During a recent event organized by Food Tank and Traditional Medicinals, speakers discussed the growing interest in plant-based medicine, the role of herbal medicine in food systems, and the potential benefits these products can have on human and planetary health.
For millennia, food has been used as a form of medicine. “The line between food and medicine was much less clear,” says Holly Johnson, Chief Science Officer at the American Herbal Products Association. Around the 18th and 19th centuries, however, The Center for Food as Medicine and The Hunter College New York City Food Policy Center reports that many Western cultures began to shift away from nutrition-based medicine.
But that is beginning to change again, Taryn Forrelli, Chief Science Officer for Traditional Medicinals says. She has noticed “explosive growth” in eaters’ interest in herbs including lemon balm, raspberry leaf, and spearmint. “I think people are realizing how disconnected we have become over the last 100 years or so with the rise of modern pharmacy,” she says. “And they’re wanting to get back to that connection to nature.”
To help eaters incorporate more herbs into their diets, the speakers believe that access to both the herbs themselves as well as knowledge about herbal medicines is key.
Jocelyn Boreta, Executive Director of the Botanical Bus, focuses on increasing access through a mobile herb clinic. “Herbalism is activism,” Boreta says. Through the clinic, her team provides herbal medicines to treat the health conditions, ranging from digestion issues to mental health challenges, that clients are facing. She believes that this work is particularly important for the immigrant communities she works with who have faced displacement. “We look at plant medicine as radical love, as cultural identity.”
The speakers, including Kevin Spelman, Founder of Health, Education & Research, also encourage eaters to grow their own herbs, whether in a backyard or windowsill. But Nadja Cech, Professor of Chemistry at the North Carolina Greensboro notes that not everyone has space in their own home to grow these herbs. For that reason, she says, “I’m a huge proponent of community gardening.”
But these medicinal plants are only helpful if speakers know how to use them, says Johnson. “I think it’s not just access, having it in your yard, but maintaining the knowledge of what those [plants] are used for and can be used for.”
When eaters aren’t able to grow their own plants, but are still interested in herbal medicines, they also need the knowledge to access quality products. Deborah Vorhies, CEO of the FairWild Foundation notes that contamination affects products from around the world. “So I think looking for evidence of quality and evidence of traceability…through certification is really, really important,” she says.
As eaters re-familiarize themselves with herbal medicines, Guido Masé, Chief Formulator at Traditional Medicinals says that he sees “this possibility to bring herbal medicine into the lives of human beings, particularly those of us in Western culture who might be experiencing a little bit of disconnect from our ancestral roots, and do it in a way that honors and preserves the traditional knowledge that connects people, plants, and place.”
Watch the full conversation HERE or listen to it on “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg.”
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Photo courtesy of Annemarie Grudën, Unsplash
