Yeah. We got Exactly. Yeah.
That's how I kinda encourage people to cook.
Is this like, yeah. Keep all your herbs keep all your nourishing herbs in your kitchen in big glass jars by the stove and just throw a handful of this and that in it every meal, you know. You'll you'll get you'll get it all in there.
Yeah. And and then ones like, you know, like wakame or sea palm, you can just toss them in with any kind of steamed vegetables.
But you toss them in if you're using a steamer, then you throw them in into the water underneath, underneath the steamer.
Oh.
You know, so then they'll hydrate and cook in there.
And, of course, you know you know, like, I don't cook them with potatoes that way because I throw the water off of the potatoes because it's got solanine in it. Right?
Right. Right. Right.
But, like, for most other vegetables, the the water that you cook them in is really nutritional and good.
Well, the same way, anything you cook seaweed in, any water you cook it in, you you that's it's really good broth to to drink too. You know? A lot of the goodies go into the broth.
Right.
Right. That's So Exactly. So that's that's that's why it's it's a good point. And it's like when people say to me too, like, oh, you know, I don't I don't use herbs. I don't believe in herbs or something. And it's like, well, you don't believe in soup broth?
Well, you know, if if someone tells me they don't believe in herbs, I'd say, ever say, you ever drink a cup of coffee?
Just tell me that doesn't work.
Is that right?
That's an even better response. I know. Exactly.
That's That's great because I love that this is something that's so incredibly nutritious and something that whole another level of something that you can simply use and throw in and just eat.
We often will when we make like an infusion in the road straw or something, sometimes I'll throw a few pieces of kelp in there. Is that doing something? Just a few pieces of kelp. Is that enough?
A lot of goodies come up. A lot of the, you know, the gels and minerals cook out of it. You know, the longer the better, really, if you're gonna if you're gonna make a decoction, you know.
Well, not even really decoction. It's more just like, you know, I've heated my water up. I threw my throw my nettle in the jar, an ounce of it, you know, and I fill it up with hot water and I just let it brew for four hours.
Yeah.
It's more just like brewing, not so much decocting. So Well, that's that's a that's a decoction. It's just a pretty away, it is. Yeah.
But anyway That's For enthusiasts That is helpful.
A a lot of the good stuff comes out. Sure.
Okay. Good. Good. I just was wondering, like, what you thought about that because that's just a little side note for myself.
Yeah. Because I always, like, do that. Sometimes that's the way I kinda will get my CV because I'll forget to, you know, chew on a piece of kelp frond and it doesn't always get in the food. So I try to build it into something I'm doing already.
Sure. Yes.
So that's great.
So, like, if if if obviously, we we know from listening here that if we want some amazing quality sea vegetables, we can go to naturespiritherbs dot com.
And, I guess my next question is just around well, I'll throw in a couple of thoughts here and you can kind of weave them together.
Is that, one, what do we need to look out for when buying seaweeds and you can find them of course in Asian groceries and they're probably dirt cheap.
It's kind of like when I go get astragalus, I can get a whole huge place for, like, next to nothing. But I don't know where the heck it's coming from Right. Versus buying an organic somewhere, that I feel better about. So so it's around that. It's about what's safe.
You know, of course, we can go to your site, which we all recommend here, but also what else should people lean on?
Right. Well, if you're gonna go for, Asian sea vegetables, I would probably recommend going with, sea vegetables that come from the island of Hokkaido on the northern end of Japan, which is well away from any major industrial areas.
A lot of Asian seaweeds aren't that clean. And I would think that if you're going to go for Japanese seaweed, which they produce large percentage of the world's seaweed market, you know, that I would stick with ones from Hokkaido.
How do you know?
Oh, well, they'll say so.
Oh.
You know, because, you know, because they're from there, they'll advertise it because it's a good selling point.
Oh, so like if going into an Asian grocery, I don't know if it maybe it doesn't have these around them, but I live in a have an area where there's there's quite a few Asian groceries either in Seattle or even on the east side.
I can go into like Guachamaya, which is a Japanese grocery and and so that's what I would look for.
You know, like some kinds of nori are grown on nylon nets, you might say, that are stretched across base all over Japan and probably Asia in general, that that I'm told that they sometimes spread chemical fertilizer across the on the water to encourage growth and so on. So they're not all organic or and if they're growing anywhere near an industrial any major industrial areas they're likely to be contaminated with heavy metals. That's the main issue with seaweeds is heavy metal.
They will concentrate heavy metals if there's gathering up near way up in the say, I go up in the San Juan Islands and I'm up there and I gather some around there and that's where we usually go maybe once in a year in the summer or near you.
Is it a concern the heavy metals even like when we're just going out and wildcrafting?
Well, the thing to look out for is like I said industrial sources of pollution. There's manufacturing, paper mills, whoever's any kind of heavy manufacturing, there's often heavy metal pollution.
There's mining often you know mining often causes some heavy metal pollution.
So you got to look out as sources that are right at the ocean or sources that are on the river or, you know, creek or whatever that's coming down into the ocean near where you're harvesting.
And so so basically, it's just to kinda get to know your your place.
Right. You know, get to get to find out what's going on in the area you're harvesting.
So if you if so if you're someone just buying it, you probably wanna look for someone like yourself who's really paying attention to those things.
Right. Well, there's, you know, there's what about half a dozen harvesters on the West Coast and they're all pretty, you know, I should say we're all pretty conscious that way, you know. Right. There's a there's some harvesters on the East Coast and the at least like the the smaller, time ones over there, I think they're pretty, you know, they're pretty conscientious as well.
And they're probably gonna be up in New England and stuff, I understand.
Mostly.
I I I thought I was gonna get some from the East Coast. I'd be going for, Canadian or, seaweed from Canada or Maine.
Right.
Just because further south you have so much industry.
Right. I mean that's a huge amount. So not New Jersey.
Not New Jersey. This is fresh New Jersey seaweed. This is New York New York seaweed.
And, and then, you know, let's see what else there to be a lookout for.
That's pretty much it. They don't really concentrate much other, they don't concentrate pesticides or things like that.
It's mostly heavy metal contamination to look out for.
And, of course, it is easy. If you don't need a lot and it's easy to locate because anyone listening to this, I've told you where you can go and get it if you're not, in Nature Spirit Herbs. But let's see. Let's say, I someone lives on up in Maine or they live on Northern California all the way up to Washington, or they want to take a trip out, and this sounds like a fun thing to explore. Because, you know, I took a sea vegetable class at Earthwalk Northwest, and you can check that out at earthwalk northwest dot com.
Who who conducted it?
That's Karen Sherwood.
Uh-huh.
And and she's, her thing is she is real she's she's a wild foods person.
She's a wild foods, you know, gourmet person who can do do you know, she she taught at the Tom Brown's Tracker School for Oh, okay.
Like, maybe fifteen years and then has had her her school with her husband Frank here in in Issaquah, Washington for quite a while.
And she they she grew up going summers out on, on, in the San Juans and her had a family house, which which she kind of, took on and inherited and her kids go out to. And she runs a, she'll take a class up to her her family house for a week and they'll do all kinds of foraging and harvesting and make kelp.
You collect kelp but also make like pickles out of the whips and all that kind of stuff, fun stuff.
So where, that's one option, but do you run classes or, you know, as well?
I I have. I mean, I I, you know, I'm a instructor for the Herb Farm apprentice program. They're interns. I take them out on plant walks and teach them about seaweeds and, you know, some constitutional physiology, classes.
But I haven't done any seaweed classes for the general public in some years now. I haven't I I don't have anything going right now anyhow.
Does Ryan Drumm do classes for folks like regularly?
He does. And, that's all up there in Washington.
Right. That's not too far from actually where I go. Right. Just on a more remote island on, Waldron. Right? I think.
Yeah.
Yeah. So he's still up there doing that.
He's yeah. Yeah. He's still doing that. I mean, I heard about, you know, him doing a, you know, jeez, when was that? Last summer and fall, he was doing some classes. I know that.
What really struck me in learning this is that, there was only, like, apparently like one poisonous one, like all of them were safe to eat except for this one yet you wouldn't want to eat some of them because you wouldn't like the texture. But there was one that was just obviously poisonous. Right?
Right. Well, you know, in the in the temperate north here, there's basically no toxic seaweeds.
There's some that'll cause digestive upset.
Uh-huh. You know, some that might make you throw up or get diarrhea.
Mhmm. But but that's about it.
And those ones all taste bad.
Yeah.
And So you can safely go out there and start nibbling on all the seaweeds.
And if they're tender enough to nibble on, and if you chew them up, you know, chew them chew them off full for five or ten minutes, and if there's no bad taste, then it's good.
That's good.
Yeah. I was just amazed on how simple it was, Lauren. I don't even need to take like a notebook out. It was just kind of like, they're so distinct in look and everything, like the bullwhip kelp. I mean, gosh, if you're just stuck with bullwhip kelp, you can get like three plants in and have enough for quite a while. I think it it was something like the what what is the somebody I think Karen told us that, like, grew, like, something like it could grow, like, twenty is it, like, one of the fastest growing plants on Earth, it could grow, like, twenty feet in a day.
Is that Well, that's the giant kelp.
But, you know, the I mean, that bull kelp, I mean, they they can be fifty or eighty feet long, the whole plant, and they're an annual plant. You know, they start right from the, you know, the microscopic little filament in the springtime, you know.
And and they grow all the way out. It's incredible, Helen. You just gotta just swim on. So that's a pretty easy one, people. If you're ever folks, if you're ever out somewhere, you know, it's a clean source and you're out there and it's you're in a little bay or something where you see bullwhip kelp watching up on the beach, just look out a bit and see some fresh ones in the water and just swim out and grab them and take them in.
You know, take one in anyway to experiment with. As long as you have a place to dry it. Right?
If it's sunny out. But what what's the best time of year, to harvest?
Well, most of these seaweeds start growing in the early spring and, you know, they kind of go dormant one way or another for the winter. They overwinter as a crust on a rock or as a microscopic thing or they'll just kinda hang out throughout the winter as a stem attached to a rock. And then in the spring, you know, typically sometime in March or April, they start kind of taking off. When the light levels grow, when the day start getting longer, and then in the spring the upwelling starts happening, which brings colder deeper mineral rich water ashore.
And then that's when they start growing and sometime in May or June they're getting to be pretty good size and ready to harvest and they hold their quality, they're kind of growing really fast during like May, June and July.
And then they start slowing down, but they're still holding their quality pretty good through August. But by the end of August, the light levels have gone down and they're growing slower and the wave action is starting to wear them off faster than they're growing at that point.
So sometime, you know, you can if you just want to go out and get some anytime from May through September, really.
I always kinda, like, notice that when I if I go in in July or so that they're starting to like, the texture on some of them. It looks like they're waning yet. At the same time, it's like if I'm going up to the San Juan's and harvesting, it's it's it's like I need to make sure that it's sunny so it could dry at least somewhat before I could take it home.
Otherwise, I'll come home with a big bucket of, you know Right.
It's like fresh fish. You don't just leave it sitting around.
No. You have to get right to it. And so, like, luckily, I have friends where I could go to their place and string out a line or use their fence, you know, and string them out and get them to a point where I could take them home to the dehydrator, you know, but, you know, at least dry eighty percent of the way. Sure.
And for outdoor drying, you know, which is, you know, the easiest way to get any amount of it dried. Yeah.
May through September is about your, you know, those are the dry months anyway.
And tide levels, I've noticed, make a difference. I'll go I went out one year at the class. See, when she's doing her class, obviously, she knows she's paying attention to the tie because she needs to show. But I know that at one year, I go and I'm just like, wow. All I could get is bull kelp. And I'm like, where's all that nori that we were you know, the is it Piphora Piphora?
Porphyra.
Porphyra.
And, like, I don't you know, and so and I realized, oh, I gotta go when it's, like, I gotta look at the tide charts, which is and, you know, which is gonna reveal different levels of where the stores are hanging out. Right?
Sure. Yeah. Yeah. The tide table is the easiest way.
Yeah.
And, you know, and it, the the lowest tides are in, you know, May, June, July.
Right.
And there's another that they get low again around the winter solstice, but then the seaweed is not in very good shape at that point.
No. No.
So as a rule, the three, four days after the new or full moon is the first day where the low tide is late enough in the morning that it's a reasonable time to harvest.
Right at new moon and full moon, the low tide is usually right around six am. And so by the time it gets light, the tide is starting to come in.
But don't just gather off the beach. Right? Get it live plants. Well They're either out there.
As a rule, if you find it washed up on the beach, it's because it it it's been out in the ocean for a while, it's it's washed off the rocks, it grows on rocks.
Mhmm.
You know, it's always attached to rock where it grows and then Right.
You know, the waves can wash it off and then it washes up on the beach.
First, get to know what the live healthy seaweed looks like on the rocks.
Then if you see some washing up on the beach, you can look at it look at it and recognize well, you know, is this does this look old and tattered or battered or whatever? Or is it look like it just washed off a rock somewhere?
Right. Exactly. Okay.
If it's been washed up into the sand, then there's a whole another issue is is like, seaweed harvesting is a lot like picnic at the beach.
The whole trick is keeping the sand out of the And and you know what?
I should probably mention this too, a trick that I just can't I just remembered was that, if you do have some something to wash off your seaweeds before you take them back, wash it off in salt water and not fresh water. Right?
Right. Yeah. As soon as you dip some of these seaweeds, as soon as you put them in fresh water, they start to go, you know, they start to die. But then there's also the simple fact that these seaweeds, they have these gels, they can concentrate minerals out of seawater quite efficiently.
But you put them in fresh water and the minerals start washing out of it really quick.
Right.
So unless you're trying to reduce the minerals in your seaweeds, it's not a good idea.
So, so then, so if we're out on on there, we're not even let's just sit you know, maybe we're maybe we're out camping on the islands or somewhere where at beach or whatever, we see some seaweeds and, you know, we can, of course even if we're doing some camping on the beach, we could probably harvest some and put it in what we're eating or whatever. And I'm just trying to think if we're out there, we're not necessarily thoroughly collecting, but, there's some, like, topical uses too. Let's say you get hurt or you get a cut or you're out there or something.
Isn't there like, is it the bladder whack, the little poppers? Is that right?
Right.
It's got the gel filled bladders that And is that gel helpful for things if you're out there?
Well, you know that all these seaweeds are full of these gels, these polysaccharides.
And those polysaccharides, polysaccharides is what makes aloe vera good on burns and skin.
And, basically, it's the same action is that, there and, that's what marshmallow, that's what makes that slimy is polysaccharides, these gel.
And, the gels are all emollient. They make your skin soft topically.
Mhmm.
You know, in seaweed, you got all these minerals. So, you know, people use seaweeds for bath therapy and do facials and and body wraps and all these things for skin purposes and for also for anti inflammatory, if they do seaweed bath.
But as far as like putting on burns, just to take some powdered seaweed and mix it with a little water or you can take some, you can, that's probably the best way to do it.
But then you can also take, you could take fresh seaweeds and bind them on. But the the the the the the you got it like to try to get the gel out of the seaweed one way or another and onto the skin. And that's where bladder ac is so easy. You can just take a bladder and squeeze out that clear gel. It looks like, you know, it's just like use it just like aloe vera gel on burns, things like that.
Yeah. I think I have some sunburn.
What those and what those things do and they they have action, it's kinda like honey.
These, these, gels is they have, they're hydroscopic.
They draw water toward them.
Mhmm. And and, and so basically, you know, in the case of seaweed, you have not only the gels, but all the salts and minerals that pulls water, pulls water out through your skin.
And in the case of a burn, what that means is you're reducing the fluid build up, the edema.
And then you're replacing the stagnant fluids. What you got with a burn is all these stagnant fluids kind of pooling up around the cell, right?
And so they're not being supplied with food and not having their waste taken away. So when you put a gel on there like that or honey or aloe vera gel or seaweed gel or powdered seaweed, it's pulling fluids out through the skin, helping relieve the edema and then mineral or, you know, nutrient rich fluids replace it.
So you're keeping all those cells more well fed and well taken care of so the healing process can go faster. But it's a simple, I mean, a lot of it's a simple mechanical action of pulling fluids out.
And the Elantra win and the company do the same thing?
Well, that has other properties. That apparently stimulates the cell growth and so on by fooling the body into thinking there's more tissue damage than there actually is.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
I never knew that.
But but the, with the seaweeds, there's also the anti inflammatory effects, you know, of the these gels and there's, you know, to some degree I'm sure also a nutritional effect, Just having all this nutritional, bringing nutrition topically you might say.
And then, you know, I don't know if they still do anymore, but I know that for a long time that that kelp was used as a wound packing in hospitals for like bullet wounds and other nasty, nasty wounds.
They pack pack like a powdered kelp and, you know, rehydrated powdered kelp into these these wounds.
Just take some kelp, put it in some water, and it then it reconstitutes? Probably in, what, a matter of how long? Fresh fresh water okay then at that point. Right?
Yeah.
And and then we cost If you, you know, get a bullet wound, I definitely recommend going to the hospital in that trip.
Of course. But I'm just saying, like, for your own wound, we were talking about the powdered kelp before. And so I was thinking, like, I would take some, like, a a small handful of it and reconstitute it with some water, and then I could use that on a burner or wound.
Sure.
Right? Yeah. Okay.
Like, if I collected a small, you know, smallish burn or something, and, if I collected some kelp and then I have larger pieces, you know, and and I reconstitute that, then I would be able to actually just to wrap that whole thing around the burn, wouldn't I? Around my arm or something.
You could, but that it doesn't doesn't necessarily bring the gel into contact with your skin so well.
I think you'd be better off with a reconstituted powdered seaweed or if you put that fresh seaweed in the blender with just a little bit of water.
Okay. And then and then apply it.
Okay. Oh, that's great to know.
Or, you know, in the in if you were out in the ocean side, I'd chew a little bit of it up and apply it.
If it's not something you can squeeze gel on us.
So now anyone who's doing any outdoor activity or hiking or doing a camping trip in an ocean area now knows that you don't need your plantain and your other herbs that you might normally look for in a first aid situation that you have all around you, the sea greens that can, that can help you. That's great.
Yeah. Seaweeds are also the gels from them are used in a lot of high end cosmetics for skin care, things like that.
And ice cream.
Well, yes, the Elgin and carrageenan have are used industrially for all sorts of food making keeping ice cream from crystallizing, for example.
But I can only imagine where that's coming from.
For for for the heads, better head on beer. Instead of using enough malt, they'll add carrageenan I believe to improve the foam quality on beer for example.
And that seaweed is probably not coming from the best of sources.
Well, I have no idea about all that. That's That's true. Where all those are being harvested nowadays, you know.
Yeah. Exactly.
You know? But anyway, these these, most people are getting some form of seaweed in them, every day whether they know it or not in the form of, you know, food additives.
Food additives.
Probably one of the better the better food additives, we've got.
Right. But that isn't giving them the same nutrition as incorporating some kelp or wakame or kombu in your diet.
Right.
So that's a whole another thing. Yeah.
So another whole aspect of the seaweeds that I talked about earlier was also the that I didn't talk about earlier, I should say, was the red seaweeds, like, gigartina and a number of other of these red seaweeds got, kinds of, carrageenans in them that have distinct antiviral and antiherpetic qualities that people who use them regularly often get less herpes outbreaks, either kind, one or two.
Less or less severe outbreaks, you know, and so on. And so there there's a lot of people using them for that purpose as well.
And to a lesser degree for other viruses, you know, like colds and flu and things like that, they also tend to inhibit those.
But it's mostly specifically for herpes sufferers.
That's good to hear.
Whole another aspect of seaweed therapeutics.
Because of the antiviral properties, right?
Right.
Now, something popped in my mind too, something I actually did two nights ago is, woke up in the middle of the night with a sore throat. And in addition to, just chopping on a little garlic to get that in my system, you know, go back to bed, I just chewed on a couple of kelp pieces, which was also soothing for the throat.
Oh, all those gels, again.
Yeah. So that's a good, you know, people, what about a bad sore throat? Chew on some cow.
Sure. Marshmallow tea is good that way too. You know, it's just soothing the usage. Exactly. Polysaccharides.
But you know me. Like, I sometimes refer to myself as the lazy herbalist.
You know, I'm looking for something I could just That's right.
I don't wanna them. You want a marshmallow root.
About three in the morning. I'm just kidding.
Now fifty or a hundred years ago, when they made marshmallows with marshmallow root, you could've popped the marshmallow in your mouth.
Exactly.
I know. Oh, those were the days.
So, you know, James, at some point, we'll have you back on here to talk about some other things like wild crafting and and whatnot because you do so much. And I recommend people go to Nature Spirit Herbs and and, check out the it's you can learn everyone so much by going to a site like James', the Nature Spirit Herbs and downloading his catalogs.
And not just for the purpose of looking and shopping, but also, you know, when you look at the the herbal compound or the salves or or the tinctures, look at now I really recommend people do this anywhere. Always look at the what are what's he putting in those? Like, if you see a certain, salve for a certain reason, you know, what herbs are in there, and what's he choosing? And then it's great then to look those herbs up and then just try to match those properties. It's part of the learning process where you can really delve in there. And I love James, your catalogs, you know, because I because because it's so different when I know that you and Carrie are making these remedies and you're also harvesting the herbs that are going in the remedies.
And to just know that you're involved in the process let's see, at some point, yes, we can get back and talk about some of that stuff, which I'd really like to do.
I should also mention that also on our website we have several articles by Doctor. Ryan Drumm on, you know, seaweeds, therapeutic uses of seaweeds and, in particular, he's probably the one of the world's foremost authorities on thyroid function and dysfunction, you know thyroid disease and health and thyroid health I should say. We have several of his articles posted in our website and invaluable information that you can't find in very many places.
And and I'm not I'm not and so folks, I'm not posting that on HerbMentor. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna have a link as you see below this where you where you where you downloaded this file, this m p three, a link to James' site. So then that gets you over there, and you can check out his cataloging and check out these articles. And there's also a great, sea vegetables for Food and Medicine article by Ryan Drumm as well.
And so download that, take a look at that.
So, yes, I just it's very inspirational also for folks to go over there and see a family doing this professionally.
And, you know, you you at some point, you've start how long have you have you been playing with plants your whole life or at some point, you just Well, you know, I mean, I first got interested in plants when I was still in grade school.
Uh-huh.
So I kind of found what I like to do early on.
But we started our business. We moved out to Oregon in nineteen eighty nine and in nineteen ninety we started our business Nature Spirit Herbs.
It was pretty small business, but over the years it just kind of at this point now we're that's all the work we do is our business. We don't have other jobs or whatever like that.
Right, right. Well, that's what's happening for me too. It just slowly herbal. There's such a need.
There's so many big companies and so many once you kind of are in the know of the importance of that kind of more like micro herbalist, if you will, I don't know if I just coined that expression. But it's really important to know, you know, to know, like, because you're of and the that that that your herbs, like, that that, you know, just to know that you're involved in the whole process is huge if I'm going to purchase or buy wildcrafted herbs. I mean, because it's really just like how all of a sudden organic doesn't mean like what it used to. Right.
And now people are looking for those local sources.
So as if you're listening and you you become that local herbalist, in your area, and you're the one harvesting the herbs in your area, you're really doing a service to your community because as time's going on, like, this is really needed to have that person who really understands the plans of your area and knows how to use them in a way that can help people. So it's, there's there's always room for for people to take their passions into the world and and and make a living out of it, you know. It takes a lot of work, but it's, you know, what what doesn't, you know.
It seems right.
So if if I'm travel if I'm in the, air in the summer in the, in Washington, Oregon area, do of course, I I saw your table at the Northwest Herb Fest, which you can find out at Cheryl Tilner does that at herbaltransitions dot com, I think is her site.
Are there other places you frequent that people can meet you?
Let's see. I'll be doing some kind of classes at, the Brighton Bush Herbal Conference this fall.
Yes. I wanna go there this year. Yeah.
I don't remember the date off hand. Right. But I'll be doing, I'll be doing some some classes, over there.
Mhmm.
And let's see.
Well, I'll meet up with you next there then, I think, because I'm gonna try to be a participant this year there. I can't you know, really, I keep missing it, and I really wanna go.
It's a it's a really nice place. I don't know I don't know if you've ever been up there.
But Yeah.
Yeah. I did. Actually, Actually, my wife and I recently, had the first time we've ever been away from our kids in eight years, you know, we had somebody watch our watch to volunteer to watch the kids for the weekend, you know, and and we went, down there on a on a a getaway, which was great, you know.
Good choice.
Early winter. Oh, yes. Always our first choice.
It's the best place in the world and just as far as the northwest anyway.
But yeah. Any any like, maybe Oregon Country Fair, do you do that or any of those kinds of things?
I I don't. I'm usually it I'm almost always harvesting seaweed that weekend, it seems.
Well, that's that's a good answer.
You know, during the month of June, July, and August, I don't get to my timetable is my calendar. So I don't get to do too many other things in those in that time of year.
Right, right, right. So well then you can see James at Breitenbush, Herbaly. You can just Google Breitenbush, hot springs and they will eventually have their calendar up for two thousand and eight, I'm sure and that's a great herbal conference. And if you get to Northwest Herb Fest, if Cheryl is continuing to do it, then, of course, there is a great spot.
Probably be there too if she does it again.
If she does it again, yes. I might be at my folks, visiting the East Coast this summer, during those that time area if she does it during the same couple of weeks, I might miss it, but I'll be there if I can.
And then once again to just finish up here, naturespiritherbs dot com is where you want to go and, read some great articles and check out James and Kari's harvested goods and amazing formulas and salves and things that they make, very, very cool stuff.
So, James, thanks so much for talking with us and sharing your experiences and knowledge and wisdom.
And we really appreciate that, and we'd love to have you on again. And, gosh, I look forward to catching up with you again sometime.
Well, thanks for asking me.
Hey, Thank you. And and like I said, and and I'm sure that we'll, be having you on again. It was awesome. Thanks a lot.
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