Medicine Chest - gaining strength and clarity with burdock root

Burdock is a big subject, and I've had a hard time getting started on writing about it.

I've read a shit-ton of articles, book chapters, blog posts and summaries of science-y articles concerning burdock (summaries because I ain't forking out 40 bucks for the full study) in the last couple of days, so many that my head is over-full with other people's words.

My plan is not to offer you a synopsis of those, mind you, I read them just to jog my memory, so as to ensure I don't leave anything out. But - as happens so often - all I've done is clog up my brain with 'information'. What I aim to do when I write about the plants is to share my on-the-ground experience. That's a different thing altogether!

So I walked over to my china cabinet, grabbed the small jar of late summer burdock root tincture I made, shook it well to get the white, creamy stuff that sinks to the bottom mixed in with the dark amber stuff, dipped the tip of my finger in and licked it.

There. That's what I know about burdock.

With the bitter/sweet/vodka-y flavour on the tip of my tongue, up rushes my own relationship with burdock.

Now I can begin.

oh f@ck off (a series)

As I peruse the interwebz, I come across articles - and entire websites - that infuriate me.

Sometimes it's medical research articles, sometimes it's snake oil salesmen hawking harmful products.

Behind all of these lurk ideas that - I believe - endanger all of us.

I think it important, maybe essential, to keep an eye on the enemy, so to speak. If you'd care to have a peek at what I'm finding, I'm keeping track in a running series, the "oh fuck off" series, over at my other site, the angry herbalist. 

I'll be back here with more Medicine Chest posts shortly.