Arti Ekawati BIODIVERSITY - HERBAL MEDICINE November 2011

Mother nature caresBeing different is a combination of bless and beauty. It is healing too. Watch out! These ignored plants

might save you hundreds of euro for paying doctor

• Dandelion (Taraxacum sect. Rud-eralia). People in Germany call it Lö-wenzahn, as its leaves shaped like lion teeth. The leaves is commonly used for salad. White secretion in the leaves contains inulin, which prevents you from having diabetes mellitus. It also can dissolve kidney stones, prevent lever disease and improve digestive system.

• Daisy (Bellis perennis) People can find this little white or sometimes pink flower blossoms in almost everywhere. Daisy flower can be consumed freshly with salad, thanks to its unique taste. If you want to be more practical, just go to local tea store and buy dried daisy as tea. It cleans blood, rash, solves skin problems. It is called Gänseblümchen in Germany.

• Nettles (Urtica dioica). The Germans call it Brennessel because people will feel like burning in their skin when touching it. The leaves are edible after being cooked just like spinach. It is good for cleaning your blood, reducing high blood pressure and growing your hair.

• Ivy (Hedera helix) or also known als Efeu in German is a very com-mon plant can be found almost everywhere Bonn. A cup of tea made from ivy leaves is good to cure chronic bronchial disease and acute respiratory infection.

• Tansy (Tanacetum vulgare) is also known as Rainfarn. A cup of tansy tea helps against intestinal para-sites. Meanwhile if you mix the tea with milk and lemon juice it helps reduce fever and for you to relax.

• Find more about Jens Albrecht’s practice at www.hp-albrecht.de/index.php • Make your own herbal tea. Recipes are here www.heilkraeuter.de/rezept/index.htm• Medical plants from around the world www.heilpflanzenkatalog.net/ • Visit botanical garden in Bonn www.botgart.uni-bonn.de/index.php

PHARMACY BENEATH YOUR FEET

CLICK THAT HERBS

Not just an ordinary grass. This nettles’ leave strenghtens your stomach and grows hair

Let me ask this question: Have you ever notice, what is the

name of plant nearest to your feet every morning you step out of your door? Many of us will start to think. But not Jens Al-brecht, a naturopat and herbal-ist in Bonn.

Albrecht and I take a walk along the Rhine River in Beuel, Bonn. It is a cold and windy day in early Novem-ber. Yet I can see his eyes shining and his expression is warm when talking about plants surrounding us. I had

never thought that there are so many medical-worthy plants, which you can find just a few meters outside your door.

“Here is a perfect ex-ample, it is willow. Phar-

macy uses one acid of willow to make aspirin,” he points at

a big tree grows by the river. He then cuts

a small branch of the tree and pulls its bark.

“Dry this bark and make tea from

er Nature has provided various kinds of plants for their health.

“The idea of all modern medi-cine is in the nature,“ Wolfram Lobin, Curator at Botanic Gardens Univer-sity of Bonn, says in an interview in Bonn Botanic Garden. “Nature is the point where everything begins.”

In ancient time people were totally dependent on natural medi-cine. Then chemistry and pharma-ceutical industry grew and became more important. “If you know the exact active component of a plant or an animal and know its benefit

for health, you can artificially produce drug from it. But first, you need natu-ral products for research. That’s why people screen plants

and animals across the globe for ac-tive compounds to find something and then work on it,” Lobin explains.

Yet, along with the growth of human population, the variety of biodiversity is getting less day by day. Major threats are habitant loss, opening forest for new residencies or commercial plantations and over exploitation of one species.

With around 280,000 species of plant worldwide, Lobin says, there is the major problem with the extinc-

“This is what makes us scientists so furious. The plants and animals ex-tinct before we record

and know their use”

it. It is natural aspirin. But now, not so many people know about it.”

Albrecht, 36, started his educa-tion on naturopathy with main focus on herbal medicine in 2003 in Ber-lin. After have been working several years in Berlin and Santa Cruz, Boliv-ia, he settled down in Bonn last year, opened his own practice.

For his patients, he only uses herbal from pharmaceutical compa-nies. As the law in Germany does not allow any naturopath and herbalist to give plants that they collect from nature. However, for his own use, he prefers to collect herbs from nature since it is fresher.

“When I go out and collect plants, it’s like meditation for me,” Albrecht says with wide blue smiling eyes. “There you are, looking at those plants. You can smell them when you cut or rip them out; you can feel each plant. Is it hard, is it smooth, is it aromatic... I sometimes have the feeling that it is already healing just by collecting plant.” Albrecht says.

He regrets that nowadays peo-ple, especially those who live in

developed countries, are very es-tranged from nature. They are no longer depending on nature in

searching remedy, although Moth-

Traditions have been passed through. Some of them are

gone over time. Some remain. So it is with the habit of drink-ing herbs. Lara Vincent, mother of two, shares her story on the herbal medicines.

As I come to her home, Lara was accompanied by her three year-old son, Méwan. On her din-ing table, there are four glass jars of dried herbs. Thymian, meadow sage, verbena and winter savory.

She is familiar to use herbs since her childhood. Her mother used to give her herbal to be put on her neck and chest, whenever she had cough. “I took a rest and on the

next day, I would feel better.”Being raised in Valence, south-

ern part of France, Lara remem-bers how her parents plant their own herbs at home. Common plants like thymian, and verbena are growing there for family use.

“I believe that herbal medicine has less side effect. I am not against modern chemical medicine. These two kinds of m e d i c i n e s work in dif-ferent ways. Herbal is

more to prevent from sickness, or during early stage of sickness,” she says.

Nevertheless, she would prefer to drink herbal medicine

first than the chemi-cal one. Some-

times the effect of herbs is not as fast as chemical medicine. Yet she believes that this is how the way nature works in human body.

The body simply needs rest when it starts to feel sick. While resting needs time. This is the main problem of recent modern people. They simply do not have enough time to rest, because of their work.

Talking about having good rest, she gives her little tips: ver-bena tea with honey. “Drink it at night , it helps you relax and fall asleep,” she smiles.

Until present, she still gets supply of herbs from her mother’s house. When her parents come to visit, she

gives them list of which herbs she needs.

Other time, when she has chance to visit them, she

takes some herbs back to Bonn.Lara does not get manage

to plant her own herbs here in Bonn. It is difficult to grow herbs in Bonn, she says adding that the herbs need a lot of sunlight and weather in Bonn is not suitable.

Although not planting it, she passes on the tradition to her son and her fourteen month-old baby, Nadi. Every time her son catches cold, she gives him warm drink made from dried thymian leaves mixed with honey. “It’s good to fight against inflammation,” she says. Meanwhile if he has cough with phlegm, she will boil dried winter savory and zimt for him.

Adding herbs for cooking is another way to keep family’s health. “I like to cook soup with urmeric and garlic. Many ways to remain health without taking drugs.”

Mother sage tea was the best It is not only about the tea. It is the way of life and way of thinking

Lara, 31, gets her son familiar with herbal medicines as early as possible

tion of species. The plants and ani-mals extinct before scientists have chance to do intensively research on them. In Germany alone, there are about 3000 species of plant. Only one third of the figure is used as spice and/or as herbal medicine. The use of other two thirds remains mystery.

“This is what makes us scientists so furious. The plants and animals are extincted before we record and know their usage. So we do not know if there was a plant, which has some ingredients against specific form of cancer.”

Wild or cultivated herbs

Now, considering the extinction of the species, should we collect the herbs from nature or better plant it at home?

Lobin advises to use cultivated plants, aiming to avoid over-taking from the nature. Because of over-taking, many species in several plac-es in the world have become rare or endangered. Yet, he says if the spe-cies is not endangered or located in nature conservation area, then of

course people can go and collect it. Meanwhile Albrecht says there

are several things to be concerned when collecting herbs. Especially if you want to eat the herbs fresh. First concern is that people also have to be careful in not to take wrong plants. Some plants really look simi-lar to another.

Another concern, he continues, make sure that the area where you collect the herbal is less polluted. By this mean, it would be better if the area is not located nearby a street or an industrial area.

“Last but not least, you should also be sure that the area you choose is not common area for dog to def-ecate or pee. No one wants to have that kind of additional taste in their salad,” he jokes.

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Add Daisy, your salad is fresh and pretty

Good for ornament, Ivy also cure bronchial disease

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