hi welcome to tonight's webinar 12 categories of herbs um this is a presentation I really love to make and normally um this is the first time I've ever taught it in in any other setting other than a live setting but when I teach it normally I actually have uh herbs that I pass around the room and have people uh taste them so that they can get a good idea of what I I'm actually talking about so I would enourage you even though you probably don't have herbs sitting by you to do this but that afterwards you actually go through and do the experience of this because you'll you'll learn a lot by by actually tasting some plants and just um learning how this works this presentation is important to me because you know when I first started in herbs um I I didn't know a lot about what I was doing um one of the first herb books I used was old classic Back to Eden and I remember distinctly reading about white oak bark and reading about it being good for hemorrhoids and being good for bleeding and being good for varicose veins and excessive menstrual flow and swelling and I was like I I I I couldn't understand it I was like why I mean first of all why do you use it for these things because there was no explanation of why it helped all these these things and and the second thing is that I couldn't see how it could help so many things that to me in my mind were totally different problems and it was even worse with herbs like lobilia and capsum and golden seal and so forth in the book but it it was confusing to me because I really didn't understand the actions of herbs I kind of had a hunch that had something to do with those funny words like diuretic and alternative and whatever that were the top of the page which I really didn't understand and some of the other herb books I got afterwards were were even worse that just had a disease with a list of herbs that you were supposed to use to treat it and know why what wherefore how does it work and so in uh 1980 I actually uh became acquainted with a a master herbalist named Edward Milo Millet who' uh helped to uh he had acted as a ghost writer for John Christopher School of uh uh uh herbal medicine um and and he introduced me to to the idea of of some of the actions of herbs and he also introduced me to Samuel Thompson um and I read in Thompson's work about how uh Thompson basically would taste plants and that he would be able to understand what the plant was going to do in the body by tasting it um and I started to understand that the the um actions of herbs were based on certain basic phytochemicals that had certain basic reactions on the tissues of the body and that a lot of that could be told just from actually chewing on the plant material and noticing how it affected your your body and noticing the impact it had on you so ever since that time I've made a habit of um of of chewing up plants of of of either doing an herb walk I I'm always like you know picking plants and passing around and saying chew on this or or teaching it or having people do tincture in class and I know a lot of other herbalists do this too and and to to try to get a sense of of understanding not with your mind how the herb works but with your body how the herb works and that really is the best way to get to know herbalism is by actually just getting in and experiencing it because you see the the basic constituents that give herbs their different properties can easily be detected by your senses um not just tastes but also smell and texture and so forth and by experiencing these things directly you have a much deeper gut and and visceral sense of what herbs are all about than you do with a lot of people now just swallowing herbs and capsules or just taking tinctures based on something that they read in books later I found out that this understanding was what herbalists call energetics but I didn't know it at the time now Ed introduced me to basically four uh basic categories of herbs Bitters aromatics astringents and ulson and uh my friend Carl Robinson and I were playing with the the four elements and and so we created this little bottle um uh of the assigning bitters to the air element and astringents to the Earth element aromatics to Fire and demulant to water and basically the idea that that these her were uh loosening or consolidating or stimulating or dispersing and this will make more sense as I go along here but this was really useful to me because one of the things that taught me is that herbs can uh can counteract each other um for instance I remember one time I I tasted a plant and it was extraordinary bitter and the alkaloids and it left such a nasty T in my mouth and I immediately got a little bit of of an astringent plant nearby and chewed it up and it neutralized The Taste because astringents precipitate uh alkaloids or tannins precipitate alkaloids and I demonstrated this in classes with dumping cayenne pepper in my mouth and have having it have a certain effect on my body and immediately following that with a capsule of say slippery elm and and watching my body suddenly shift and go into another Direction this is important to know because a lot of the stuff I saw as I started to become more familiar with this is people throwing together what I call kitchen sink formulas of just oh let's give everything that's been useful for coughs in one formula not understanding that that some herbs are moistening and warming and so forth so this was a very simplistic model and and I actually used it for a year but it but it got me started in thinking about herbs in terms of energetics later um Matthew Wood uh was working on a six element uh model which really is a seven element model if you include the idea of of balance that is the state of balance or health into the model but um this is a model I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about this model tonight but it is the model of energetics I use now to describe the actions of herbs and basically it it's the same as the Four Element model because the Four Element model has has uh two axes going from hot to to cold on one one side and from uh hard or or or dry or rigid to damp on the other side but Matthew added another axis to the model and that orange line down the middle represents an axis coming up through the center so it's really a three-dimensional model um if you think about it in terms of space you're talking about like front and back right and left and up and down and so um that creates B basically six basic energies that a that a plant can have and it can have a combination of those um and so when when I refer to properties of plants energetically tonight I'll I'll be referring to it based on on this particular model so when Thomas Easley and I put together our book modern heral medicine we basically um put uh this together as as an energetic uh system using nine terms and the there are the three different axes or three different ways in which herbs affect the body the first is that they affect energy production that is they speed up metabolism or warm or or activate or stimulate tissues or they can cool down or sedate or slow down tissue function okay and then we use the term neutral to describe a remedy that does not warm or cool that sits in the middle that's that's balanced in that particular area and then for the the tissue density which is how damp or dry um uh or or or locid is you have moistening which basically lubricates tissues uh softens Harden tissues and reduces atrophy or rigidness in tissues and then on the other side you have drying which removes excess fluid from tissues and relieves stagnation sort of Swampy condition on the body and then we chose the word balancing for remedies that sat in the middle that didn't moisten or dry okay and then the the last uh category we did is the the other axis that goes up and down which is to constrict which is increasing tone reducing secretion and and countering counteracting excess relaxation of tissues and relax which is to relax uh tissues relax spasms increase uh secretion and then we chose another word that's sort of in in the middle of all of it that an herb is nourishing it doesn't affect the body's energies in in a very big way all the around it mostly just nourishes the body and so um this is the system of herbal energetics that I use now and I find it very very useful as a very um simple way to help people understand herbs so in other words um instead of thinking about herbs in terms of what diseases they treat I started learning how to think about herbs in terms of how they affected the body and then instead of trying to treat the disease you're looking at how is the person's body or even a particular organ in the person's body out of balance energetically and what kinds of Remedies do we need to do to bring it back into balance that is to to to bring the tissues back to a healthy state of balance in the center and when I started to think about herbs like this I started getting much better results with myself with my family and eventually with with as I built my practice with clients it just it worked so much better than trying to correlate herbs with diseases um because it really explains both why an herb works but also instead of looking at some disease name you're actually looking at what's going on in the person's body and you're picking the remedies to basically based on what you see happening in the person's body and using the herbs effectively to restore balance to the system so from the four basic categories of herbs that I learned from Edward Milo Millet I gradually kept understanding other um categories of of herbs based on on common constituents and eventually uh with the help of stuff that uh uh David Winston put out and also Matthew Wood pet out I finally settled on a system of 12 basic herbal categories which is what I use now um which we're going to go through tonight which are pungent aromatic three kinds of bit B salty herbs astringent herbs sour herbs ACD herbs uh mucins uh muculent is not a term that you will find in herb books we coined it when I first started teaching teaching uh the the Four Element energetic model we had aromatics Bitters astringents and mucilaginous herbs and we decided to make it fit the context we we we started calling them muculent and the name is stuck um the other term that's more commonly used in herbalism is deulen but to me deulen sounds like the opposite of muculent so I prefer to use the term mucilin I I've I haven't had much opportunity to toy with putting this into like a circular Arrangement but this is sort of my initial attempt at that so any of you are out there who are herbalists who want to want to play with putting these into a like a color wheel um feel free feel free to to to mess with that but um it's it's it's an interesting thing I love playing with energetics um I I use energetics in in my emotional healing work I use energetics in my Herbal Healing work um and uh and I helped it helps me to organize information in a in a really good way so let's start off and just get right to it with the first category of herbs which is pungent herbs and um the term pungent refers to a very spicy or hot or pecante taste with a very sharp uh biting Aroma and these plants that have this property um uh that are is very very spicy and very um warming uh contain compounds like resins which are basically essential oils that are solidified um alkal alkal Ides ales is another one of these characteristics and some essential oils have a bit of pungency particularly monot Turpin um the in the Nature's Pharmacy course that I'm going to be teaching in January uh go into greater detail about what those different chemical constituents are and a little bit more about them but for right now that's basically the kinds of things that you find in there and the Basic Energy of these is they warm and they dry now I'm going to get more specific about what that what they do after I give you some examples but let's just pretend that that we've got some cayenne pepper and that we're going to do the the the tasting bit um and we're just going to take a little bit of cayenne pepper and dump it in our mouth now if we did this and I've done this in front of a class you would notice several things begin to happen almost instantly and that all almost instantly suggests that this is in fact an energy of the plant not a function of its chemical constituents per se because you have dumping it in my mouth I have not had time to digest and absorb and assimilate those constituents and have them go into my bloodstream and start affecting the tissues of my body there is an instantaneous reaction in the nervous system to that particular remedy and um that that parallels kind of what that remedy is going to do in the body and the first thing you'd see is my face would get redder and if I actually dumped enough of that hot Stu in my mouth you might see my eyes start to water a little bit beads of sweat start forming on my forehead um you also would see that I might start to get a little bit of drainage from my sinuses and I also might start coughing up a little bit of Flem and and it doesn't matter whether I use uh Cayenne for that or whether I use hot mustard for that or whether I I chew up a clove of garlic for that or take some horseradish in the back of my mouth there will be slight differences in those responses because herbs in addition to having an energetic have organ Affinity that is some herbs have more affinity for some parts of the body than others but the effect it's having on the system as a whole and the effect it's having on those systems for which it has Affinity is very consistently uh ex exerting this warming uh uh and drying effect that youd see almost immediately and feel in your body as you as you tasted that so any of you any of you have ever really eaten some hot spicy food you've had those kinds of things happen to you when you ate that hot spicy food so what is happening is the basic property of pungent herbs is it disperses stagnation so anything that's not moving well through the body that's kind of getting a little congested and not flowing well it it has this energy that that tends to cause it to disperse but it pushes energy from the interior of the body to the surface of the body and it tends to also push energy upward towards the head that's why my face flushes that's why I'm likely to get the sweat on the forehead is because it's it's causing an increase in blood flow to the surface of the body now the surface of the body is not just the outer skin the surface of the body is also the inner skin or mucous membranes so you know your your your the where your mouth and your nose and your other orifice turn inward the skin becomes a mucous membrane so you have a skin that's on the inside of your body and a skin that's on the outside of your body but that's still the surface of the body because stuff doesn't really get into your body until it's absorbed through those mucous membranes so the blood is being pushed to the surface of the mucous membranes it's being pushed to the surface of the skin and with it it's going to disperse any kind of stagnation or uh uh uh or or or blocked material with it which is why it uh has the following effects that are very pretty much Universal for these remedies one diaphoretic especially T taken warm they will induce perspiration because they will drive the the um blood to to surface of skin opening up the sweat glands and causing uh water that's why they're drying is because they're going to drive moisture out of the body um stimulating this enhancement of the blood flow to the periphery of the body to the to the surface of the body carminative now the carminative action is is because it's pushing blood to the surface of the um digestive membranes and in doing that most of the gas that's formed in your digestive tract is um is absorbed into your bloodstream and excreted from your lungs so it actually helps to get rid of uh trapped gas in the system plus it also stimulates digestive secretions to help the um food digest better and there is a little bit of expectorant action with pungent herbs because they can lo loosen mucus by driving moisture to the surface of the the mucus membranes they will moisten the mucus loosen it up so that then can be expelled as well as have kind of a stimulating effect on the little cyia that move the mucus um out of the lungs and and off of the sinus things so in in TCM terms they tonify y the defensive Chi the defensive uh chi that which is basically the think of it is raising the shields the the energy that pushes things out of the body that that creates a defensive barrier that keeps things from getting uh into your body through your skin or through your mucous membranes that aren't supposed to be there pungent herbs to me are the best remedy for for colds and acute ailments um I I started uh using them as a primary way when I when I started just basically coming down with a cold load myself up with cayenne or if I didn't have Cayenne mustard or horse radish or whatever I had handy drink lots and lots of water because remember this is drying and and you want to have a flushing of the surface and I would find that of times I could flush the cold out in an hour a couple hours and I'd be perfectly fine because I was enhancing the ability of the body to disperse the cold and the stagnation now this is also a good time to to explain the idea that herbs have an initial effect and then they have an after effect so um while there is a stimulating property to punch in herbs they are not increasing energy production they are increasing energy dispersion and so uh if you'll notice the climates where people eat a lot high of hot and spicy food actually tend to be hot climates because the ultimate effect is is by causing that perspiration and that dissipation of energy to the surface of the body they actually ultimately are cooling so they are warming and dispelling in their initial energy but for every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction so for every herb that you see has an initial effect of pushing the body's energies in One Direction it will have an after effect of pulling the body back into the opposite direction because because it's just kind of the basic law of Nature and the law of physics um so this is why there are contraindications for some of these categories of herbs because if if you eat too much of the spicy pungent food it actually drains your energy reserves um and it dries you out due to the perspiration and the and the dispersion of fluids unless you're drinking lots of lots of water and if you already tend to be running a little bit overheated and irritated it actually can irritate your digestive membranes a little further so if you already got a person who's hot and flushed and irritable and fever fever you know that kind of thing these are not the best remedies to use for them um this is like when we think of a cold you're thinking of something where your body energy is um going down you're a little more pale you're congested uh things aren't moving maybe you've got some stagnation in your digestive tract or stagnation in your lungs or your sinuses so things aren't moving and the body is a little cold this gives that little oomph to clear out what's what's congesting the system and disperse the stagnation and warm the body back up again um but ultimately the the the the final source of warmth is of course going to be you know nourishing food that generates energy um now aromatic herbs have a very similar quality similar energy um to P punchin herbs but they're not as pushy okay pungent herbs are in your face hot okay um f with a with a drying effect aromatic herbs are more warming uh a few aromatics can even be a little bit cooling but again that cooling effect is usually due to the the the after effect of of dispersing the the stagnation what makes an herb aromatic is the presence of essential or volatile oils um which are what give plants their fragrance so any any plant that has a really really strong fragrance a strong smell is an aromatic and most of our kitchen spices are aromatics uh because they add a lot of flavor to foods and they're uh again have a basic warming and drying energy and examples of these include a lot of plants in the mint family and also in the carrot or parsley family uh catnip peppermint uh chamomile Sage lemon balm basil oregano Rosemary Dill uh Caraway uh coriander cumin um again a lot of our of our kitchen spices and uh the the one of the big differences of pungent herbs versus aromatic herbs is whereas pungent herbs have a really strong effect on the cardiovascular system in terms of stimulating blood flow aromatics have a stronger affinity for the nervous system so a lot of their effects are basically um kind of stimulating the function of the sympathetic and or parasympathetic nervous system to to have certain things take place in the body they also have a lot of common properties because even though they're not as necessarily as strong at it as the pungent herbs they still will do a lot of the same things uh but a little more gently um such as the diaphoretic uh a lot of aromatics are diaphoretic especially again when taken as a warm infus or te uh to basically uh increase the blood flow to the periphery and and open it up so that so that you sweat they're more mildly stimulating to the cardiovascular system they don't have as strong effect as pungent they're usually better though as carminatives they're they're typically much better at uh stimulating digestive secretions and getting rid of uh intestinal gas in fact I would say that just about all of your kitchen spices are carminative to one degree or another meaning they enhance digestion which may be part of the reason why that they were added to food in the first place um so that because they do actually make food toest better now the the place where they have a little bit of of of a potential to go One Direction or another is how they affect the nerves some of them can be a little more stimulating or or W like waking you up in your nervous system uh some of the more calming or sedating helping you to calm down in your nervous system um so for example cinnamon is is more of cinnamon which is actually tends towards being a little bit pungent is is more warming and stimulating whereas um chamomile is a little more sedating and how it affects the nerves another thing that all of these have is essential oils are pretty much all uh mild disinfectants some of them are stronger than others but that may be also a reason why people learn to add them to food is because it uh helps to kill harmful microbes and uh helps to hold down gut uh bacteria in the small intestines which basically uh helps stop the formation of gas um and the overgrowth of bacteria in the small intestinal tract um the aromatic herbs don't really have strong contraindications um because they're obviously used in a lot in food but if you take the essential oils out of the herbs you're dealing with an entirely different animal you're no longer dealing with the the whole herb you're dealing with an isolated highly concentrated extraction of the herb that has a a lot more potential for causing irritation harm because once you have an essential oil you have something that is even more potent than a pungent herb and has even more more chance of throwing the body out of balance or or causing irritation if if used incorrectly so essential oils um are primarily should be used for topical use um and even topically they should be diluted because they're such such potent um uh things and and it's a the aroma therapy or the use of essential oils is is very different than the herbalism and and a lot of people who are amateurs don't get that so like I saw a a posting on Facebook where someone was was talking about lavender essential oil and then they were talking about they were mixing it up of things that would be true for lavender they were saying were true for lavender essential oil like it's got vitamins and minerals in it which is ridiculous because essential oils don't have vitamins and minerals um the herb does but essential oils don't so um it's really important to to keep that there's a distinction between something that's extracted from a plant versus the whole plant the whole plant are generally always safer and there's always a Synergy about the whole plant also that I think you lose when you make concentrated extracts now bitters um I typically go in this order when I teach this class so let's just imag imagine now that we uh know chewing on a little peppermint Leaf would not be unpleasant uh peppermint has kind of a cooling effect on the digestive tract it calms it down and but also kind of stimulates your head or your mind and you would notice that just you know um uh tasting it and if you Dr drank some really hot peppermint tea you might notice a little bit of that effect of sending the blood out to your periphery and and enough of it you know could even uh enhance your perspiration a little bit uh not that it's very strong at that but then I go to bitters because I figure we might as well get the worst of the stuff over so if if if none of you have ever actually chewed on or taken bitters as bitters um you're talking about something that has a very nasty taste but what's interesting when you take something that's bitter after you've taken something that's aromatic that redness or flushing of the face immediately reverses because bitters draw the blood inward away from the surface of the body and they pull the energy downward instead of pushing it upward and again I encourage you just to to to to chew on a few BS get into a kind of quiet meditative State chew on it and notice how it affects that and compare it to another herb and this is how you'll start to understand in your body uh what herbal energetics do um bitters are as a general drying because like um aromatics and pungent herbs they promote or increase discharge and so when you're increasing discharge you're losing moisture um however they tend to be Cooling and their effect of increasing discharge is not to increase charge through perspiration or coughing or sinus drainage is to increase uh uh uh elimination through the colon uh the liver and the kidneys to basically flush irritants out downward through the those mechanisms of the body so uh bits are very um thing so all bids have certain properties um just from the taste just from from ta tasting them in your mouth there's an effect on the nervous system that goes through through the body the constituents of simple bitters that are not alkaloidal in nature are things like dipes or glycosides with one particular subcategory called anthroquinone glycosides which are stimulant laxatives um there are a few warming bits um but you get the cooling ones would be things like Alfalfa artichoke Leaf a very nice bitter gensin wild lettuce um just even kale and other dark greens have a bitterness to them um cascara Sr and turkey rhubarb contain anthroquinone glycosides so they're laxative hops um is a is a bitter uh and turmeric turmeric and Dong Quai are also um bitters but they're a little more warming predominantly because they're also aromatic so in other words you combine the property of aromatic which is war Waring with the bitterness and it tends to counteract the cooling nature of the bidder now this is this is a principle that helps also helps you when you look at how herbs work synergistically in a formula if you put aromatics and Bitters together together um you're going to enhance certain properties of both of them and also kind of calm down certain properties of both of them so when you look at the at the uh properties of bitters okay first of all I mentioned they're moving the energy in inward into the internal organs and downward into the eliminative channels but they also stimulate digestion just the flavor of bitter on your tongue stimulates your stomach to start producing more hydrochloric acid as well as stimulates your pancreas and uh liver to produce more bile and pancreatic enzymes in other words the taste of bitter gets your system ready for digestion so you combine aromatics which also stimulate digestive secretions in intestinal motility together with Bitters and you have something that basically helps to enhance uh the the function of the digestive system which is your traditional formulas like Swedish Bitters and so forth always include these bitter herbs with some carminative aromatic herbs as a tonic to digestion and the bitters combined with the more warming aromatics mean that you're not overly cooling down the digestive fire because the digestive system needs some warmth to it to break down the food and so that that restrains the cooling effect of of the bids bids tend to be just in general detoxifying uh they tend to stimulate the liver enzymes to basically break down um chemical substances so they enhance the liver metabolism of various toxins some bids are a bit sedating because of their cooling nature and a few are also anod meaning they ease pain some of the pain relieving effect of bitters is as you clear out toxins and and so forth that are irritating your tissues then pain of course is also going to naturally uh subside and then of course those herbs that contain that one special case of these which is anthrocon glycosides Will stimulate Paris uh intestinal peristalsis and act as uh stimulant laxatives because um of their very cooling nature if taken by themselves over time without the the warming effect of either warming bitters or the addition of essential oils they are they tend to uh actually deplete digestion first of all they dry out digestive secretions they they also uh cool down the function the digestive tract so they literally can you know cause problems this is why over cleansing is not a good idea I've seen some people who over cleanse and it really depletes their system so bids in general are contraindicated for people who are already thin pale weak emaciated and dry in other words they're already kind of uh underweight they're already kind of low in energy um so they don't need to be cooled or or or have that sedating or cooling effect any anymore and of course if they're also like dry their tongue is dry they tend to to have you know a lack of mucus production and that sort of thing you don't want to use bitters because then you're just going to dry them out worse you're going to deplete them worse that's not what you want it's because the excess use of bitters is is wasting to the tissues now you take the average person in America who's overweight you know you know uh and how you know maybe seems to be a little bit uh uh too many too much fats and all this other kind of stuff that's great because they they need that now alkaloidal bids are probably the most medicinal and specific of any of these categories of herbs they also have a bitter taste but they owe their uh bitterness and their properties primarily to the to the presence of alkaloids which are alkaline compounds with names ending in i e and all of you have heard of some of these compounds nicotine uh caffeine berberine uh in the herbal World lyine from lobilia hydrastine from golden seal uh number of plants contain uh berberine um these still have the same energetics as of the bids they're they're Cooling and uh drying um uh but but they have very specific effects depending on the alkaloids in other words the alkaloids uh act like messenger chemicals you know the body the body uh uh controls and regulates function by means of messenger chemicals like hormones neurotransmitters and um ecosin like prostaglandins and and so forth and these are imitating messenger chemicals so they're affecting nervous and glandular system function um which gives them very specific therapeutic actions they're still the general qualities of bitters but these are the herbs that you have to kind of know more individually what they do now you have herbs that contain uh like berberine like golden seal and organ grape burine um has a lot of properties it stimulates bof flow it is an an it's an antimicrobial agent uh it helps to lower blood sugar um levels uh but it's been but herbs that contain it traditionally are used to fight infection lobilia which is a strong uh Antipas omotic that basically um uh relaxes muscles induces vomiting in high doses has expectorant qualities uh coffee and chocolate are two of the alkaloid containing plants that most people are most familiar with uh uh coffee containing caffeine and chocolate containing theob bromine uh both of which are stimulating um actually coffee isn't truly stimulating it actually blocks the message that you're tired uh theob bromine actually gives a more sustained energy without as big of a push up and let down as as coffee Chinese aedra which unfortunately is now practically impossible to find but contains a fedrin which mimics epinephrine um uh California poppy has a sedative alkaloid in it uh Barberry also contains berberine Scotch broom contains alkaloids that stimulate the heart so these are the you really have to kind of know what they do individually because of the fact that these are are pushing very specific um you know biochemical processes they still work in general as digestive stimulants because they still do the same thing that other bids do they still work in general as somewhat of a of a detoxifying agents although not all of them are detoxifying like you know I wouldn't call coffee and chocolate as detoxifying um but they the the big key is the specific nervous and glandular system effects dependent on the specific alkaloids in them so because alkaloidal bids have very specific indications and Contra indications you need to learn them for each of the individual herbs like other bits though they should be avoided by Thin weak emaciated and dry people because they are generally Cooling and drying now you may not think of caffeine as cooling because you think of it as stimulant but but honestly CA the the more you use caffeine the more fatigued you become uh and the more it takes to get the effect that shows the that it's pushing this um it's pushing this expenditure of energy that is eventually depleting and and cooling the body so that's why you you you want to not overuse this stuff now fragrant bits are really very strong bitters that are also very strong aromatics uh and the the Aromas of these are generally not um they're more a bitter Aroma you know they're not a kind of a pleasant Aroma like a flower or a spice they're more of a of a very strong sometimes bordering on unpleasant Aroma the constituents that that are in these are are predominantly csot turpine lactones and trines these are slightly warming and they're also drying uh because of the combination of the essential oils and the and the bitters a lot of these are used as anti-parasitic agents so L campaign Black Walnut holes wormwood tanzy wormseed would all be examples of fragrant bitters uh and the two primary uses for these are one is digestive stimulants they're often used in ttin in small amounts uh in digestive bitter formulas uh but they're also used as antiparasitics to help dispel uh parasites um these herbs are pretty potent medicines um they're generally used shortterm if if if they're part of a a small part of a digestive formula they can be used more regularly but in a in a fuller dose they're generally used for a short period of time like to get rid of parasites and not for uh um long periods of time uh most of them would be contraindicated in in pregnancy so you'd be want to be careful with things you know you wouldn't want to use wormwood or tanzy or some of those things during pregnancy um black walnut would be okay um and the same general contraindications for all bids now this is where the we would get to the worst of the tastes before we start moving into the more Pleasant taste um I don't normally pass out something that's acrid in classes when I teach this because I figured I've tortured people Enough by having them taste some kind of hot spicy thing and then giving them something really bitter to chew but if you want to know what the flavor of this is all you need to do is get a little bit of Cava uh or some low Bia and chew it up so this is not exactly bitter it's bitterish it's sort of bitter like if you're throwing up and you get or you have like uh acid regurgitation in the back of your throat and you get that kind of burny acidy bitter uh taste that is sort of like vomit I it's just not a pleasant flavor it's really kind of burning nasty tingly whatever this is due typically to Res and alkaloids um and the and the primary energy of ACD herbs is they're relaxing they're they're they uh have very profound uh anti-spasmodic effects of relaxing muscles that's the primary thing they they also a little bit dispersing they can be cooling or drying depending on the herb so the the two that are the ones that I are the best examples of this are lobilia and kavak Cava eonia adusta foia is a little bit accurd it's not an antispasmodic but it is very dispersive uh meaning it it it it opens up kind of energy to flow through the body so it has that little bit of thing black kaash is a little bit acrid um uh skunk cabbage is a good example of acrid and and blue vervine is a little teeny bit accurate um but if you want to get a good good example of what ACD taste is all about just get some lobilia or some Cava and you'll see what I mean and um so the the primary energetic I set of these is to relax cramping and muscle spasms um and to relieve what are called wind disorders in TCM problems involving alternating symptoms this is something I gathered from Matthew Wood and it it made a lot of sense so when I teach about the basic um tissue States and I explain constriction muscles are like Gatekeepers they control the flow of things like you have a muscle in your bladder that basically um contracts to keep your pee in your bladder until you're ready to go and then it relaxes and lets the pee flow okay so if you if you have a wind disorder which is a disorder involving constriction then the muscle spasms or contracts which backs up whatever uh is behind it and then when the muscle finally relaxes everything goes flooding in other words it goes from the one extreme to the opposite extreme and back and forth um such as alternating uh fever and shills is an example of a wind disorder and this is caused by by muscle spasms in certain muscles and the and ACD herbs or anti-spasmodics are the basic remedy for it um some but not all uh of these are Medic in large doses uh uh uh and and you wouldn't want to use uh these necessarily all the time or or long term I mean I know Polynesians use Cava very regularly um I I think it's better to use them when they're needed and then um uh once the problem is is taken care of to um discontinue them one of the reasons why I put bitter before AR stringent is because when I used to teach as stringent first people would tast taste something that was astringent and they would say it tastes bitter um a a Str a stringent plants do have a very slight bitter taste but it's nothing like real bitters it's it's um the biggest property you're looking for here is is a is there's a drying puckering Sensation that kind of makes your mouth feel um like everything like closed down and tightened up a little bit um uh there's a little bit of tannin in tea uh I'm talking about green or black tea so you get a little bit of that astringent Sensation from from the the flavor of tea but it's due to the presence of compounds called tannin or tanic acid and a stringent are both drying um in that they drive moisture out of tissues but they do it primarily by Contracting the tissues by basically causing the tissues to be drawn together uh to increase their their their tension or tone so really astringent herbs are the opposite of acrid herbs they they basically um the the acrid herbs relax and let things flow the astringent herbs tighten up and uh reduce the flow so remember the white o bark that I mentioned at the beginning the thing that puzzled me so much um when I understood you know and I and I chewed on white oak bark and I could feel how it it dried out my mouth it dried out my saliva it made my tongue like feel like it was tensing or whatever and I got oh I get it so it stops bleeding because it's tight tightening the tissues and arresting the bleeding it it tightens up the Hemorrhoid which is this loose tissue it tightens up the varicose vein it tightens up the swollen sponge and bleeding gums and all of a sudden everything made perfect sense it wasn't a list of diseases anymore that white oak bark was treating it was a unified single problem of tissue being out of balance in a certain direction that can take place in multiple areas of the body or different tissues and therefore the same remedy can be used to to fix that problem in different areas of the body now it is true uh as you get into studying this a little more you you find out well you know that uh these different astringents have a better affinity for some of those tissues than others but that's beside the point it it the first thing to understand is the whole just nature of what the astringent is so overy Bayberry which is one of my favorite astringents um garden sage is aromatic and astringent um so again you can have um these properties combine in different ways in plants and and and give them kind of an overall Dynamic but the first thing you want to do is start start to recognize these basic categories so Sage SE is is warming and drying okay uh green tea uh Yaro uh wild geranium wabar witch hazel okay so these are very drying they arrest excessive secretion they tighten loose tissue to reduce swelling they stop coagulate blood to stop bleeding and they also slow intestinal peristalsis so they actually um the Contracting waves of your uh intestines so like when you get diarrhea they're going to slow that down um but they also tone up leaky gut and stop the discharge of fluids so that also to stop the dischar of fluids and diarrhea and astringents have some interesting things they they tend to have a an effect of of precipitating or knocking out of solution uh protein compounds and uh alkaline compounds like alkaloids so they can be very good remedies for countering various poisons animal Venoms are are uh tend to be proteins protein compounds and so by knocking them out of solution they can't travel through the body uh and I've so I've used astringents a lot apply topically for insect bites beasting uh that sort of thing they've been used for snake bite um uh the reason that the tannin get their name is because when you apply a a tanic tannin solution uh to a hide off of an animal it drives the moisture out of the hide it it precipitates the protein which means it separates the protein from the liquid causing the hide to contract and helping to preserve the hide by driving the moisture at it so they were used to tan hides hence tannins is where they get their name from tannins are uh you know the the stronger stringent um are herbs that are best used for temporary medicinal uses uh like some of these other categories they're not like nutritional they're really used when you need them because they reduce digestive function and interfere with mineral absorption it's best to take them between meals it's also best to not um overuse them internally um because of those properties um they can cause constipation if you overdo tannins because they'll bind you up by restricting your peristalsis uh and drying out your colon um uh and the long-term topical use can be irritating to the skin or M muc um uh adding a little bit of milk or cream to a Tannon bearing herb uh counteracts the effect of the tannins which is why uh it if if you drink like tea or something with tannins in it and you add a little bit of milk or cream to it it actually uh keeps the tannins from having that irritating effect on your body one specialized form of tannins is OPC oligomeric procyanidin uh graine or pyol uh is the other trade name uh I forgot to change that because uh This was done for a company that sells them as uh under the trade name grapine but these are condensed tannins that have powerful antioxidant compounds and uh the primary sources are pine bark uh grape seed and green tea but they're related to tannin which is why I threw them in there now sour is a flavor that all of us are familiar with the flavor of vinegar the flavor of lemon it's it's due to the presence of organic acids and where there are organic acids there are typically flavonoids and a lot of antioxidant uh qualities sour herbs are cooling they are typically balancing although they C may be slightly moistening or drying depending on the plant and they also tend to be nourishing um in other words they're they're a little more into the the category of food or things you can use long term so examples of of things that are sour are predominantly berries and fruits so for example lemons bilberries and blueberries cranberries rose hips Lum or GOI um or wolf berries um Hawthorne berries shander berries mangotin fruit noni fruit all of these things are are um have a a little bit of a sour flavor to them and that indicates presence of of anti antioxidants and organic acids and so the reason why these things are cooling is because you know we now know that these antioxidant um nutrients help to to reduce free radical damage and reduce oxidative heat and irritation so that's what makes these things cooling um so they're indicated where you have a tendency towards inflammation and redness and that sort of thing as nutritive remedies to help reduce that oxidative stress uh and and heat and irritation and inflammatory kind of thing they they are a little bit toning um so initially when I was learning this I I actually had a stringent and sour together and I finally realized that they're they're they're they have some like I say like pungent and aromatics they have some similarities but there's also some differences because um the the the the stringent of course are much harsher uh they don't really have the antioxidant Capac capity although they do can help to fight infection um but the sour is more toning gently toning nourishing toning to the tissue to help things again like varicose veins and hemorrhoids and so forth in TCM sour is said to tonify the liver and this is be probably because the liver and the eyes use more antioxidants than any other organs in the body so when you have uh liver problems and eye problems you're typically not getting enough antioxidants so you need to um increase the the consumption of these kinds of sour foods to basically give yourself those um cooling properties okay so salty which I used to lump with bitter as kind of a milder thing of bitter and then I also you know as I mature for as an herbalist I went okay uh no there's a difference here um think of salty not as the flavor of table salt because that's that's too strong think of it more like a grassy taste or a green taste like the taste of spinach or celery or or parsley or any of those kinds of or the taste of just chewing on grass I don't know if any of you ever chewed on grass I sometimes would chew on grass as a as a the the flavor uh is is subtle but it's there and it's due to the fact that these herbs contain a lot of salts of magnesium potassium sodium and calcium which are electrolytes and um they are balancing to The Damp and dry axis of the um energetic model and they're also nourishing so they they serve as foods and they also serve as balancers for damp or dry conditions um examples of course would be the forementioned spinach and celery uh Alfalfa Mullen Nettles is one of my favorites uh chickweed red clover dandelion Leaf not the root the root is more bitter um horsetail and your seaweeds uh like kelp and adts um the the first thing is they're nutritive uh most of these things can be eaten in fairly reasonable quantities they Supply trace minerals help to tone and heal tissues so they can have a very healing quality to them they act in most cases as non-irritating diuretics this is they they aren't irritating the kidneys into producing more urine they're providing electrolytes and things that actually help the kidneys function better from a nutritional standpoint and they do the same thing for the lymph system um because the taste of salty helps to move stagnant fluid that may get congested in the lymph system uh they could help to loosen mucus but again it's a very gentle loosening of mucus uh by taking them with plenty of water they help the fluids move more more properly through the body they tend to be a little bit Al alkalizing um which you know the acid alkaline thing is a little bit you know controversial I realize but uh when I say alkalizing they they're tending to help balance the pH of the body uh keeping energy levels up and so forth and they really don't have any real contraindications because they're so nourishing and balancing and Central in the way they they function now this category is one that I used to lump together with the uh mucin herbs and then I realized no doesn't quite work there there this is a a a separate issue the the when we talk about a sweet herb it's not sweet like sugary just like salt isn't salt like table salt it's more of a kind of a Bittersweet flavor more like the sweetness that you get out of dark chocolate um it's a subtle sweet flavor um it generally these herbs are not unpleasant to The Taste but they're not like yummy sugary either but they contain polysaccharides which are complex uh chains of sugar molecules and they also typically contain saponins um they're uh moistening in in the sense that they they tend to uh to n nture the tissues and make them more Supple and and moist and useful um they they tend to be neutral in terms of how they affect the heat and cold in other words they're they're not like stimulating and they're not cooling they're they're more neutral as far as the temperature however they can be thought of as ultimately being a little more warming just like pungent herbs can be thought to be ultimately a little more cooling because taking over time they build up the Energy and Metabolism of the body by helping to bring the body into B Better Health and and balance so sweet herbs include things like licorice Stevie Stevia your gin sings your a lot of your adapt gens luthro root B pollen which isn't really an herb uh it's the pollen that uh bees collect from Plants uh uh it a stralis codonopsis these are tonics these are things that you use to build up the vitality and strength of the body um they help overcome conditions of atrophy and dryness which is associated with aging and ultimately kind of uh have a a slightly warming and nourishing effect on the body Al although temperature-wise in their initial reaction in the body they really tend to be neutral although although you'll you do get a little bit of subtle difference you know this is the the art of herbalism comes in in starting to see the subtle differences between them so for example Korean ginsing is a little more warming American ginsing is a little more cooling um and the red gensing which has been steamed makes it even more warming so the it it has a little effect on the on the temperature okay so these herbs are are nutritive and tonic meaning they build up weaken conditions they counteract wasting strengthen glands build up energy reserves um whereas your your uh pungent are stimulating a depletion of energy reserves these are building energy reserves uh many of them are adaptogenic not all of them which means they uh help the body cope better with stress and improve all overall health they tend to uh moisten counteracting the tendency of tissues to become increasingly dry as we age when we're young we're kind of plump and juicy and and wet behind the ears as we uh get older we tend to get wrinkly and shuffly and so forth and they tend to counteract that effect they also tend to act as immune tonics not immune stimulants but immune tonics meaning they help to to strengthen the body's immune responses and they're often used for elderly people to Reg gain or maintain good health most of these remedies are fairly B benign and suitable for long-term use some of them overused could tend to encourage weight gain but some of the stronger herbs especially the Gin sings can be abused as stimulants um by younger people who who don't really need that tonic effect all right the mucilaginous character istic is a texture more than a taste so I don't know if any of you have carved pumpkins for Halloween but if you pulled out the pumpkin guts and you felt them that's the texture of mucilaginous plants it's slimy slippery when when it's moistened the flavor is generally Bland or slightly sweet just a little little bit on the sweet side but it's mostly by the texture that you know these and these contain mucopolysaccharides such as mucit your gums or uh gluco Amino glycans which are all compounds that are hydroscopic meaning they absorb moisture and basically get this gel-like consistency to them so these remedies are moistening Cooling and nourishing so this sits on the opposite end of the spectrum from punch and herbs that's why I can take a a capsule of of cayenne pepper and it'll have one effect and I can follow a capsule of slip realm and the exact opposite reaction would take place in my body um if you if you chew up a little bit of uh say um now aloe vera juice is is not just mucilaginous I mean it is mucilaginous but it's also slightly sour and a Teensy bit bitter okay but that that makes it cooling because the bitter is cooling the sour is cooling the the mucilaginous is cooling okay and it's also moistening um slippery elm is just a little bit sweet uh and and uh and slimy very nourishing to the system if you chew a little bit of slippery elm you will notice that it actually has a little bit of a calming effect on your body um also draws moisture and helps to moisten and lubricate uh tissues uh psyllium um marshmallow comrey especially the root um Irish moss kelp okra ever had gumbo okay the okra is very very slimy chia seeds um have a have a little bit of this property too so these are cooling and they're also moistening to dry hot irritated tissues they work they work predominantly topically because you don't actually absorb mucilage um but uh so when I say topically they work on mucous membranes and they work on um the skin so even though you take some of these herbs internally and it only attaches your your mucous membranes of your gastrointestinal tract somehow it has a reflexive action uh energetic action that they will also help to moisten and cool the lungs or the urinary passages um none of us know for sure exactly how that works but but there is something to the energy of a plant not just its constituents remember a lot of these actions will take place the minute you put your the herb on your tongue within a matter of uh of 30 to 60 seconds you'll start noticing the energetic of it affecting your body and this is long before you'd have a chance to actually absorb anything from the remedy these remedies make bulk laxatives to help hold moisture in the stool and cool things down they often help tissues to heal being very vulner they do have immune activity especially enhancing the surface immune system on the gastrointestinal tract this may be because mucopolysaccharides tend to feed gut bacteria which promotes intestinal health and immune reactions they absorb irritant from the GI tract and Skin So they they they rather then pushing the irritants out of the body they draw them out they absorb them and they may help reduce cholesterol because they bind bile which basically is mostly cholesterol and help carry it out of the body in large doses taken internally they can interfere with the absorption of nutrients and medications so generally you don't take a bunch of bulk mucilaginous fiber with your vitamin and mineral supplements they also slow down and cool down the digestive fun tract which is okay if you've got some kind of inflammatory bowel disease or your intestines really irritated or you've got diarrhea but if you're already tending towards constipation you typically have to add a little something pungent to them to kind of uh keep them from becoming overly Cooling and the final category in this presentation tonight is oily herbs I think it was Matthew Wood who who clued me in into this this particular one but this is herbs with an oily taste or Texture uh so just think of what fat feels like in your mouth and that's what we're talking about plants that are high in oils and fatty acids uh that these are also moistening Cooling and nourishing uh so they're they're they're similar to demulant but they're enough different that they deserve a little separate classification particularly because of the constituents that we're talking about are different so your flax seeds your black current seed your evening primrose pumpkin seeds sunflower seeds notice that these are mostly seeds um but also coconut and olives fit into this particular category um but these uh are very nourishing because they're providing fatty acids that are needed for energy production for immune function and also for your nerve and gland Flor function they are cooling they reduce irritation to tissues they can have a mild laxative action the what really helps my colon is a mixture of freshly ground flax seeds with uh psyllium holes and then I started adding the U three fruits from Arabic medicine the trifa powder and I MI mix that in with a little bit of my my smoothie and take it and it really soothes the colon helps my colon work better it it's a wonderful thing because I tend to run dry in my G gastrointestinal tract tend to have my gastrointest tract gets easily irritated and also tends to get dry and so doing something that's Cooling and also moistening helps to balance out my system um they help to lubricate dry tissue issues oils are part of the lubrication of the body help keep things moving keep things flexible they help keep your skin moist and so forth there really aren't any contraindications for these because they are they're nourishing foods so a couple of acknowledgements um uh I want to mention that Edward mil aillet was the again the herbalist who initially helped me understand uh the idea of actions of herbs and the um uh Things El Carl Robinson helped me develop the initial for element model that we used and then uh later Matthew Wood and David Winston uh Matthew Wood helped me with the developing the model of the six help me with understanding the model of the six tissue States seven if you count balance and also the 12 verbal categories along with David Winston with the 12 verbal categories and Thomas Easley has help me with the direction of actions model so I I didn't this understanding didn't come to me out of the thin air I I've had a lot of other herbalists that I've worked with over the years that have really helped uh me to arrive at at this understanding so we have uh uh come to the period for the question and answers uh I'm going to go ahead and say good night as I'm not going to do uh the the question answer period for the recording um but I do want to mention that you know uh if you want to learn more about this topic uh you can uh uh attend my uh Nature's Pharmacy course which is which is coming up where we're going to talk about all these categories zbs in a lot more depth that I talked about it um tonight uh anyway uh thank you for uh listening and I hope you have learned a lot