Podcast 281: Affordable Analogues for Expensive Herbs

Accessibility in herbalism is not something extra or something nice-if-possible, it’s a critical part of our work. The prices of the remedies we recommend can sometimes be a determining factor in whether our clients take them, or take them long enough to get results. In many cases we can identify less expensive herbs, or formulae of herbs, which can do the job of more costly ones. In order to make an effective substitution, we first need to clarify the qualities, actions, affinities, and other aspects of the herb for which we seek alternatives. Only then can we identify a good substitute.

This episode includes thoughts and examples of potential substitutes for solomon’s seal (Polygonatum biflorum), kava (Piper methysticum), Asian ginseng (Panax ginseng), dong quai (Angelica sinensis), teasel (Dipsacus fullonum), arnica (Arnica montana), chaga (Inonotus obliquus), goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis), and schisandra (Schisandra chinensis).

This is material we dig into deeply in our Accessible Herbalism course. That course is full of strategies and skills which enable herbalists to offer top-quality care to people who have constraints on their finances, time, energy, or community of support. It helps you understand the truth behind some of hte most common money-saving suggestions about herbalism and nutrition, so you can offer realistic suggestions which actually help people who need it most.

Like everything we offer, it’s a self-paced online video course. It comes with lifetime access to current & future course material, the twice-weekly live Q&A sessions with us, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more!

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Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas.

Episode Transcript

Ryn (00:00:15):
Hi, I’m Ryn. And I’m here at Commonwealth Holistic Herbalism in Boston, Massachusetts and on the internet everywhere, thanks to the power of the podcast. All right, so today on the Holistic Herbalism podcast I’m going to be talking about affordable analogs for expensive herbs. But this is not just going to be a list of plants. Because the truth is that’s not actually the most helpful way to think about this issue or to try to resolve it. So, instead I’m going to be talking about ways that we can understand the process of substitution and some of the elements of that process that are going to involve the cost of the target herb that we would really like to work with and the substitute herb that we’re going to choose to work with instead. And how to think through some of these aspects and elements that have to do with the cost of each of the herbs in order to make an actual good decision, and one that really is going to be saving you or your clients some money. All right. But we can’t do that in a vacuum because there are going to be other factors that get involved here, including the person’s energy, and amount of time, and a few other things that are going to become important. As well as what we’re going to do with the herbs once we’ve got them. Because there are some circumstances where an herb looks less expensive on paper if we just compare the price per pound or something like that. But in reality it may not be that much of a difference, or it may be that there’s another way that we can navigate through.

Ryn (00:01:45):
So, all that said, I want to just begin by reminding everybody that I’m not a doctor. I’m an herbalist and a holistic health educator. And so the ideas discussed in this podcast do not constitute medical advice. No state or federal authority licenses herbalist in the US, so these discussions are for educational purposes only. I also want to remind you that good health doesn’t mean the same thing for everyone. Good health doesn’t exist as one objective standard. It’s influenced by each person’s individual needs, experiences, and goals. So, I’m not attempting to present a single, dogmatic, right way that you should adhere to. I’m just sharing some concepts and some ideas for you to work with yourself. Everybody’s body is different. So, the things that I’m talking about here today may or may not apply directly to you. But my hope is that they’re going to help you to find some new information to think about, to research further, some ideas to experiment with so that you can carry this on forward. Finding your way to better health is both your right and your own personal responsibility. Now, that doesn’t mean you’re alone on the journey, and it doesn’t mean that you’re to blame for your current state of health. But it does mean that the final decision about following any course of action, whether it was discussed on the internet or prescribed by a physician, that’s always your choice to make.

Accessibility is Integral to Herbalism

Ryn (00:02:58):
Okay, cool. So, here’s the thing about accessibility. Because today’s topic about affordable analogs for more expensive plants, this is a subset of a broader range of material around accessibility in a bigger sense. And the thing that Katja and I have come to feel very strongly about the longer we’ve been herbalists, and the more that we’ve done this work, the more clients and students that we’ve worked with, is that accessibility and herbalism is not something extra. It’s not something that well, it’s nice if that’s possible. But it’s not like a critical part of our work, you know? It’s sort of this side consideration or the third, or fourth, or last thing that we end up thinking about. So, that’s not the way that we think about this in our school, in our practice, in the way that we work, in the way that we think about herbs in the world. This isn’t about settling for less either, right? It’s not like well, if you can’t get the really good stuff, then I guess you can take this third-rate herb over here, and you can just try to get something out of that. No, no, no. That’s not the way we’re going to look at this, right? We can give our best to everyone, and that doesn’t have to mean that we give the same herbs to everyone. So you know, if we consider the situation of somebody – a client, a student, a friend, whatever – who says yeah, you know, I’ve been taking this remedy, this herbal remedy. And it helps me, but it is expensive. And you know, I can’t afford to take it forever for what I’ve been paying for it. It really does make me feel good, but I just can’t keep on buying it.

Ryn (00:04:37):
So, we want to find a satisfying answer to that situation. We want to be able to say okay, no problem. Let’s break this down. Let’s figure out what is going on here, what is helping you, and where we might be able to get similar effects from something else. Okay. So, we want to do that. And we want to also keep in mind that the prices of the remedies that we recommend to our clients or our friends or the ones that we want to take for ourselves, those prices can sometimes factor in to whether the person in question – I’m going to refer to a client in this context a lot – whether that client will take the remedy at all. Or, and this is equally important, whether they will take it long enough to get the results that we’re aiming for. A lot of times herbal work is slow. It can take a month to get the results we’re shooting for. It can take three months, it can take six months, it can take even longer in some cases. And so if there’s something that seems to be moving in the right direction. We’re starting to see indications of positive change, but then we can no longer afford it. Well, we’ve lost an opportunity there, right? Something was working, and now we’re not able to sustain it. So, that’s something we really want to be able to navigate, right? That’s the idea behind all of this.

Ryn (00:05:50):
Okay. Now like I said, this concern about cost, financial cost, dollar cost, doesn’t exist in isolation. The fact is that resource constraints of many different kinds are going to factor in and are unfortunately going to make health less accessible to a lot of people. So, those factors include money, obviously. They also include time. They include energy or like the inner reserves a person has. They include that person’s mobility or their ability in a broader sense. And I’ll have an example that will illustrate that momentarily. And then it can also include community support. Like who is around them? Who do they have to call on, or are they alone, right? Are they lacking in that? And this can also even include situations like what is impacting the community at large. Whether that is austerity measures of some kind that have changed the economy they live in and have made it more difficult for them to access things. Whether it’s happening on a global scale as is currently going on. A lot of international shipping and other things have been restricted. Or there have been much significant increases in the cost, especially here in the US where we had this whole tariff thing going on. And so that has changed the availability and the affordability of a number of herbs that we work with regularly. And we’ve seen this. You may have seen this in your own perusal of the price list at your favorite herbal supplier. So, you know, things like that are part of the community that a person lives in, and those impact their experience and their accessibility as well. And then of course there can be things like a disaster, natural or manmade or whatever else. Everything from hurricanes, and tornadoes, and floods to wars and other things like that, those can have a big impact on what is accessible to a given individual.

An Accessibility Example

Ryn (00:07:44):
So, today our focus is primarily going to be on money, but I want to make clear right up front that all these other elements need to be part of our consideration. So, an example here is very helpful. So, we’re thinking about the way that these different factors intersect for a given person. And in some cases that can be a way to escape the problem. If a person doesn’t have a lot of time, doesn’t have a lot of energy, but they do have a decent amount of money. Well, it’s not like you can buy your way out of health problems. Except sometimes it gets pretty close to you being able to buy your way out of health problems, right? It just removes a significant barrier, and it can compensate for these other aspects of accessibility that that individual doesn’t have. They don’t have time, they don’t have energy, but they’ve got money to work with. All right. So, there can be a situation like that where one area of resource can compensate for a constraint somewhere else. But this also means that these things are going to intersect or layer over one another. And that is something we need to keep in mind when we’re making a recommendation.

Ryn (00:08:55):
So, here’s an example. Maybe somebody was going along, and they were getting a significant benefit from working with a high-powered, very high-quality extract of turmeric in some capsules. And they had been taking that, and they had been feeling a significant improvement in their digestive function. And they had even maybe gotten some lab results before and after they began working with it. And those had to do with liver function, like liver enzyme production levels and other indicators of liver capacity and liver function, bile flow, and factors like that. And they’re like yeah, you know, I started taking these turmeric capsules from a really good brand, and they seem to be making a big difference for me. My tests are better. I’m feeling good. Things are working out great, but they are kind of expensive. And so maybe they’re coming to ask you what do you think I should do? Should I buy a cheaper one? Is it going to work as well? Should I try something else instead? So, sometimes people who have learned a bit about herbalism will look at a situation like that and be like well, you know, a lot of what you’re talking about is coming from the influence of turmeric on your liver function and on digestive function a little more broadly, right? So, you’ve got a cholagogue here. You’ve got this bitter herb that gets the bile flowing. That has a lot of benefits for your body. You know, there’s some anti-inflammatory action to this product that’s going to be active on the mucous membranes in your intestines and are going to benefit that. So, you know, it’s not exactly the same, but hey, what about burdock? Because burdock is a weedy herb, super common where you live. It’s growing all over. You could go out, and you could dig some up, right? And you could take those burdock roots and clean them, chop them up, and make a decoction. And then burdock isn’t exactly the same as turmeric, but it is a hepatoprotective. It is a bitter cholagogue. It gets the bile flowing. And it has these benefits on intestinal integrity through a mechanism of supporting healthy gut flora, right? We get a prebiotic action from burdock. So yeah, a little different from turmeric, but I think it has some of the same end results. And so maybe that would do the job for you.

Ryn (00:11:04):
Okay, hang on a second. Dig up your own burdock roots regularly. Make a decoction and consume that every day. Compare that to buying some capsules, opening the bottle, and taking them, right? The difference in energy and time outputs is vast. It is significant. It is really extreme, right? Because if you’ve never harvested a burdock root, you’re going to need a shovel. You might need a digging stick to loosen up the stones, and the rocks, and everything. It depends on what your soil is like. You’re going to be there for a while to get one root out. You might break off half of it and not be able to dig down and get all of it out. And then it is going to take a while to clean that root, to chop it up. It’s going to take some energy and some strength in your wrist and in your fingers. And not everybody’s going to have those things, right? Also, not everybody is going to want to take the time and effort to prepare a decoction daily or even every couple of days or to consume that decoction in amounts of at least a quart per day. Which is what we’re going to need if we’re going to try to mimic the degree of impact this person was getting from this other high-powered turmeric extract product they were taking. So, on one level that is a reasonable idea of a substitution. But when we start to think through the reality of it, right? Going outside, does that involve driving somewhere, taking your tools, digging some stuff? Do you have permission to dig here? Putting in the energy, digging it all out, getting your root. How many are you going to collect? How many are you going to work with? Where are you going to keep them? Are you going to be able to process all of them in a timely fashion when you get home? Are you going to prepare this every day? Are you going to drink that much of it every day? Is it going to taste good to you? So, all those other elements have to get considered when we’re looking for a substitute for a more expensive plant, or in this case a more expensive product. Okay. So, keeping all of that in mind.

Knowing the Cost of Herbs & Can I Grow It?

Ryn (00:13:06):
One other element I want to, I want to list here or enumerate here before we go any further is that when you’re talking about these concepts with someone else – again, say, a client – then there’s different ways that you can approach that. So, one of them would be like oh, you know, there are these really good herbs that could help you, but they’re kind of expensive. So, do you have money? Can you afford that sort of stuff? No, no, let’s not do that. Instead let’s say something like you know what? I want to just do a quick little budget check before we go too much further. So, we’ve been talking for a while, we’ve got a decent plan started. We’re talking about a capsule product here, a tincture blend, a tea formula that we’ve put together. And just as a ballpark, I think that all of this is together going to roughly be about X dollars per month. So listen, if that’s not reasonable for your budget, no problem. We can dig in, and we can look for some other options. We’ve got other options we could choose. There’s always another herb that we could work with instead. So this is my ballpark estimate for where we’re at right now. How’s that feeling? This feels very different, right? Because there’s a big difference between can you afford that, which is sort of absolute and sounds kind of timeless, and is this a good fit for your budget right now? That is specifying a time. It is acknowledging that the person has other expenses in their life. And so it’s a much friendlier way to raise this kind of consideration with somebody. And I think that that can make people feel a lot more comfortable and not put on the spot. And just from a practical standpoint of a practitioner, more likely to give you the realistic answer that you need.

Ryn (00:14:54):
Okay. So, a simple idea is that in many cases we can identify a less expensive herb or sometimes a formula of herbs which can do the job of a more costly one, right? And if we want to be able to do that, that does require us to have a sense of what herbs cost and what the products that are made from them cost, right? So, like what does the raw root dried and chopped from good-quality herb supplier, what is that going to run me? What should I expect that to cost? And with that we want to keep the real cost of the plant in mind, right? So, if I can go, and I can find $10 a pound rhodiola on Amazon or some other seller, that doesn’t mean that that’s good stuff. That doesn’t mean that that’s a good replacement for the rhodiola that I might pick up from Mountain Rose herbs where we’re talking about $150 per pound, right? Because that stuff may not even be rhodiola. It may be contaminated or adulterated with other plant material mixed in. It may be very old. It may be from a poor-quality area that just didn’t grow properly. Any number of things could be wrong with that. And we should suspect that several of them probably are, if it’s being sold for that much under what we consider to be a realistic price for really good-quality plant material. So, we do need to look at the prices for the different herbs and the different things that we want to recommend. It’s important to do that on kind of an ongoing basis or a rolling basis anyway. If once a year you create a price list of your top 20 recommended herbs or the ones you go back to most often. At least that much, right, if not every herb you keep in your apothecary, or every herb you’ve recommended to anybody in the last year. You just run through and be like all right, what’s the price update on this? Because again, they do change as circumstances in the world change, as politics happens, as wars happen, as climate change happens. All these different factors are influencing these prices, and they will continue to flux. So, it’s good to check in every now and again.

Ryn (00:17:05):
All right. So, we want to look at our prices, we want to compare them. We also want to be making sure we’re attentive to things like relative weight and potency. So for instance, calendula is a nice, lymphatic herb and quite effective at what it does. It’s currently trading at around $41, $42 a pound at a reputable supplier. And that’s pretty solid. There are other herbs that are doing some, if not all, of what calendula does, right? Maybe we just focus on it for the moment as a good mover of lymph. If I want to find an herb that’s less expensive, this may not be a place to look at pokeroot. Because comparing poke and calendula is a little bit tricky right? Now, if you know exactly how you want to work with it, that might clarify this for you a little bit. If you know you want this to be an ingredient in a daily infusion tea blend. Then pokeroot isn’t going to be a good fit because that doesn’t really come out very well in an infusion, and it also doesn’t taste very good in an infusion compared to calendula. If we know that’s the context, then a good choice could be cleavers. Cleavers is also a really good lymphatic herb, and it’s currently about $20 a pound. So half the price, pretty solid, right, a pretty good deal. If I knew though that I was going to be preparing a tincture, then it may be… And it was even not in a formula at all, it was just going to be by itself. We’re just focusing on lymph movement. It may be that calendula tincture and pokeroot tincture are not that different in price, but you also know that with pokeroot your dose is going to be significantly smaller. Like with calendula it could be a full dropperful several times a day or two or three of them even. And with poke we’re going to be counting in drops. Start with five, 10 drops of poke tincture. And so ounce per ounce, the poke is going to last you longer. It could last you three times as long, right? And so that means that even if it was twice the price for the same volume of tincture of poke as it is for calendula, it could still be the better deal.

Ryn (00:19:13):
Okay? So, just as an example that’s why I wanted to raise that, that we do need to think through those facets, those practical aspects of what we’re doing with the plant, how we’re preparing it to a remedy, how we’re going to take it, how much we’re going to take over time. Those are also going to play into the considerations here.

Ryn (00:19:32):
Okay. You know, another thing that comes up, and actually calendula is still a good example for this, is well yeah, it’s expensive, but could I grow it? I’ve got a balcony that I could put a bucket on, and I could put some herbs in there. Or I’ve got some actual ground. I’ve got a yard. I’ve got an area that I can dig, and I can grow some plants in. So, is calendula a good option there? And in this case it actually kind of is, because calendula is not so difficult to grow. Because once it gets established, and once it’s growing for the year, then it will produce multiple flowers. Or each plant will kind of produce one at a time. But you can grab that flower, come back in a couple days, and there’s a whole new one for you. So, you can continue to do that and have like a harvest over a period of time. Now, this does assume that you’ve got the energy and the time in your day and in your life to dig a garden bed or at least put some dirt into a bucket to get the seeds into there. To water them at least for the time until they’re well-established, and they can thrive on their own. And then to go out and harvest and to probably do that daily or every other day for an extended period of the flowering season. And so again, it won’t make sense for everybody, but for some people this could be a good way for them to access calendula. It could turn out to be much less expensive for them than buying it in.

Ryn (00:20:52):
But there are some herbs that it’s very difficult to grow your own, and it may not actually save you what you were hoping, right? So, if you are looking for an affordable analog for ginseng for instance, ginseng, Panax ginseng, Asian or yeah, Asian ginseng is what we generally would refer to that as. That can be trading for up to $240-$250 a pound. So, you might be like well, what if I grow some? You know, maybe that could be a good way to go. But ginseng doesn’t grow just anywhere. And it’s not one of these plants like calendula that if you live in the city and you’ve got a balcony and a bucket of dirt, you can just grow it there. Ginseng is one that really for it to grow well you need a forested environment. You need to grow it as a forest floor plant. And that actually comes with several considerations beyond just having access to that kind of land, having the capacity to go and plant ginseng there and to go back and visit it and collect it later. You’ve got to protect that plant while it grows. So, you might need to make a cloche, like a covering for it with wire or something like that to protect it from the deer who are going to want to come by and eat that tasty, young ginseng baby, right? And you may need to tend it repeatedly. If it becomes suddenly a drought season, you may need to go back there and bring it water on a regular basis. So, ginseng is not one of the easiest plants to grow, and this is part of why it’s an expensive herb.

Ryn (00:22:23):
Similarly, rhodiola won’t grow at all in a lot of the places where people might like to cultivate it. It has certain requirements about the type of light it gets exposed to, the photo period, like the amount of light hours there are in a day and some other facets like that. So, it’s not going to just grow in all parts of the world or all parts of the country. That means that maybe it’s an option for you if you live up in Alaska. But if you’re in Florida, it’s really unlikely that you’re going to succeed in growing rhodiola, right? And it’s not just Florida. There’s a wide swath of the US for instance where it’s never going to work out. So, you know, and I raise that in a similar way of being like just go and wild harvest some cool stuff. Which people often toss off as like a way to save money on herbs or to get free herbs, right? It’s never free. There’s always some kind of outlay of energy, time, all that kind of stuff. So yeah, those are some considerations we’re going to keep in mind with that.

Polycrest Herbs & Key System Tonics

Ryn (00:23:25):
Okay. When we’re thinking through this, we’re also recognizing that just looking at the price list in the abstract gives us some kind of data, but it’s a lot better to look through a more specific lens. So, today we’re focusing on affordable analogs for certain expensive plants, okay. We could also be looking at plants that can do a lot of different things, and can be prepared in a lot of different ways, but don’t cost a lot of money. So, my favorite example of all of them for that is garlic. And this category is what we call a polycrest herb. This is, again, herbs that can do a lot of different things, and I also like to add on and can be prepared in a bunch of different ways. Those kind of feed into each other, of course. But a polycrest herb means just that. It means that an herb can do many different things in the body. So, think about garlic, right? And think about an actions list that’s attached to any given plant. Where you look at it for oak bark, and you get okay, astringent and well, it’s really astringent, you know? And then with garlic, you’ve got okay, it’s antimicrobial. It can be immune stimulating. It’s a circulatory stimulant. It’s a digestive carminative. It’s a hepatic stimulant. It’s a cholagogue. And we can go on for quite a while when it comes to garlic. It has many powers and many capacities. And this is of course why it’s such an important herb and why it’s spread all across the human world. And it’s made its way into cuisines of many different continents let alone countries.

Ryn (00:25:03):
But so medicinally speaking, garlic is one of the most powerful but also flexible remedies that we’ve got. We can do tons of different things with it and again, we can prepare it in different ways. We can make tea with garlic, which is a fantastic thing to do if you have a respiratory infection coming on. We can eat it in food naturally in different forms. We can chop it fresh. We can have powdered garlic, whatever. We can tincture garlic. We can infuse it into wine. We can infuse it into oil as well. Not every plant can be infused into water, and alcohol, and oil, and honey, and vinegar, right? But garlic, we can do it in all of those menstruums. So yeah, very powerful stuff. We can do topical applications, we can take it internally, on and on and on with garlic. And wicked inexpensive, really widely available, you can get garlic at a corner store. You can get garlic at a bodega. You can get it at a grocery store. It’s familiar as well, right? Most people have consumed it in various forms, consumed it as a spice, eaten it in a bunch of different ways. And so the familiarity is also valuable when it comes to this kind of a thing, right? So, there are other examples of polycrest herbs. I think betony is an example of one. You know, we could name some others, but that’s one way to think this through. And to be like all right, well if I learn plants like that, that are also not too costly. Then that’s really valuable for me as a practitioner because now I have a number of ready options to go to that may be able to fit the needs of this individual right now because they’re so multifactorial, because they’re poly crest.

Ryn (00:26:45):
All right. So, that’s good to build up for yourself, and one way to think through these problems. Another one is to look at single herbs that are really good tonics for key systems of the body. So, if we were to look at the digestive system for instance, ginger is an example of a tonic for the digestive system. Ginger, of course, it has its qualities to it. It’s not for every single digestive system of every human everywhere all the time, in any form, in any dose. But it is for a lot of digestive problems, for a lot of people, a lot of the time. And I think that’s pretty solid, right? So, ginger has that warming capacity, that that fire-building effect, and that’s good for sluggish and slow down kind of digestive problems. It has an antinauseant effect, which can be really good when people are getting nausea from really any particular source. Ginger is helpful for nausea from consuming food that’s a little bit off. It’s helpful for consuming a meal that was just heavier than you were ready to digest at the moment. It’s helpful for when people are getting motion sickness. It’s helpful for people getting nausea from the effects of chemotherapy or in pregnancy, the nausea there as well. So, you know, ginger has a broad array of effects in that regard. Ginger is also a nice relaxant. So, where there are tensions, cramping, spasms, that kind of thing, it can be really helpful. And so again, we could continue on. But I’m sure you can think of lots of different ways that ginger could be applied or that you’ve worked with ginger for not just one specific digestive problem, but a number of them, right?

Ryn (00:28:28):
If we think about the urinary system, maybe we start thinking about nettle. Nettle is not just a diuretic. It’s also an anti-inflammatory to the entire urinary system starting with the kidneys and then going down the tubes into the bladder and then all the way out through there. Nettle has some tonifying effects on those tissues as well. So, it’s not just making the water flow through faster. It’s also tightening up any laxity that’s present there, right? So, again, not literally every problem needs to be met by a tonic herb in that regard. But as long as a good, broad range of them are, that’s a really good herb to learn. And the less expensive that herb is, the more helpful it is for solving this kind of issue that we’re dealing with today. Okay.

Being Clear on Desired Herbal Qualities & Affinities

Ryn (00:29:13):
So, when we’re trying to make an effective substitution, we want to do a couple of things. And one of them is to clarify the qualities, the actions, the affinities that the herb has and other aspects of the plant that we can keep in mind and, and be really clear and solid about. That’ll help us to identify an alternative. That’ll help us to identify a substitute and to do that in a way that’s actually going to be effective for the case at hand. So, the key idea here is that we’re not going to look at our target plant and say okay, now I need to find another herb that does everything that this target plant does, and everything it is, everything it does, everything it can be. Instead, we want to first ask ourselves what am I trying to accomplish with this plant? And we can kind of broaden that out and say what am I trying to accomplish means what is this plant doing for this person? Or what do I want it to do for this person? I could say what is this plant doing in this formula, right? If it’s part of a multi-herb remedy, what is its job? What is its role? And both of those are going to go back to again, the qualities, right? Which is like the energetics of the plant. Is it warming or cooling, moistening or drying, tonifying or relaxant? It’s going to go to that. It’s also going to go to specific actions the herb has. Is it anti-inflammatory? Is it antimicrobial? Is it adaptogenic? Is it astringent? Is it carminative? Is it whatever, right? The more clarity we have about why the target herb is helpful or why we expect it would be helpful, the better able we are to identify a substitute. And this aspect is relevant when we’re searching for one less expensive. And it’s also relevant when we’re searching for one because we just don’t have that plant today. Or because it’s no longer available any of the usual places we go to look.

Ryn (00:31:28):
If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, you’ve heard me talk before about how when I first started learning herbalism from Katja, violet was an herb that we would regularly order by the pound. And it was inexpensive and it was always available. But it hasn’t been for several years now. And we’re not a hundred percent sure if it’s changes in what people are producing or what value they could get for it. Versus something else, and they chose to grow that instead, or what exactly is driving this change. But it does mean that you can’t really just go and easily buy inexpensive violet by the pound anymore. And so we search for alternatives. We often settle on linden. And this can be an example of what’s going on, right? Just matching the effects, or the actions, or the energetics, right? So, both violet and linden are cooling, moistening, relaxant with a strong affinity for the heart and with this capacity to bring in fluid and to help your body to utilize fluids more effectively. To release tension throughout your whole system, including your cardiovascular system, but with a lot of affinity for the heart itself. And they also play really nicely in a tea format, or you could put them into a tincture, some other options here as well, right?

Ryn (00:32:47):
So, they share a lot of qualities, but they don’t have to share all of them, right? For instance, I consider violet to be really good at moving lymph. And that’s particularly cool because a moistening herb that moves lymph is one you really want to pay extra attention to. That doesn’t happen very often. Most lymphatic herbs are drying, okay? So, violet is a moistening lymphatic. And linden is moistening, but not so much a lymph mover. It doesn’t really have that capacity to it. So again, they don’t have to have a hundred percent overlap. And if you tried to achieve 100% overlap, usually you just end up frustrated or feeling like you can’t actually find what you’re searching for. So, that’s the first thing. We’re going to look through these specifics of the plant. Let’s say we’re looking at energetics, right? So, if I say I’ve been working with a very warming remedy. And really the main thing that it’s helping me out with is just being hot and being stimulating. It’s also drying, and it has a decent tonifying aspect to it as well. Thinking of an expensive verb that has those qualities, maybe we end up… Actually maybe we even go all the way to something like Asian ginseng, Panax ginseng. That has those qualities: warming, drying, tonifying. Or it could be something like angelica root, which is not super expensive as these things go. It’s not on the level of your ginseng. But it can be a little pricey if you’re getting really good quality stuff. But yeah, warming, drying, tonifying, right? So, if we were really just looking for something based on similar energetics, then I’ll tell you one of the cheapest herbs out there for that is going to be horseradish. And actually garlic, garlic would also fit into that same energetic range.

Ryn (00:34:42):
Now, if we add on another layer, and in this case maybe we look at affinity. We look at the type of tissue that the herb is bringing those energetics to in the body. Then now this can get a little more interesting. So, here let’s take the example of Solomon’s seal. Solomon’s seal is cooling, and moistening, and relaxant, but it’s also got a very high affinity for connective tissues in the body. And so when your connective tissues are dry, and tense, and painful, it’s usually going to come together with those. Then it’s very, very helpful to have a remedy that can cool off some inflammation, that kind of heat that could be present there. And also bring in moisture and release tension. And so Solomon’s seal is amazing for a lot of connective tissue problems that have that pattern. They might crack and pop as you move them around. They might grind and feel that pain and discomfort there. Solomon’s seal is super helpful. We can take it by mouth. We can apply it topically. We can take it as a tincture. We can put it into decoctions. We can infuse it into oil. We can do a variety of things with it. Okay. So, if I’m just like all right, Solomon’s seal is fantastic. But it is one of those herbs that’s trading above a hundred dollars per pound. So, is there something less expensive that I could work with and get those same kinds of effects to those same kinds of tissues?

Ryn (00:36:09):
So, thinking about this for years, my conclusion is that one of the better options here is actually the seaweeds. And that can be different seaweeds. We can look at bladderwrack, we can look at kombu. We can get them from different places. But I found excellent quality seaweed for like $30, maybe as high as $40 a pound. So, it’s a significant reduction from what we would be paying per pound for the Solomon’s seal. But they have the same energetics: cooling, moistening, relaxant. They have that affinity for the connective tissue. The thing that changes here is that we can’t take them in exactly the same way, right? So, if I’m going to go ahead and work with Solomon’s seal, then I can take that as a tincture. I can take it in a decoction like I said. I can do the oil infusion, and I can apply that. I could mix oil and tincture together and get a liniment, and I could rub that into the particular joints that are painful. But those are the main methods for Solomon’s seal. For the seaweeds, you’re not going to make a tincture. And you’re also not going to make an oil infusion because they don’t really convey their virtues through those methods. You could make a seaweed tea and drink that regularly. But much, much better would be to make a seaweed into a broth. And consume that and actually eat the seaweed and get the whole thing into you. That’s where you’re going to get the maximum benefit from your seaweed.

Ryn (00:37:34):
The other major application for seaweed is topical. But that would be with a wrap or a poultice. So, you would take the seaweed and rehydrate it with warm or cool water. Either way is fine. You would apply that to the joints that are uncomfortable, wrap it up and keep it in place. And then leave it on there for like an hour, two hours overnight can even be a good idea with this kind of application. So, it is a different mode. Maybe a person finds that the liniment is much less of a hassle for them, right? I grab the bottle. I squirt it in my hand. I rub it into the joint. Okay, I am done. It took a minute, two minutes, whatever. I can do that a few times a day, no problem. For the seaweed thing it’s like okay, when in my day am I going to have an hour or a couple of hours or more to prepare this stuff, to put it on, and then to be relatively still while we let it soak in. And so again, that has to go into our consideration of whether this is a good choice for that person, whether it is a good replacement.

Cost Calculations

Ryn (00:38:38):
When we get into the details here, we might also notice some interesting changes in our calculus, right? So, if we were comparing decoction to broth, for instance, because those are kind of the most similar of these two herbs’ preparation methods. Now with Solomon’s seal again, we’re looking at $100, $105 a pound, somewhere in that range. If I’m going to make a decoction, I’m going to work with a significant amount of plant material, and I’m going to be using up more. I’m going to be putting in more of my plant material at least every other day to get a good effect out of that decoction, right? You can cook it down through the first day. You can drink it. You can add more water. You can cook it for the second day. Okay, maybe even the third day. All right, fine. But still, you’re going to be putting in your spoonfuls of your root, and you’re going to be getting it in there, and you’re going to go through it. You’re going to go through it. With your seaweed, the same thing is going to happen. You’re going to be putting a few spoonfuls into each day’s preparation of broth. You’re going to be eating it down, so you’re going to go through it. So, the pace of working through what you’ve acquired is going to be pretty similar, right? And that means that that price comparison is much closer, right? A hundred dollars a pound, $40 a pound, $35 even, right? So, that’s going to be a closer comparison in that circumstance.

Ryn (00:40:02):
But if we recognize that Solomon’s seal is one that we can prepare as a tincture, then this may change our calculus a little bit. Because I did some math on this. And, you know, to buy a pound of Solomon’s seal, that’s 16 ounces, okay? And if that is again, going for $100, call it $105 a pound. Well, I can prepare a tincture. And when I prepare a tincture, for Solomon’s seal you can do it in different strengths. You can do a 1:2, a 1:5, but a 1:4 is a decent potency for a Solomon’s seal tincture. That’s pretty reliable. We can go ahead and do that, right? So, if I do that, then the 1:4 ratio means – we can go with ounces here – for each ounce of the plant material, I can prepare four ounces of my finished tincture, right? So, this means that from my pound of Solomon’s seal, my 16 ounces, I’m going to prepare 64 ounces, half a gallon, half a gallon of tincture, okay? And so even if we don’t forget to account for the cost of the menstruum, the alcohol. And checking in on this we’re going to need like a little more than a handle, which is like 1.75 liters. It’s like a standard size that alcohol is sold in. We’re going to need a little bit more than that, all right? But we can buy that much for $20 to $60, depending on how fancy you want your vodka brand to be, right? If I’m going with the lower-cost vodka, we’re talking like $20, $30 per pound, sorry, per handle, 1.75 liter. That’s almost enough to prepare my whole batch of tincture. And so, we call it $30, $40, like somewhere in that range is what our alcohol’s total going to cost. So, we tack that on. Now we’re paying like $145 total for all the materials that went into the process.

Ryn (00:42:11):
And when it comes out, again, we’re going to finish with maybe not the full 64 ounces. Maybe it’s more like 62 or even 60 ounces. But we’re getting into a range here where the cost of the finished product is about $2 per ounce. And that is not a price for Solomon’s seal tincture that you’re ever going to find from one that you purchase. A lot of times Solomon’s seal tincture is trading at 20, 30 or even more dollars per ounce. So, you’ve definitely saved yourself money by preparing your own tincture. And if we are going through our Solomon’s seal at a rate of something like two droppersful taken three times per day, which is a pretty baseline dose for Solomon’s seal tincture for these kind of ongoing chronic joint pains and, and discomforts. Well, if we do that, then we’re going through six dropperfuls each day. A dropperful is about a milliliter, and an ounce of tincture is a little less than 30 milliliters. So, essentially we’re going to go through an ounce of tincture about every five days. That means that if I’ve got 64 ounces, or 60 ounces even if we subtract what’s kind of like stuck in the marc at the end of the process, that’s going to last me quite a while, right? I’m going through an ounce every five days. 60 ounces times five is going to get me 300 days. So, that’s a pretty good span of time. That’s a pretty good span of time for what we laid out there, right?

Ryn (00:43:52):
Now, all of this of course hinges on the fact that the person can and will take their Solomon’s seal as a tincture. Some people don’t consume alcohol. And so for them we can set all of that aside, and we can know that the seaweed is going to be the better way to go. Because if they’re going to be preparing their remedy in water, the Solomon’s seal is going to be a lot more expensive, like three times more expensive than the seaweed remedy is going to be, right? But for a person who can consume alcohol and is happy to do it, and the burn in the mouth doesn’t bother them and whatever. Then this could be the better option to go for protecting their joints, bringing in those energetics of cooling, and moistening, and relaxant into those connective tissues. All right. So again, we’re looking for those nuances. We’re looking for those details. Those things that kind of change the narrative from a simple dollar-to-dollar pound-to-pound comparison.

Affinity Substitution Examples

Ryn (00:44:45):
All right. Another example, and let’s actually stay with a connective tissue here, right? Because Solomon’s seal isn’t the only herb that has a good strong affinity for connective tissues. So, if say somebody’s problem was inflammation in the joints, irritation in those tissues, and we were trying to bring that down. And we don’t mind having a bit of a drying and tonifying effect on their system, right? This is somebody with more of a damp constitution. Then an herb that is really well-indicated for that is teasel root. And teasel root, last time I looked recently, is trading at around $124 per pound. Okay. So, teasel root is a fantastic herb for that kind of problem: connective tissues with inflammation, but also some dampness and some stagnation going on. A really, really helpful plant but a little pricey, right? And again, if we’re going to prepare it as tincture somewhere in the similar range to what we talked about, $2-$3 an ounce of tincture if you make a whole big batch all at once, yeah. But if we kind of put that aside and think about yeah, decoction methods and things of that nature. Well, there is another herb that could work really well for similar problems, and that is gotu kola. Gotu Kola is trading at $33, so about a quarter of the cost. Similarly effective for the kind of problem we’ve got at hand. And we can prepare it in water, we can make a tea. In fact, gotu kola is even simpler to prepare as tea because this is one that we can make in an infusion combo instead of a decoction. So, that might remove another element of barrier or constraint for somebody who’s considering to do this. Okay.

Ryn (00:46:34):
One more example about affinity could be in the immune system. So, let’s say all right, all I’m really looking for here is an immune tonic. I want to keep my immune system working effectively, and efficiently, and smoothly and everything. And I’m going to look for some herbs that help me do that. So, I’ve heard chaga is good. I see products at the store, and I see things on Instagram about it and whatever. So, you know, maybe I should try some chaga. But then they discover that chagas pretty expensive, $80, $90 a pound, that kind of a thing. Okay, what could we offer as an alternative? Are you thinking of astragalus? Because I am. Astragalus is a really nice immune tonic. It is going to boost up immunity, and enhance immune surveillance, and help you to have a little better barrier function against things you may encounter in the world. But it’s a lot less expensive, right? So, if that’s all our goal is – general immune support kind of a thing – this is a simple switch, and it’s doing the job you’re hoping for. You can also be consuming it in such a way that you kind of make sure you don’t leave anything behind. And honestly, my favorite way to do that with astragalus is to get the slices and to just chew on them. Chew it until it doesn’t taste like anything and then for like another five minutes. And you can feel pretty confident that you’ve got everything that that bit of astragalus had to offer to you. This is actually much easier than working with chaga. Because if you really want to get everything chaga has, first of all it should be broken up pretty well into small pieces. And then you want to decoct that for days. You want to keep on cooking it until the water is not coming out opaque after an hour of cooking any longer, right? It’ll still have color to it, but if it’s no longer like a black liquid by that point, okay. Yeah, you’ve probably done well by that amount of chaga. But of course a lot of people are not doing that with their chaga, right? You even see little bits of chaga in a teabag that’s going to be in hot water for five minutes. That’s not getting you the effect you want at all, okay?

Ryn (00:48:42):
On the other hand, there are some applications for chaga that astragalus is maybe not all the way there, right? So, especially if somebody is going a lot further in their intention or in their goal, right? Like this person says I’m going to be taking chaga because I’ve looked at some of the studies on particular forms of cancer and the way that people have worked with chaga and extracts of chaga to enhance specific elements of the immune response to that particular kind of cancer. Because I’ve been diagnosed with it, and I did my research. I checked it through. This seems to be really powerful. That’s a circumstance where I wouldn’t be like oh, just try astragalus instead, right? Unless we do the same kind of research and find that astragalus is also just as good for that same specific problem, that same particular kind of cancer, and to activate some of those same immune responders to it, which is unlikely to be the case, right? So, when people are further out on those edges of what they’re doing and what they’re hoping to accomplish with their herb, that’s when we may need to look elsewhere. And we may need to be thinking all right, that part of the protocol should actually stay where it is. What else can we do in terms of other herb recommendations, or even some food things that you’ve been doing, or other aspects like that. Where can we open up some space so that this can be maintained, right? I just want to leave space for that to be a possibility here as well. Okay.

Choosing Herbal Actions & Formulation Solutions

Ryn (00:50:13):
Now actions, sorry, qualities, energetics, affinities, tissues and organs in the body, okay, we can also just be looking for an herb to serve a particular action, right? And a good example I like here a lot is if we just want a dispersive. Something that is going to take some stagnant blood in a given area, and push it all around, and spread it all out, and disperse it, and move it through the body, right? Then this is a good place to look at arnica. Because arnica, especially if you go and you buy good quality, organic flowers again from a reputable, high-quality supplier, arnica can be trading at like $380 a pound, which is kind of a lot, right? Now, they are light and fluffy, and a pound of arnica flowers is a lot bigger than a pound of ginger root, okay? But it is still very, very pricey. And there are some herbs that are equally light and fluffy that can do that same job but are much less expensive. And so my favorite example for that would actually be yarrow. Yarrow is a fantastic dispersive. You can work with it in all of the same ways that you could work with Arnica. By that I mean yeah, you could prepare it in water. Actually yarrow you can drink as tea much better than you can drink arnica. Arnica, you can take a little small amount of things internally. But you know, if we do it in tincture, we’re thinking like 10 drops, not droppersful, not that kind of thing. Yarrow is actually much safer to consume when we’re taking it internally. So, there’s another element of benefit there. But even if we just look at the topicals, a tincture rubbed right into the skin, a liniment, an oil infusion, whatever, yarrow does just as well in those formats as arnica does. It achieves the same end goal of dispersing and moving the blood around. You can certainly argue about potency, right? And maybe we need to apply or to prepare the yarrow preparations twice as strong if we can or apply them twice as often. But even at that, the price difference here is much more than two X. It’s closer to what? It’s closer to 20X, right? So, we’re getting into those kind of ranges. And that means that this is going to be a good trade. This is going to be effective. This is going to be equally convenient. This is going to be much less expensive. And so that’s one that I would very strongly recommend, right?

Ryn (00:52:49):
Looking at least at actions is I think essential when we’re searching for a substitute, and it’s natural in a way, right? As long as somebody has stopped at all and said what am I trying to do with that herb? And not simply been like oh, problem, herb name, right? If you do that, you’re not going to be able to make these kind of substitutes because you don’t really know why you chose that herb. You just have this connection between the name of the problem and the name of the herb, right? And so this is also why it’s important when you’re studying herbalism that you get beyond when there is this problem, you take this plant. And you get further into when there is this problem, you want this set of actions and probably these energetics depending on that individual’s constitution and tissue state pattern. And therefore we can choose this herb to do this job for this constitution and solve this issue, right? That is a much more thorough and helpful way to think about it, not just to make a better recommendation in that given moment, but also to have the capacity to find substitutes.

Ryn (00:53:53):
All right. Okay. there’s often going to be more than one substitute for a given herb, right? Especially when our goals are more general. We’re just looking at their energetic match, or we’re just looking at having a given action come through. And that’s helpful because each herb might not always be as appropriate for this individual as our initial target herb was, right? So, a decent example here could be rose, rose petals specifically, right? So, rose petals, if you want to buy those, we’re talking like $60 to $70 per pound. And you can be doing different things with rose. They might be just like a little sprinkle you put into your tea formulas to look pretty. And there are pretty petal flowers out there, but rose is pretty special, and people can recognize it on site. And so it definitely has a unique capacity in that regard. But look, if you were just like I need an astringent. Oh, rose petals are an astringent, okay. Well yeah, fine, but lady’s mantle is an equally decent astringent, and it’s half the price or less. So, I think that would be a great substitute in that circumstance, okay? But maybe what you were doing with rose was lifting the mood, lifting the spirits. This was the exhilarant effect of rose, right, the neurological and emotional effect of rose. Lady’s mantle doesn’t exactly convey that. We would need to look for somebody else. We might need to look for, actually, if we want an inexpensive one, dandelion flower. Dandelion flower. Now, dandelion flower is inexpensive in that you can go, and you can gather it. And it doesn’t take like a pickaxe in order to dig it out. It’s not an herb you can really buy. And actually I did find a place that I could buy dried dandelion flowers from. They’re fine. But they’re kind of pricey just because it’s not a major herb of commerce, you know? So again, keeping all those aspects in mind, like I’ve been saying this whole time. But if I’m like I want to lift the mood and the spirits, and I’m going to prepare a remedy for this person. Should it be my rose petal tincture, or should it be dandelion flower tincture? You know, that might have a clear answer for you as you go through that. Okay.

Ryn (00:56:04):
There are certain circumstances where I may need to produce a formula in order to match my target herb as closely as possible. So, if I’m thinking about kava, for instance, and I’m trying to match as much of it as I can. Then like I’ve said before, searching for a single herb that does everything kava does is kind of an exercise in frustration. And to have that also be inexpensive, that’s just very unlikely to ever occur. But if we do a little bit of formulation, we can get closer. So, if I think about kava, what am I considering? Okay, so it’s warming. It’s drying. It’s relaxant. It’s an amazing antispasmodic and tension-relieving herb physically for your muscular structures, right, your neck, your back, your jaw. But also mentally and emotionally it relieves that form of tension for you as well. In that regard, it’s anxiolytic. It releases feelings of anxiety that generally manifest with that tension pattern, right? But kava is also a carminative. It’s also a digestive stimulant. And while we’re at it, kava is also a bit of a diuretic and an antimicrobial to the urinary system. So again, if I wanted one herb to do all of those things, that’s kava, right? You’re not going to find another plant that does every single one of those at once. But if we’re a little more selective about which ones we care about, then we can make a formula that does the job.

Ryn (00:57:40):
We could start by saying okay, if I really just want a nice antispasmodic, relaxant herb that has some of that warming capacity in your digestive system, then maybe I start with ginger. Again, a very inexpensive plant. Maybe I go with calamus to give it a little bit of an extra kick, right? Kava does have a degree of bitterness to it. Calamus definitely has that bitterness in it. So, that might be getting us a little bit closer to what kava is up to as far as the digestion goes, and as far as tension patterns in digestion but also more broadly in the body go. With calamus we also reach into the nervine range, right? Calamus is not only a digestive herb. Calamus is also a mental and emotional herb. Calamus can open your perception of the world from tunnel vision out into broad-angle vision. Kava can be very helpful to get into meditative states of mind or more open and relaxed states of being. And calamus helps us to move in those same kinds of directions in a not exactly the same way as kava but in an adjacent way. In a way that might be doing the job for somebody, right?

Ryn (00:58:52):
But if I want to emphasize that anxiolytic piece even further, then maybe I actually need to bring in another layer here. And I could look for an herb that matches in most of these other respects but is going to add a little extra kick in that regard. And so I could think here about black cohosh. Black cohosh is a really nice relaxant, systemic relaxant. Black cohosh is cooling though, right? So, it’s not like a good one-to-one swap for kava if we wanted to keep that warmth, we wanted to match it very well. But if I bring together some black cohosh, and some calamus, and maybe a touch of ginger as well, now I’ve met a lot of the qualities of kava. We still don’t have a urinary disinfectant diuretic, okay? But maybe we can just set that aside. We’re like your guts were all tight and anxious because of your stress and anxiety. That was giving you the clamped jaw. Those are the things we’re working on. This combination of ginger, calamus, and black cohosh can do most oral of what the kava was doing for you, right? So, we’re going to make those kinds of adjustments. All right So, that’s the way that formulation can help us to solve those difficulties of being like this is a pretty good match, but this one energetic quality doesn’t fit. Or we don’t quite have the degree of affinity to that organ system in the body that I was hoping for. Formulation is the way to solve those issues. Just make sure that the cost of the different packets of the individual herbs you want to put together doesn’t turn out to be more than a single packet of the target herb that you add in mind to begin with. As long as we clear that barrier, we should be okay. All right.

Dosing, Format, & Constituent Considerations

Ryn (01:00:40):
Another thing I wanted to mention here, and I guess I have kind of raised this already, is that dosing and format may be different between your target herb and your substitute herbs. So, think back we were talking about Solomon’s seal and seaweeds, and how for the Solomon’s seal you could apply the tincture or liniment right to the tissue. For the seaweed you need to make the poultice and leave it in place for a while, right? Okay. Or internally, yes, Solomon’s seal we take tincture, seaweed we drink decoctions, or soup, or broth, right? So, just recognizing that sometimes the change in our herb or change to a formula of herbs may require us to change the format and sometimes also the dose, right? So, damiana is an inexpensive substitute for the herb dong quai. Dong quai is like $66, $70 a pound. Damiana is closer to $23 a pound. So, about a third of the cost, right? But if our goal is pelvic circulatory stimulation, which could be connected to menstrual issues, or it could be connected to prostate swelling. Or a variety of different things could be bringing that forward for us, right? But we’re like okay, there’s stagnant fluid down in the pelvis. We want to move it around. We know that dong quai can do it. We also know that damiana can do it. But if we compare cups of a tea made properly for each herb or droppersful of a tincture, made it a good ratio for each herb, you generally are going to need more damiana to get the degree of effect you would get from a little bit less of the dong quai.

Ryn (01:02:18):
So, here you’re just basically thinking it through and being like okay, well if I need to take three times as much damiana as dong quai, I’m probably breaking even. And I should just go with the herb that matches better or that the person prefers or maybe has a better energetic match. You know, dong quai is more heating than damiana is, for instance, right? Those considerations might come into play there. But if the damiana is going to be effective at twice the dose of the dong quai instead of three times, or four times, or whatever. Then that actually still comes out… I still come out ahead. I still come out getting a better deal in that regard, okay? So, as long as we’ve thought it through, getting to the real world of what are you actually going to take, how much, how often, for how long. We get to that point in our thinking, in our calculation, in our planning. Then you can feel confident, and you can move forward from there.

Ryn (01:03:15):
Okay. Oh, there is one other consideration that sometimes comes into play when you’re searching for a substitute. And this is constituents, right? So constituents aren’t always going to be what matters most to us or the specificity of them. So, I love the herb monarda. And monarda is a pungent, warming, stimulating herb in the mint family. It’s not as common, not as abundant as plants like thyme, and sage, and oregano, but it’s very similar to them. It’s beautiful. It has a particular flavor to it. I really love to work with monarda, but it is more expensive than thyme or oregano, okay? And if all I want is a warming stimulating herb with a bunch of respiratory affinity, then I can just go with thyme or oregano. Less expensive, probably easier to get, and they’ll totally do the job for my tea, for my tincture, for a steam that I’m going to inhale. Great, right? And so there the differences aren’t significant. They do share a lot of similar chemistry, but it’s not exactly the same. Like the amount of thymol, and linalool, and other specific aromatics does vary between these two. That’s why we can tell them apart by smell and taste, right? But there are some circumstances where you do really focus a lot on one constituent, maybe for a very good reason. Like I want to have a berberine-containing herb in this topical formula that I’m preparing. This is a wound wash or a disinfectant. And this is going to try to work for as many different kinds of infection as possible. And so it’s not just going to be berberine herbs in there. I’m going to get a bit of garlic in the mix. I’m going to get some black walnut. I’m going to get some neem or some henna. Or a variety of other antimicrobial agents are going to get mixed into there, some uva-ursi, some other things, right? And that way I’m going to get a good, broad-spectrum remedy that can attack a lot of different kinds of problems when I don’t quite know what it is. This is going to go into my first aid kit. This is going to go into my travel kit, my hiking kit. I’m going to be ready for whatever comes my way, right? But I do want berberine in there because it is potent. It is special. It has extra activity for certain pathogens. I want to make sure I include some of that in there.

Ryn (01:05:44):
So, I could then go for the most famous berberine-containing herb, which is goldenseal. And I could say okay, well goldenseal is a topical, antiseptic herb because of the berberine content. It’s great, but it’s also very expensive. $300 a pound or more, yeah. So, I could just substitute with barberry, $47 a pound, Oregon grape root, $52 a pound. If you live in Texas, and you’re surrounded by agarita trees, and they’re encroaching on land and growing places people don’t want them. And you have time, and you have energy, and you have tools. You could go out, and you could harvest some of your own, and you could work with that, right? But the point is that you don’t need to choose the most expensive berberine-containing herb when there are others that are one-sixth of the cost or less, right? We can just go with those because that’s where the focus is. That’s fine. Okay. But, but, but, but you might’ve been working with the goldenseal for other reasons, right? And so again, if we’re thinking through that process, we’re like all right. Were you just looking for a topical, astringent antimicrobial, and you weren’t doing this formulation exercise where you do want to hit several different categories of antimicrobial substance in there? You’re just like yeah, I just need something that’s going to kind of like tighten up the tissue and kill off some infection. It’s nothing too extreme or serious, just whatever does the job. Well again, I could do goldenseal topically. I could choose any of my other berberine-containing herbs, and they’ll probably fit the bill. Or I could go in another direction entirely, and I could look at uva-ursi, about $25 a pound. And uva-ursi is both very good at topical antimicrobial effects, and it’s very astringent. So, that could be a decent swap. That’d be just fine.

Ryn (01:07:36):
If you were taking goldenseal, maybe you were taking tincture by mouth because it dries up the sinuses for you, right? You’ve got a drippy, runny nose that just won’t stop. You take 10 drops or 20 drops of goldenseal tincture, and it dries it up for you. No problem. You’re all set. So, in that case, maybe I go with yerba santa, right? A much less expensive herb, $45 something like that per pound. Take it in tea, take a tincture. You will get that astringent effect up into your sinuses. No problem. This is a case where you couldn’t just substitute with any other berberine herb, right? Yerba santa doesn’t really contain berberine. But you wouldn’t just base this on constituent. Because if we look into it, the reason goldenseal astringes your sinuses so much is not berberine. It’s hydrastine. It’s a different alkaloid that’s present in there that’s responsible for that effect. So, we don’t have to stay focused on that chemistry. There aren’t really a lot of other plants that even contain hydrastine to begin with. So, we’d be better off just being like okay, forget chemistry. Just think about action and location, okay? I know I can do the same thing with yerba santa. Fine. Or I could do a steam with sage, and I could steam myself with it. My nose will run while I’m steaming, but afterwards it will dry it out and tighten it up. That would be just fine, right? Okay, so notice the dose may change, right? I might drink a cup of yerba santa tea instead of 10 drops of tincture. The administration method changed there, but also in the steaming example, right? It’s a very different administration. It might make sense, it might work for that individual, or they might hate it, okay? So, all of that comes into play.

Alternative Constituents/Herbs to Do the Same Work

Ryn (01:09:17):
One last thought on berberine herbs, right? Because we’re in this current environment, and because things have gone in the way they have where people are looking at berberine as an herb to improve blood sugar regulation and to combat insulin resistance, and pre-diabetes, and that kind of thing. So here, first off, it’s important everybody understand that the dose of berberine that people are taking for those effects. If you wanted to get that much berberine from a tincture of goldenseal, you would need to consume an entire ounce of tincture. And you would need to do that three times a day to get the equivalent dose of just that chemical berberine that people are taking in the capsules, the berberine sulfate capsules at whatever number of milligrams they are, right? So, you would not want to do that. If you take an ounce of goldenseal tincture three times a day, first off, it’s probably not going to feel great in your stomach because it is going to astringe your stomach mucosa as well. You’re going to get some cramping and some discomfort there. Your sinuses are going to dry out so much, they’re probably going to start to crack and bleed by day two or day three. It’s going to be very, very uncomfortable because of the humoral effects of the whole herb, which are not totally represented in this isolated product, right? So, I just raise all of this because I have had clients come, and they’re like I heard berberine was good. I heard goldenseal has berberine. I started taking goldenseal tincture for my blood sugar. Usually they end up with smaller doses. They take a dropper a couple times a day or whatever. But even at that dose some people are still going to get excessive dryness and excessive tonification.

Ryn (01:10:55):
So, in that case what I would be thinking is okay, we do want to find a less expensive herb. I would prefer to stay with whole herbs and actual stuff rather than going to isolated berberine for you. So, let’s look at some other herbs that can enhance blood sugar sensitivity. Cinnamon is going to be right up at the top of my list there. If you want a whole pound of cinnamon, it’s like $16, not too expensive at all. But cinnamon powder at a dose of like a teaspoon per day is sufficient to move the needle on blood sugar regulation, right? And you can mix that into some food. You can put that over a meal that you’re eating. You could just take the powder, and stir it in water, and slug it right back. There’s different ways we could go about it. Of course, we can prepare tinctures and so on. We can put cinnamon into a combination of a tea that you can drink a significant amount of, right? We’ve got lots of options for that. But it’s much less expensive. It will serve the job. We just had to get away from chemistry. Chemistry didn’t matter that much in the end in this particular example, right? And that’s often the case when we’re working with holistic herbalism.

Ryn (01:12:09):
It is often the case that there may be a particular herb that is famous for some of its chemistry, right? The kavalactones in kava, the hypericin in St. John’s wort, the ginsenosides in Panax ginseng and also American ginseng, Panax quinquefolius. Ginsenosides is actually an interesting one. It could happen that somebody comes to you, and they’re like so look. I heard ginseng is good. I wanted some science on it. And you know, it seems like really most of what’s good about it is these ginsenosides, and there’s a range of them in the plant. And you know, I want to work with that. I think that that’s really going to work for me. But you know, what’s the cheapest product you think is good? And you’re over here thinking there is no cheap ginseng product that’s good. Cheap ginseng products are bad. They’re bad maybe because of poor quality and poor effect, which is what this client’s going to care most about. But they’re also bad because that’s just encouraging people to make poor quality products. They’re probably cutting corners ecologically in terms of sustainability, in terms of social and human rights, the people who gather and harvest that stuff for them. It’s more likely to be adulterated, including possibly with pharmaceutical drugs. We should just stay away from cheap ginseng products, right?

Ryn (01:13:27):
So, what do we do instead? Well, one option is to work with the herb jiaogulan. Jiaogulan is not too pricey. It’s nowhere near the cost of ginseng. It does contain ginsenosides. And that’s not the only reason that it’s been referred to as poor man’s ginseng, right? The other reason is because it has some of the same effects that ginseng has. Serving as what today we call an adaptogen. Enhancing your stress response, your capacity to cope with changes, and stressors, and things like this. And so if that was somebody’s big ask for me as their herbalist, that might be a direction that I steer them in, right? Work with this plant. You’ll get those ginsenosides in. You can see how they actually perform for you, and if this turns out to be the right thing. But if that’s all you want from me today, okay, fine, we can make that kind of connection. So, sometimes that’s possible as well, right? But like I said before, constituents is rarely going to be the big driver of our search for a substitute, okay. So, you know my overarching goal here for you listeners is that you take these ideas. You apply them to your own practice, to your own habits, your own materia medica, the things that you work with most often. And identify what are your own most expensive herbs. And then by action, by energetics, by intention – like what are we trying to accomplish – you can work out these possible alternatives, right? It could be a singular, it could be a formula. But this is something that if you have that foundational training and experience with plants, that understanding of energetics, actions, affinities, all of that, even chemistry sometimes, you’re better able to help people make that kind of substitution than they are for themselves. Until you teach them how to do it, and now they’re going to become able to accomplish that on their own too. And that’s what we really like to get people to, some kind of self-sufficiency or interdependence let’s call it, right?

A Final Analogue Example & the Importance of Accessibility Training

Ryn (01:15:33):
Okay, so we’ve given a few examples as we’ve gone along. We talked about kava, talked about goldenseal. I wanted to raise one other example before we wrap up here. And that’s with schisandra. Okay. So, schisandra is a really interesting adaptogen because it’s got a complicated flavor to it. It’s pungent, sweet, sour, bitter, salty, a little acrid, right? It’s a complex flavor. It’s got a lot going on. The dominant flavor though is sour. And that correlates with the dominant effect of schisandra, which is to be cooling and drying to the body. So, those are the energetics: cooling, drying, and also it’s got a tonifying quality as well, right? So, in addition to being an adaptogen in the general sense of improving your capacity to cope with stress, schisandra specifically is one of the adaptogens that enhances blood sugar regulation, and that can be a really valuable effect. But interestingly, schisandra’s benefits for blood sugar also kind of correlate with the sour flavor. Because a number of other sour herbs that are a bit astringent, a bit diuretic, have that acidity to them, that sourness, they can also be helpful for blood sugar disruptions and helping to serve to normalize that. So again, schisandra can be a somewhat expensive plant, looking at $77, $80 a pound, somewhere around there. And if I say to myself okay, let me set aside this adaptogen label for a little minute, and say the main thing that this person in front of me is searching for is a way to eliminate some extra fluid, to tonify some tissues in their body, and through that to help to improve that blood sugar regulation pattern. Then I could look at staghorn sumac berry. Staghorn sumac berry is about a quarter of the cost, $20-ish per pound. It is sour. It is astringent. And it does have a pretty reliable and palpable effect on insulin resistance, especially with that damp pattern, right? And so that can be a really good substitute, even though it doesn’t quite have that adaptogen capacity to it, right?

Ryn (01:18:10):
Now, if somebody comes back and they’re like well, but I really did need that actually. I am kind of stressed on top of the blood sugar problems, and the fluid retention, and whatever. Then we could say okay, well look, an option here is that we go ahead and combine the staghorn sumac berry together with tulsi. Because tulsi absolutely brings in the adaptogen effect, and it shares the normal glycemic effect that the schisandra had originally and the sumac berry also shares. The tulsi is going to enhance that element, introduce the adaptogenic effect. And now we’ve got a really simple formula – two herbs – that is getting us much closer to the total representation of the original plant. It’s not all the way there, right? Because we don’t really have a strong pungent element in here. There’s some other aspects that start with the flavor of schisandra and carry through. Of course, we’re not matching it on a chemical level, right? But again, intention, system affinity, that kind of thing, we’ve done our job. We’ve met the need with that, right? And we’ve probably cut the cost in half overall. Okay. So, that is the idea. That’s how we go about it. Those are the things we’re thinking of. Just remember to always get through to that moment of in the real world what would you actually take? How much, what format, how long, all that kind of thing. And you’ll be able to give people some good advice. All right?.

Ryn (01:19:36):
Now, like I said up top, this topic is one but not all of the topics that we address in our course Accessible Herbalism. Accessible Herbalism is one of the courses in our Clinical Herbalist program. And I’m saying that simply to point out that I believe that this is a necessity for anybody who wants to be a practitioner. That we at Commonwealth Holistic Herbalism – me, and Katja, and Kenton, and Emmy, and our staff – we do not believe that you are fully trained as an herbalist if you’re not trained in accessibility. And like I was saying earlier, this isn’t only about money outlay. This is about time, energy, community support, ability, and mobility. All of those elements are things that we consider in turn. We think about what the what the common roadblocks and obstacles are, and methods, and strategies, and techniques to help people to navigate around them. And so over the course of our careers, we’ve come more and more to appreciate the importance of this kind of material, these sets of concepts, and skills, and strategies. And so we inserted it right into the Clinical Training program, and said this is essential material. If you don’t know this, you’re not going to graduate. You’re not going to be ready to get out there into the world and really help people. And part of that is admittedly because of seeing folks make recommendations that are not affordable or not sustainably affordable, kind of willy-nilly and not really obviously thinking about these matters at all. Or doing things like I mentioned before, of being like oh, stop taking those turmeric capsules and just dig your own burdock roots instead, right?

Ryn (01:21:32):
And this also extends over into food, right? Like oh, you know, stop buying all packaged food and prepare everything yourself from scratch. That’s great if you have the time, and the energy, and capacity to do that. Or you’ve got support in your family or community, and we can share the load in some ways, right? But that’s not going to work for everybody. So, we do need to have other strategies to recommend about finding affordable food that’s also high quality, right? Again, we’re not going to sacrifice or compromise on that. We’re going to find ways to navigate all the way through it. So, that is the goal of the Accessible Herbalism course. And again, we’ve been working on this for a while. We’ve got a lot of great ideas in there. And like all of our courses, it continually expands as we go along, and we go through time. So, I really hope that you’ll check that out. Like all of our course material, this is primarily video lessons. It is self-paced. You can go at your own time on your own schedule. You do get lifetime access to the current material and anything we add to it in the future. You also get access to our twice-a-week live Q&A sessions. There’s discussion threads in the course. If you have a question, you pop it right in there and get an answer within 24 hours. There’s our student community of course. We’ve got study guides and everything for you. We’ve got assignments so that you can really make sure that you’re not just kind of getting exposed to the material but processing it, metabolizing it, turning it into something real. And we’re there with you the whole way.

Ryn (01:23:03):
So, there’s a link in the show notes, of course, directly to Accessible Herbalism, but that’s the way we teach everything. So, if you are starting out, you want to begin with the Family Herbalist program. You’re looking for some specific information. You want to get our Energetics course or the one on Herb-Drug Interactions. We’ve got a lot to offer over here. So, you can find all of that at online.commonwealthherbs.com, and I sure hope you will. Because I’d love to have you as a student and not just a podcast listener. Oh, that does remind me though, that if you are a podcast listener, and you’ve been for a minute, it does still really help us if you leave reviews, or ratings, or likes and subscribes on YouTube, on Spotify, on Apple podcasts, or wherever it is that you’re listening. I know every single podcast says this to you. We don’t say it every week, but every now and then I want to remind you that in fact it actually is true. It does help us, and we do really appreciate it. So, if you have a moment or two to do that, I would really appreciate that. Thank you very much. Okay. All right. That’s it for this week. We’ll be back soon with some more Holistic Herbalism podcast for you. Until then take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Drink some tea. And seek out those affordable substitutes. You can do it. Bye.