From HerbMentor.com, this is Herb Mentor Radio.
You're listening to Herb Mentor Radio on HerbMentor.com. I'm John Gallagher. My guest today is Christopher Hobbs. Christopher is a fourth generation botanist with forty years experience in teaching herbal medicine, cofounder of the American Herbalist Guild, licensed acupuncturist, clinical herbalist, founder of an extract company, industry consultant, teacher and author of, twenty books, most famously the Peterson's Field Guide to Medicinal Plants of the Western US, Women's Herbs, Women's Health and Herbal Remedies for Dummies.
Christopher is currently working on a doctorate at Berkeley and you can visit him at Christopher Hobbs, that's h o b b s dot com where there are many wonderful resources for you to explore. Christopher, welcome.
Thank you. Thank you, John.
And and that resume, you know, what I said there didn't even really scratch the surface.
Well I like Yeah.
You gotta keep busy.
Yeah. Yeah. And you have. Yeah.
You know, otherwise.
Yeah. You know, I I was, I mentioned the the herbal remedies for dummies book. I think a while back, it was like the first dummies book, like, you know, whatever for dummies book that I ever bought, you know, and I and, and then I didn't consider myself a dummy and herbs at the time I, but I I just learned a lot from this book and, I just love how you put the information together. But what I really like specifically in the beginning, there's a lot of just right right in the right in the out of out the gate. You're just, like, really getting into a lot of safety stuff and what to look out for and what not to do and, but that was that your intention there with this book? I know you did it twelve years ago but I I know like, you know, it's do do you see a lot of misinformation going? It's like the same amount of misinformation going on today as you did back then, like, twelve years ago?
Yeah, I think they're maybe similar because, I think there's a lot more good quality information out there and especially on the web. But also there are a lot of claims that you see in the marketplace and I think there, yes, there is about the same amount of misinformation. I think there's more good information and more bad information.
So there's just more of everything and it's up to, I think, up to an herb consumer or an herb user to educate themselves with all this incredible good stuff that's out there, including on the web and be an informed user. That's what herbal medicine is all about is self care. And of course there are herbalists out there, the good and well trained herbalists that you can go to and get a differential diagnosis and a holistic health plan and an herbal plan. But, I think it's I think herbal medicine is the people's medicine, and it's pretty refreshing in this day and age of corporate leaves and use your gas pains or stomach ache and not have to go off to the doctor and get such good effects with something that you can grow in your backyard and also that smells good and attracts butterflies.
Yeah. Excellent.
You know, why why you were somebody had, written in a question and it just reminds me because you're just saying about how it's a people's medicine and and and there seems to be a lot of concern, I, you know, because I'm running this website where people getting it, like, right online. There's there's so much information flying around.
And, and you never know what's the truth and not the truth as far as all these regulation stuff going on. And so, you know, what's your antidote for for, you know, all these different rules and regulations that seem to go up for a bill, then they're not in the Congress, and they're this and they're that. I mean, what do you usually tell people who bring this up to you? Because I'm sure you get it all the time.
You're talking about the codex or or what what That is something related to it, because it seems like any kind of FDA type of thing that goes around the Internet somehow always gets linked to the whole codex thing.
Right. I get confused myself. Know.
Well, you know, the FDA is rather whimsical in the sense of they have field offices and and a lot of herbal medicine.
I think what's sold out there, how practitioners are presenting themselves and practicing, whimsical what the FDA or the or FTA, the Federal Trade, is it FDA, yes, FDA, these regulatory agencies, what they might do, what action they might take, it's a little bit whimsical because many of these are just not fixed in stone. In Europe, there are definitely more regulations and they're more strict on on enforcing them. But I think in our country we really have in North America, we have one of the most open and free climates for practicing herbal medicine professionally as a lay herbalist and selling products.
And even though I think regulations are increasing and of course with the GMPs in place now finally a good manufacturing practices that require smaller companies even a home business to follow certain guidelines about manufacturing and cleanliness and so forth claims of course.
Despite all that we have an incredibly open system here. I mean, it's much tighter in Europe than it is here and many other parts of the world. So we should kind of celebrate the fact that we have such openness in our society to alternatives. And of course, some states, I don't know how many now, but California, Michigan have a Freedom, Health Freedom Act that allows people to, if they disclose what their training is, for instance, if you're a lay herbalist and you took a training course from say Michael Tierra or some one of the schools, you can disclose that and you can say, well, I've had three years of experience as a practicing herbalist and I specialize in this and this type of maybe self limiting conditions like colds and flus or whatever your specialty is.
And as long as you disclose what your training and background is and you're not making exorbitant claims and, you know, you're free to practice as a lay herbalist and that's and you won't be prosecuted and and that's, you know, that's that's really amazing because I remember in the even in the 90s, I I was practicing in the early 90s, I was practicing as a as a layer of bliss and we were constantly in fear that we would be prosecuted. I knew doctors that were actually prosecuted for giving herbal supplements to their patients in the late 80s and early 90s. So the climate was quite a bit different then and it's opened up quite a bit even though I do hear dooms, you know, people talking about well the regulations are increasing and our freedoms are being taken away and so forth.
I think we have an incredibly open system and a lot of freedoms to be thankful for. Now that may change, but, that that remains to be seen yet.
But it seems like to me when I hear that, I really think that kind of stuff when people bring up fear that way. To me, it's just a call to say, well, you know, nobody can take away the herbs that grow in your garden or your backyard and your ability to make medicine with those and share them with your community.
No. That's absolutely right. That's what's so incredible about herbs is that, again, they are the people's medicine, and they they will always be open and free to use. I mean you can go wildcrafting and there are many weeds around that are very useful such as St. John's wort is a weed, it grows all over Northern California, Southern Oregon. And, how are they going to get rid of that?
And garlic, for instance, I mean are they going to ban garlic.
So it's just it's there, it's free of spices, most of the spices in our kitchen cabinet are also, you know, are very Exactly.
No spices people.
Yeah. Yeah. That's that's gonna they're gonna have regulatory labels on on turmeric and cinnamon. Cinnamon for, you know, you can't use it for diabetes. You have to just put it in your on your toast or whatever.
But don't think of it as a healing agent or a preventative.
You go to the pizza restaurant, there's a little label on the oregano.
Or the or the pepper you know, the little shaker where they put all those cayenne peppers in there, man, that's good stuff.
I always think that that counteracts, I don't have pizza very often, but we have a really nice pizza place here in Davis that has a whole wheat crust and organic and lots of vegetables on it. And so once in a great while I indulge, but I always put lots of cayenne, those ground up cayenne pepper pods on it and I think well that probably counteracts any of the cholesterol that I'm getting from all that cheese.
But it tastes so good that I think it counteracts it too.
Exactly. Exactly. So, so what really struck me when when looking at your background is, fourth generation botanist and herbalist. And, you know, as I'm a dad, you're a dad, and we're both dads of young kids. And and, you know, what was that like going out and collecting plants with your dad and what were you know, that must have been really cool.
Well, it really was and that got me going on a path that I'm still on today and and, he was he was a he taught ornamental ornamental horticulture.
Excuse me. He taught, well, he was an entomologist, anabotanist, but he taught ornamental horticulture. He knew all the plants. As we were driving around Southern California, I'd say, Dad, what's that?
What's that? What's that tree over there? And what's that flowering plant? And he'd always say, oh, that's an ornamental cypress or juniper or I still remember asking him a lot of questions and just had a natural interest, I guess, maybe because he was interested.
And then in the summers, we went to Tahoe for about four or five years when I was around eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve.
And he was a professor, so he had the summer off. So he took us to Tahoe and he was an agricultural inspection person at the border there just for two months during the summer. And so we got to run wild and in the fields and forests there around Tahoe. And this was in the early days when there wasn't as much development.
And to see a lot of flowers and plants and develop a love of nature and I'd always take things to him and say, what's this, you know, what's this plant? And so he was pretty interactive with that. And he, yeah, he was just such a big influence on my life and I'm still you know, I'm a basically my PhD is in is in botany and all related fields in chemistry and pharmacology and so forth. But he's still inspiring me today and he passed it around eighty three and he was still collecting plants and insects out in the field and still excited about his work.
I hope that's me too. I'm still very excited about learning and as I get older and just so thankful that that I had that influence in my life.
Yeah. But what was really struck me too is that, you know, coming of age and especially coming of age, in the what? It probably in the late sixties, early seventies. I'm just trying to figure out the math here between everything and and and, that you actually didn't rebel again.
Christopher turns into a stock broker because his parents were herbalists and fathers.
Well, as it turns out, you know, my dad was about as radical as I was. I mean, I was a hippie. I became a hippie in the late 60s and just knew that that was the lifestyle for me and he was actually into Zen Buddhism before that and used to take me to Krishnamurti to hear him speak and Ojai and was actually smoking pot and dropping LSD before I was. So he was a pretty exceptional, you know, he was a college professor, so I guess you could say he was a radical thinker. But, yes, I didn't have to rebel from that.
He was right in line with my thinking.
Well, yeah. Let's think of that TV show. It was in the eighties where the where Michael J. Fox, right, where his parents were hippies and then he becomes a Republican, you know.
Yeah.
It was a good Well, it usually happens that way, doesn't it?
Every other generation. I'm expecting my son though, he's I've taken him out to the fields ever since he was I mean, I carried him out in the garden and around the roses and around our herb garden when he was like a few hours old. So, I've been we've been spending a lot of time outside. So I really am I do joke that I expect him to be president of McDonald's or something.
You know, I I same with our kids. You know, I've done that out, you know, right from the time they were born and and, you know, they're in a wilderness school. And they and they they have a love in nature. They're out there and they and and and and it's it's great, you know. But but still, when my when my my son comes up about plants or something recently comes up. Dad I got this great idea for a herbal video game where there's these zombies.
And I'm like, well, at least it's herbal.
Yeah. Exactly. Oh, my son's really into into Legos. He's a he's a total Lego freak.
Oh, we were just down in California, though. We took a trip down to Legoland. That was great.
Yeah. We were down there too over the holidays.
Oh, we just, followed you up there. It was awesome. So it was Yeah.
It was really fun. I enjoyed it.
Yeah. It was it was good. I had a good time there. So my except Kimberly, my wife's back went out about halfway through.
I've spoken about facts before. And it was on the little airplane ride, you know. Yeah. We do we still can't figure that one out.
But anyway, but, you know, another thing about your, background, you know, is, really interesting that on your mother's side, you had a lot herbalism. Say your grandmother studied with a Chinese herbalist or something?
Or Yeah.
She she actually did. My great grandmother was a tarot reader and a lawyer in New York and she left her husband and moved out to Montana and became a tarot reader and herbalist.
And this was pretty radical for that day. This was probably in the late 1800s and or very early 1900s. And then my grandmother, my mother's mother, was the neighborhood herbalist on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. They moved from New York out to Pasadena herb garden in the front herb garden in the front yard right in Pasadena there on Colorado Boulevard.
And then she took the trolley, the red line when it before it was dismantled by Goodyear, she took the trolley from Pasadena down into LA and yes, studied with a Chinese herbalist for several years. I read I have her notes and some of her formulas and so forth.
And they had solar panels on the roof for hot water and an organic herb garden. And this is in the early 1920s.
So it's pretty pretty cool.
That's fascinating. Gosh, that'd be you know, that's that's that's a whole whole That's that's really cool. I mean, I compare that to my family and where they came from. And I'm like, yeah. It's a miracle that I'm even talking to you.
Oh, well. When the when the call, the plants have something in mind for us. We it's yeah.
Like, it's do do you notice that, like, when you're, you know, you've taught for so long.
You've you've taught in schools, you know.
Gosh, you know, you probably, you know, it's probably impossible to comprehend how many times you've taught, especially beginners.
Do you notice that in people that the people that come there, there seems to be some kind of calling or something that brings them there?
Oh, definitely. It's definitely a calling.
And Rosemary always says that, you know, the plants call us and and then we serve.
But, yeah, I've seen people that had a real passion. And now I'm teaching at Berkeley. It's a different type of student, but I've been teaching at Berkeley for three and a half years. I teach medical ethnobotany, excuse me, the lab, medical ethnobotany and California native plant life. We do field trips and so forth. But this last semester I had almost thirty students in the medical ethnobotany lab. We see a lot of plants and go to the garden and learn plants uses and identification, plant families and so forth from different cultures.
And it's really, really fun to be able to teach Berkeley students are usually very motivated. But out of about, I don't know, twenty six, twenty seven students, you know, this class really, really changed their life and they, you know, this class really, really changed their life and they decided to go on and and they really are highly motivated to take further training and a couple of them have one of them went to Bastyr College and so it's really, really exciting to see those few students that are just really have a fire in their belly and a lot.
Hello? Oh, yeah. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm here.
Okay.
So but it's not everybody, but you do see even in seminars and conferences, you still see some I don't know what the exact percentage is, but probably a few percent up to ten percent of students that just are really, really fire have a fire in their belly. And and, you can see it's a calling for them.
Wow. Wow.
So so at so, at Teachers always always live for those types of students that are are so motivated and so passionate because that really fee really excites us and gets our fire going too.
But but when you're working with someone as as someone new, like, and you're seeing that passionate student and they're like, yeah, you know, I really want this. Like, what foundation or where do you come from when you're where do you try to connect them to? You know, because it seems like different teachers I see, or have heard a lot from, you know, people like Susan Weed and other people that I've read their books or seen them at conferences.
What's what's so wonderful is how dynamic it is at the conferences. One day, I can go see someone like yourself or Steven Buhner or Susan Wheaton and and and there's there's course similarities, but there's, you know, everyone's got their own voice, and what they've discovered is their way to connect. But what do you find that is for you?
Well, that's changed quite a bit over the years, and I I was like, herbalism is is basically authority based in one sense. I mean, there's a good aspect to that in that it's an oral tradition, written tradition that's passed on from generation to generation. The stories it's really generated are really oriented towards storytelling, and that's the way that people remembered how to use herbs and how to treat themselves and prevention and incorporate the herbal medicine into their lives through stories. It's easy to remember, and especially before before writing.
So it is an oral tradition and it's passed down to generation to generation. But the other side of it is, is that that people tend to enhance stories and make up their own stuff as they go along. And some of it's good stuff. And I think some of it is fantasy and so it is kind of a it is an oral tradition on one hand, but on the other hand, it's authority based.
And so a young student might listen to somebody and and say, well, so and so said that this herb is used to that and it really, really works well And so this is the herb for that.
And even things like ginseng is a men's herb and Dong Quai is a women's herb, some stories that get started like that or Golden Seal, you shouldn't take that long term, it's toxic or so you get stories like that that are passed on. Echinacea shouldn't be or should be used long term and people just pass that on. And now as a sign, I mean, I'm a root digging herbalist and certainly, honor my ancestors in the traditions, but I'm also a scientist nowadays. And and I I saw I really encourage students to think for themselves and to really investigate for themselves. And so, yeah, it's wonderful taking classes from Susan Weed and Michael Tierra and Rosemary and another herbalist.
And, but I think we have to really take it take take it as an inspiration of somebody who has dedicated their life to herbal medicine and has a passion and I think the passion is what what we really is can be passed on the passion and the excitement and some basic information maybe, but I don't think we should pay too much attention to to the minute details because those are the things that we have to learn for ourselves. We have to start and I'm just encouraging students all the time to stop reading about it and talking about it and just do it and start collecting herbs and going to the fields and looking at weeds and dissecting flowers and looking at them more closely and taking notes on plant populations and how they're growing and what plants are growing together and really investigate, look deeply and experience it for yourself and brew go out and pick some rosemary and brew it up and drink it at a time.
So it's really doing it for yourself and not reading about it so much. Yes, there's so much good information out there. Just use the use the teachers for inspiration. Well, they've done it for a long time and I'm hearing that it's safe and that that I can use plants fresh.
And, so so it's just really important to for for me to to encourage students to to really learn for themselves and experiment and practice and and look more deeply and also use a site like PubMed dot gov, which is the world's largest medical database, that is free. It's free to search.
It's it's the National Library of Medicine. And so you can look up almost any topic, herbs for asthma, herbs for diabetes, excuse me, and then you can see what research has been done out there. You can get a review article and read about it and even the tradition somewhat in the introductions, but you can see what what actual clinical studies have been done on certain things. I mean, just because a nerve doesn't have human clinical studies doesn't mean that it doesn't work, but it's nice to know that St.
John's Wort has thirty clinical studies, many of them control double blind studies shown in meta analyses where expert reviewers review all the studies and conclude that St. John's wort extracts are just as effective as Zoloft or other SSRIs with half the side effects and half and a quarter of the cost. So it's nice to know that even modern science and modern medicine and more systematic investigation of herbal medicine is showing that that they are are very effective and they are safe. And that's another piece of the of the puzzle today especially for of course medical practitioners and if herbal medicine is going to be integrated into mainstream health care I think we need these types of investigations to go along with, handing down the folk tales and the stories about about how dandelion is good for your liver and it can help with acne or something like that.
That many of these stories are a little bit vague and and they change. So Mhmm. Depending on who's telling the story.
Yeah. Well, since it but there's a lot of information out there and there's also it seems like probably the majority of people who wanna learn about herbs are probably wanting to be in the kitchen herbalist or the family herbal type of situation where they just wanna take care of you know, stay healthy and take care of the bumps and bruises and things that come up. And, so Yeah.
That that's right.
And that can and that can be you know, a lot of the information going too deep seems like it would be a little paralyzing because there's there's so much. I mean, I you know, versus so. So I don't know. I mean, it's just a matter of handful of books or whatever people find or find a good teacher or something to to bring them through.
But, I think Yeah.
Get them excited and and feel comfortable with experiment experimenting themselves.
Right. Right. Yeah. And and, also, I think it's really great to and why I really like, you know, the answer. I'm just because really cool I'm talking to somebody who wrote a Peterson's field guide.
That must have been some experience. I mean, do do you really recommend that people, you know, just really key and and mow the local plants of their area? I mean, is that a good way to to do it? Just using field just a basic field guide or through families? Or how do you like, you know, just your layperson to go about the the the, you know, learning the plants of their area?
Well, I mean, any any and all routes. If you have a local person, a local botanist take a class from a junior college in plant taxonomy or as we have the class that we have at Berkeley is California native plant lice.
That's a wonderful way to be introduced to the local plants. If you can find a teacher that at a local college that has a PhD in botany or that really has a lot of field experience, that's a wonderful introduction. But even a person Yes, so I think a living teacher is the best if you can find one. But that saves a lot of time. But the way I did it, I had my dad, but I also spent many, many years out in the field with a flora, with a local flora just keying out plants. I'd sit down with a handful of flowers and plants and spend hours looking at the floral structures and trying to figure out what they were.
And in that, we make a connection with the plants. So there's no substitute for just getting out in fields and looking at the weeds and trying to identify them ourselves. We spend time and make a connection with the plants and then pick them and brew them up and paste them and even eat them, of course. I tend to eat a lot of wild plants, nibble them and chew them and swallow them right when I'm out. And people often think it's funny because I'll be talking about sow thistle or something and I pick the tops off and just start eating it in the field and people often times think that's weird.
But you can eat these plants, I mean rosemary, just go out in your backyard and start eating the rosemary. We don't have to actually formally brew it up. Right.
Just chew it and swallow it and that's what I tend to do a lot. Your basanta, when I'm out in the field, I always pick some shoots and chew them up and swallow them or suck on them.
And any wild mints or whatever is out there, I'm always nibbling, smelling, tasting, making a connection with them. But, yeah, field guides, any route is good. Field guides, especially, like a Peterson field guide that has pictures.
And if you want to get more technical and enjoy investigating them more deeply than your local flora, Like, you know, in California, we have the Jepsen manual, which is for the whole state, but many times there are regional floras too. Like, we have a flora of Santa Cruz County, flora of Marin County, flora of Monterey County. So get a local flora if you can that will narrow down what you're looking at and learn to use the keys.
The keys are just dichotomous choices where they'd say the plant is a shrub or is it a tree or what's the flower color and then you make different choices and then you eventually arrive at maybe the exact genus and species of the plant that you're looking at. And that's good to know.
Also, I always recommend that people learn the few lethal ones that are out there in your environment.
That's very important to get a book on toxic plants or a field guide of your area and learn that that water hemlock could actually kill you and poison hemlock. And if there are any ones that are actually lethal, make sure to learn those first and and respect those.
You you know, I I gotta ask you just because this question actually just came up someone was talking about water hemlock in our in our forum, in our user forum, and they're saying that, they picked chickweed that was growing next to hemlock, and they ate it and it gave them a bad reaction. Now plants can can plants in all your research like, I I was I was stumped because I said, well, maybe I really don't know. I never heard of this, but maybe I I really don't know because it's nature and nature's does what it does and it's, it's it's impossible to understand it all. The in your experience, the the can plants take on chemical properties of plants that are growing next to it? I mean, I'm thinking chicken is very watery and maybe it's something in the water that got in the planet and absorbed. What what do you know about that? Do you know any?
No.
I really don't think that's possible. That's right. I I'm a chemist. I know chemistry pretty well, ecology, allelopathy.
I mean chemicals do excrete chemicals from their roots and their leaves and aromatic chemicals and so on that's called allelopathy and to kind of signal other plants that they shouldn't grow too closely, there are limited resources, they're competing for those resources or they're if you look at it another way, they're agreeing to partition the resources in a certain So they were kind of working together, but no, plants don't really, if you pick chickweed next to water hemlock, that's very unlikely that I think that's pretty impossible that that's going to take up those alkaloids in the plant. The plant just isn't set up for that and it would have to actually produce those alkaloids.
I mean, you have to think those alkaloids are going to be traveling through the soil, migrating to the soil and then the chickweed is going to pick up those alkaloids.
No, that just isn't going to happen.
Okay. Good. That's that's what I was thinking, but I just wanted to be sure since you just mentioned it and I had you on the phone.
No. No. That wouldn't happen. But on the other hand, you know, I I think it's really easy to kinda trip yourself out, you know, if there's poison hemlock growing there and you're picking you kind of think well, did I accidentally pick a little bit of a leaf of that poison hemlock in with the Chickweed and eat it? And I know I've harvested roots around plants like hellebore, wild hellebore up in the Sierra.
I've dug roots, gentian or something that are growing right next to the hellebore roots and I'm thinking, well, did I accidentally get a get one of those toxic roots in with a Gentian?
So, you know, it's probably better to not dig roots right next to a plant that has lethal roots, you know, that's how the famous death camas, that's how people, Native American Indians died from death camas. They were picking blue camas and interspersed with it were death canvas roots. And once in a while, they did dig a death canvas root.
So And up here, they had canvas, like, farms.
They would make little areas, the patches, and and then harvest when it was flowering so they could tell the difference.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So learn the lethal ones very well. That's that's the that's the first step.
Exactly. There are a lot of resources for that too. Great.
And, your work that you're doing now, you're studying all I mean, the whole doctor on Artemisia, Yeah. That's so so that's of course, for those don't know that, it's the genus that mugwort's in.
And, and but you but but I heard you at a botany class, and what you're finding out is that though I heard you say that though, you know, the way things are keyed out in field guides and whatnot in that way of organizing plants is great learning tool. But you're saying it's actually in reality with some of the genetic research you were doing, it's actually a little different than we think?
No. Yeah. Much much, much different than than what where my background is coming from for sure. At Berkeley, the PhD is largely focused on phylogenetics, which is looking at using DNA sequences and of course morphology and other characters to to really determine the the ancestry of plants, how they're related, their lineages, which I really like the idea of, their how how where they've spread where they've come from, for instance, you know, and I I didn't know a lot about this when I started the program, but, you know, there is a pollen record for Artemisia.
They've got cores and and also when they're drilling for, excuse me, oil or taking or any any drilling they or even sometimes it's exposed in rock surfaces and cliffs and things that have been worn away by erosion for for centuries and centuries, maybe thousands of years. But the the pollen record for Artemisia goes back thirty million years. So that's when it first showed up in Central Asia that we think that's where the genus started. And then it came into North America, the first pollen records in the Western United States of Montana and Wyoming is from around eighteen to twenty million years ago.
So if you can it's just hard to imagine that that, like for instance, mugwort western mugwort or or mountain mugwort, which we have here in the West, have their ancestors came into North America from Asia over the land bridge of Beringia about, probably around eighteen to twenty million years ago. So I mean, how adapted is that? How I mean when you think of looking at a mugwort, their ancestors were here twenty million years ago. It just blows my mind.
But that's what phylogenetics is really focused on is is finding, is really using modern plants to infer by all these modern methods that we have using computers, really inferring when the ancestors were around, how long they've been here, what what species are that we can see now are most closely related.
And and that that really talks a lot about the medicinal uses and the energetics and and other properties, pharmacological properties of plants because the more closely they are related to each other by ancestry, pharmacological effect or chemical, profile. For instance, if you look at Valerian, people often have asked me over the years, well, you know, Valeriana officinalis, the European one, is the one that all the research is on. That's the traditional one that was used for sedation or calming.
Can we use the the ones that are in North America? Like, we have three or four in California. Are those the same? Are those do those same have the same sedative properties?
Right.
And which ones are more likely to be stronger and more like the European, the traditional one. Well, you can figure all that out with with phylogenetics. You can make a tree, you can collect the samples and and match up the DNA sequences and see the changes in in in in basis, ATCG over the over the over time, and and you can draw a tree. You can the computer and the statistical algorithms that we're using, you can generate a tree that will infer how what the sister groups are.
So So you can look at a really active one like, well, in my case, artemisia annua, which has got the antimalarial drug and anticancer drug in it called, artemisinin. Mhmm. And you can look and see in this very large genus of about four hundred and fifty species, are there any other plants in in Artemisia, that maybe low grow in my local area that have artemisinin. And you can and basically, that's what I am I'm inferring by matching up all these sequences by by collecting the plants in the wild, by analyzing them, I can find out which ones also have Artemis in them.
In the case of Valerian or arnica or many of the other traditionally used herbs, which other species that are in a in a different continent even, can those be used? Are those the same? And so you can answer questions like that, that are more practical. But just understanding, it's really important to understand how plants are related to each other, and whether they're the same taxon or or actual entity or not is really important for conservation efforts.
Mhmm. And that's what that's what a lot of the work in my department is focused on is conservation, really discovering which lineages are actually separate or and unique, and which really which ones we really should work on preserving and putting our conservation efforts in into populations and so forth.
Population biology is and conservation is really another thing that we work on a lot. But my work on Artemisia is broader than than, than just the phylogenetics. That's the foundation. Then I'm also analyzing the essential oils, the the volatile oils because all Artemisia have have aromas. They're they're very aromatic.
That's why they've been used in medicine.
And so I've I've been doing analytical work with GC mass spec gas chromatography to really identify the individual compounds, maybe one hundred or one hundred and fifty different individual compounds in the volatile fraction that that we can smell. It's an amazing array of chemical compounds in there and very variable depending on the species.
Also working with the ecology of populations.
And then finally, the last part of my work is going to be focused on on really looking at the historical uses of artemisias and probably twenty or thirty different species of artemisia have been used traditionally over time in different cultures. In China alone, in traditional Chinese medicine, about ten or fifteen Wow. Were were used and are mentioned. And in the western cultures, you've got tarragon, you've got wormwood, of course, mugwort, you've got a number of other species, that that southern wood that that were used and mentioned in the ancient herbals. So my what I'm gonna do is go back through time. I have a library herbal library of about eight thousand books with with old herbals and material medicas, and I've been collecting them since since nineteen sixty eight. I bought my first my first herbal.
So so I have a very extensive library, but I also have access to Berkeley.
The the Bancroft library has an incredible historical collection.
UCSF at at San Francisco, the medical school has really good good old herbals and medical books. So I'm going to basically comb through the literature very carefully in all different cultures and then and then make a huge data matrix on the uses of Artemisia throughout history.
And then using these same phylogenetic techniques, infer a tree, come up with a tree that shows the knowledge and the the lineages of knowledge and how the knowledge was passed on from generation to generation, herbal to herbal, like starting with Dioscorides or in the first century AD, nineteen hundred years ago ago, or even the the, Syrians and the Egyptians and the Greeks might looking through their literature, what what we have and, and then drawing a tree using these modern methods and computers to to determine how the knowledge was passed on from culture to culture and, where it's coming from. So so that's an exciting project. Wow.
That'll be the last the last part of my my dissertation.
Wow. That's incredible. Thanks for sharing, all that with us. That's that's, I'm looking forward to see what you do with all that. And probably anyone who, goes to a herbal conference where you're speaking at in the next, few years will probably get a good presentation of what your latest things that you're doing.
So Yeah.
I'm incorporating it into my talks more and more, what I've what I've learned about ecology and chemistry. Cool. And, and I'll I just like to say one thing about science in general, you know, herbal herbalism has been sometimes scientific approach, traditional herbalist. Mhmm.
And I have to say that that as I've been if I studied science and I've become more of a scientist, it's rather than making it more of a scientist, become more of a scientist, it's rather than making it more dry or or separating it from from you might say a more heart connection or a more earth earth connection, the spiritual aspects of plants. It's really opened up my eyes to how incredible nature is and how incredible plants are, what a what a web it is, and and how much mystery is still there. I mean, just looking at a leaf and knowing what's kind of something of what's going on inside that leaf, all the the gas exchange, the the photosynthesis, the, you know, the the the leaf and the chlorophyll can can take a, the the the photon packet of energy that comes ninety three million miles from the sun and excite an electron to an to another energy level, and that's how it captures the this this small amount of energy.
Well, overall, it's a huge amount, but but just, you know, when the light the light is shining on a leaf, what's going on inside there to to capture that that energy from the sun from so far sugars that that, is how the how the plants capture that that sun energy. I mean, just to know some of what's going on inside the leaf, it's really a miracle. It really is, just totally mind blowing. So science has really opened up my eyes and and, and made me think more about the world that's around us, how plants are interacting, how they're living in the world, their ancestral connections, chemistry, pharmacology, all of these things blend together to to give us, I think, a more complete picture of of what's going on in in the plant world.
And and so that we we even feel a stronger connection, to plants because humans and plant interaction has obviously been going on for thousands and thousands of years and, if not longer.
Wow. Thank you for that. Thank you. I pretty appreciate that work you're doing too, because I I've talked to a lot of folks on this show.
And and, and it's I'm really impressed how many people, are kind of saying, hey, you know, things don't have to be separate here in the scientific or, you know, even medical world. You know, we can, you know, work together. And this is how, you know, there doesn't have to be this or that. It can be all work together and be complementary.
So that's wonderful.
Exactly.
So before we just wrap it up, people had written in some questions, and maybe you can just give give some, quick answers for people because, I we got so into the conversation that I kinda lost track of time. Yeah.
Sorry.
Michael, here. Loved your medicinal mushroom book, and he just wanna know if there are any significant discoveries or added info on medicinal mushrooms since your book was published that you've, you know, big ahas maybe that you've realized since you've published the book.
Well, a lot of things and I've been working on a third edition for for a few years, but the literature is vast since I wrote the second edition. And I've been I have written a couple of review articles that are available on the International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms site, which is Bagel House dot com.
Okay.
B e g e l. So you can check those. Those are more recent reviews that where where I talk about how beta glucans, the giant polymers in mushrooms, how they affect our immune system, the the dectants, receptor sites, which are ancient sites in our body that are triggered by mushroom compounds.
And so that whole story is a fascinating one. I think why do why do animals respond to to mushroom polymers, cell wall components, virus enhancing effect. That whole story is just fascinating.
And, I I do write about that in in-depth in in the in the reviews that I've written, for the International Journal of Medicinal Mushroom, which can be downloaded, on the Bagel House site.
Okay. Great.
So so I would recommend those those reviews for more up to date stuff. But, you know, I've I've learned a lot. I've done every every year of all just in this mushroom season that we've had in California. The last few months, I've given my medicinal mushroom talk a number of times.
I'm actually giving it tomorrow, in at UC Berkeley, to a group of people. So I I've really been keeping up on the the literature, and I I I just can't really mention one thing that I've learned. I've learned so many things Mhmm. In the last five or ten years, but but I will say that there are a lot of unanswered questions about the dose, what species is the best, mycelium or fruiting body, which one is the most potent, the type of preparation, a water based tea, an an enzyme product that breaks the mushroom down, a tincture.
So so what's the best preparation? These are questions that are not completely fully answered yet, but we do know a lot more than we did ten or fifteen years ago. That's true. And just in summary, I would say that that, the fruiting body and the mycelium together certainly seem to be a good way to go.
And I would say that I'm not a big fan of tinctures.
There are a few exceptions. Reishi tincture is good for problems with the nervous system like insomnia, anxiety, and so forth because the the compounds that are active are smaller molecular weight. They are triterpenes and those are soluble in alcohol. However, the the beta glucans are not soluble in alcohol.
In fact, they're precipitated, but they use them commercially. They use they add alcohol to a a water based extract in order to precipitate the beta glucans and isolate them. So tinctures are not the best way to go for immune activity. It's better to use a hot water extract or taking the fruiting body of the mycelium and steam it and break the the cell walls down.
You have to cook it or steam it in some way, in order to make the the compounds, the the beta glucans more bioavailable and to break down the chitin, which we cannot absolutely digest. So mush mushroom powders is not the way to go either. You're just grinding up the the mushrooms. That's not the way to go either.
You have to cook them or steam steam the product as far as I'm concerned for the highest activity.
Wow. Okay. Okay.
So so yeah. And as far as dose goes, you know, I think two fruiting bodies of shiitake several times a week is certainly good for just basic immune enhancement.
My basic dose of a mushroom extract is around two to six grams per day in a divided dose.
Wow. Okay.
Or a tea or a tea. So boil take about fifteen, twenty, twenty five grams of the of the dried mushroom, boil it down for an hour or two, and then drink a half a cup to a cup morning and evening. That would be my basic dose.
And, And, Yeah.
So another question was, kinda skipping around here because a lot of folks have questions. You can just I I just wanna say people put questions in. A lot of questions, you know, you could just kinda ask on the forum as a new topic because, you know, that we could a lot of them might kinda ones that I know that people on the forum can answer. I just wanna ask Christopher a few that, you know, maybe were best suited for him and he can help us with since we got him.
And, a really good question was the best source of information on what menstruum extracts, like, let's see. It's like she's wondering a resource, that talks about, like, which menstruums might work best with different herbs. Like, for example, what's a, difference between an echinacea extract and glycerin versus alcohol? Do you know of a good resource or do you just have this rule of thumb that you always just go by?
I have, yeah. I mean, that's that's been a long standing question.
You had and there's unfortunately, there's no Mhmm. Black and white easy answer. Mhmm. The I think it takes some study to to really realize what you're trying to get out of the herb.
First of all, for instance, for echinacea, you're talking about echinacea and glycerin. Echinacea, in fact, any herb is a complex mixture of compounds. So there's not typically one compound that you're trying to get out necessarily. However, having said that, there are some exceptions like goldenseal.
You're looking for the berberine, but but there is an essential oil that you want to get to that might be part of the activity, and there are other compounds.
So, I think my general my general advice on on really finding getting the best information on that is to study the chemistry of the plan And for that, I would I would mention one book that I think is probably the best one out there, and that's the the potter's, new encyclopedia of herbs that the the I guess it's the third edition now that was published about two or three years ago. You can buy that online. The Potter's New Cyclopedia of Herbal Medicine, that because I recommend that book because it has so many herbs in it including even some Chinese herbs, and it has a summary of the what we know about the chemistry, including the sources and also the pharmacology dose traditional uses, but it has a very good summary of the echinacea or look it up on PubMed, many times you can find echinacea or look it up on PubMed, many times you can find some very good information on pubmed dot gov.
For instance, echinacea, what are the active compounds, that you're looking for? Well, we have some lipophilic compounds. In other words, mainly alcohol soluble, non water soluble compounds that cause that buzzy tingling sensation.
Those are alkylomides, and those those are water soluble if you boil the water, but not berries. They're more soluble in high alcohol content, and they're not very soluble in glycerin. So if you so that's part of the immunomodulating effect. Also, you have polysaccharides, which are water soluble.
Those would come into glycerin, those would come into a tea.
And and you have other compounds too that are non water soluble and non alcohol soluble.
So for me, the best preparation of echinacea would be to how the Indians used to do it, and that is just basically take the fresh root or dried root and chew it. Mhmm. Chew it up and swallow it. And you're actually going to get a full spectrum of all the compounds when and I will say this, and that is look at the traditional use.
Plantain was used fresh and and it was chewed or applied or eaten or made a tea out of, but but also used fresh a lot. It was just applied to a wound, just chewed up or ground up the fresh material and actually that if you look at the chemistry, that's the best way to do it. That's absolutely the best way to do it because the active compounds are are unstable. So if you look at traditional medicine, how how it was used, how it was prepared, oftentimes that will give you a big clue about the best way to use it and then study the chemistry, study the pharmacology, look on PubMed, look on in the potters.
And then there's another book called the Merck Index, Get a fairly recent like the eleventh edition of the Merck Index and you can look up any compound like for instance the alkyl amides or menthol and peppermint and that will give you some basic information like how volatile is it, what's the boiling point, so is it going to come off in the steam of a tea? And also the solubility, is it very soluble in water? Is it slightly soluble in hot water? Is it soluble in alcohol?
So between those two books, the potters and the Merck Index, you can really determine, determine a lot about how to tailor your menstruum, what type of preparation is best. Is it a hot water extract, an alcoholic extract, glyceride, and so forth? I will generally say that glycerides are tend to be the weakest of all, of all extracts. They're They're only used, I think, for children is the best way and to put some flavoring in there. I don't really favor glycerides.
Yeah. And how many people do it seems so? They people want them seem to want them to be really.
No. They're they're they're just not very strong and and maybe for kids, they're they have a little bit of a use, but I would much prefer a tea, and I want to say one more thing that I've learned that through the literature and through personal experience and that is the tea is the chewing and swallowing the herbs is the best because you get the full spectrum, you mix it with the saliva, it's also the most convenient. You just go out in your garden and, you know, eat it. You can also juice it.
That's a great way to do it. You can dry the juice at a carrier and dry the juice in a food dehydrator. That's really a great way like nettle juice or or plantain juice. Just dry the juice.
That's an incredible way because you're getting everything. You're getting all that's in the plant in its whole form and the next best is a tea. It's definitely better than a tincture because studies show that hot that even though compounds are not very, water soluble, if you look at them in an isolated form, compounds like steroids for instance in ginseng. Those compounds, those sterols are not very water soluble in and of themselves but in the plant, the plant produce adds sugar molecules to it.
And why? Because in the inside the plant, it's all a water world. It's a it's water based environment. Mhmm.
So the plant has to attach sugars to be able to move it around, you know, from the roots to the leaves and vice versa. So when you make a tea, you're getting almost everything out of that plant. I don't care whether the compounds are large and not very water soluble in and of themselves in the plant. They are water soluble.
So teas are absolutely the best way to go for for many types of of herbs, most most herbs, and and I'm just a big fan of tea today because That's great.
That's great because no matter how complex you can get in all the research and all those books and manuals, it all comes back to a cup of tea.
That's right. That's right. I've come full circle. You I've spent years and years studying chemistry, pharmacology and I come back to the very basic simple herbs, garlic, ginseng, turmeric, the ones and nettles, the wild weeds, the ones that you can grow locally, the ones you can harvest, the weeds, the spices in your kitchen.
I mean, can I do I have time to tell a quick story?
Sure. Sure.
You know, I was doing a class down at Whole Foods in Austin, not not more than a couple years ago. And I had this I had this really bad cold coming on and And I had a sore throat. I was losing my voice I was coughing and I thought oh my gosh I got to give this big talk tomorrow to Whole Foods buyers and and I'm just really coming down with a bad cold. I don't even know if I can talk tomorrow.
And so, you know, I don't know if you've ever been to Austin and this this huge new Whole Foods there. This is the world's largest health food store. I mean, it's like a football stadium. Yeah.
Yeah. And you walk down the aisles and and, you know, they're they're little, little environments of wine and cheese and and baloney and sausage and wines and you know all this other stuff and then the supplement the dietary supplement department is like you know, a hundred feet long and it goes up way over your head, so you'd have to get a ladder to get up to the highest products. So I was wandering down this aisle thinking, well, what product could I buy, that that's gonna help me with my my cold and flu and my my throat and everything? And and so I can be better for the talk the next morning.
And I'm walking down these aisles, and I'm just thinking, oh, wow. You know, I mean, I know so much about about the products. Have been involved in the industry for a long time, but I'm really confused what of what product to really get. Should it be an elderberry syrup?
Should it be an echinacea extract?
You know, and so in this befuddled state, I was walking down the aisle and I happened to glance down one of the side aisles, one of the the breaks in the in the aisle and I saw the produce department. So I thought, well, wait a minute. You know, there are some real herbs down there. So I wandered down there and I ended up buying like some ginger and garlic and they had bundles of organic thyme and and sage and and oregano.
And so I just ended up buying a bundle of fresh herbs and some garlic and ginger and went home and just started eating all this stuff. I didn't even have any way to brew it up. I just started eating thyme and and sage leaves and and garlic and ginger. And the next morning, I was great. I was feeling good.
That's great. It's all supermarket herbalism.
Just go to the source. Just go to the source.
You know Christopher you have a great so Christopher Hobbs dot com folks can you have some great stuff like the online prescriber database and virtual herbal, that kind of stuff. So I encourage folks to go there. I also noticed that, are you still offering your correspondence course?
Yes. Yes. There's a link to the correspondence course, which is foundations of verbal of verbalism dot com. You can either go to that to see about my my, distance learning courses, and or you can link it through through crisper hobs dot com.
And I always like to ask people I interview because, you know, if there's a preferred way that you like folks to check out and get your books, do you just go to Amazon, or do you have a favorite little online bookstore you like to support? Or do you have your own thing? Or how does that work?
Yeah. Amazon or any, you know, I I always think that I mean, some of my books have been around for a while. So so you can go to book finder dot com, and you can probably find a used copy Okay. Of almost any of my books Mhmm. Out there. So so I would buy a used copy first and and then or you can find used copies on Amazon. But BookFinder is the world's largest online source for used books, or or a b e dot com, Abe.
Right.
But but so any of those sources, buy a used copy of it.
That's great. Very few people very few people like your people towards used copies of their books. That's great.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, sure. I mean, to me, the the it should be the the information should be available and free, and I just wanna share as much as possible.
And you do have a ton of articles on healthy dot net as well, like practically a book's worth. I noticed right there.
Yeah. Yeah. They've got a lot more articles, and I have some more articles on my website. Mhmm.
Great.
And I have a couple of videos and PowerPoint shows and so forth.
And for those, listening to this right on the herbmentor dot com site, you can just link an Christopher's site will open in a new page so you can listen while you poke around on a on the site there.
Great.
And, alright. And, you know, it's been just a tremendous honor and lots of fun hanging out with you today, and I really appreciate your time. I know you're real busy with stuff, so thank you so much.
Well, thanks a lot, John.
I really appreciate it and had a had a great time Awesome.
Maybe we'll have you back if I get a chance or something.
I mean, we're making catch up with you at a conference.
Topic that you can think of is fine. Yeah.
Awesome. Awesome. Alright. Thanks a lot.
Okay. Thanks, John.
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