The Danger of Herbal Fads

The Plant Path: Herbalism, Medical Astrology & Spagyric Alchemy

Sajah Popham

Alternative Health, Health & Fitness, Medicine

4.8 • 570 Ratings

🗓️ 28 August 2024

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

If you walk into a hip smoothie shop or health food store, you'll undoubtedly be flooded with the newest "superfoods" and cure-all herbs. Like so many things in our modern culture, herbal medicine also has its own "fads," as it seems as if there's almost a new one in style each season.

Although it may seem harmless at first and they may be a good gateway into the realm of herbal medicine, herbal fads may not necessarily be a good thing. Most of the time, they're promoted by big supplement companies looking to inflate their bottom line, even if the truth is a bit fudged to get there (or even flat-out lies!). By learning about the danger of herbal fads, you can become a more conscious consumer and herbalist and know how to navigate this sometimes confusing territory.

In today's blog post you'll learn:

Who's behind herbal fads and how they're born in the market
How herbal fads hurt the credibility of herbalism and pigeonhole herbs
The ecological and cultural damage herbal fads can cause
Ways companies lie about herbs and how they can hurt you
Why herbal fads can change the way you think about herbs without even realizing it

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CONNECT WITH SAJAH AND WHITNEY

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ABOUT THE PLANT PATH

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The Plant Path is a window into the world of herbal medicine. With perspectives gleaned from traditional Western herbalism, Ayurveda, Chinese Medicine, Alchemy, Medical Astrology, and traditional cultures from around the world, The Plant Path provides unique insights, skills and strategies for the practice of true holistic herbalism. From clinical to spiritual perspectives, we don't just focus on what herbs are "good for," but rather who they are as intelligent beings, and how we can work with them to heal us physically and consciously evolve.

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ABOUT SAJAH

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Sajah Popham is the author of Evolutionary Herbalism and the founder of the School of Evolutionary Herbalism, where he trains herbalists in a holistic system of plant medicine that encompasses clinical Western herbalism, medical astrology, Ayurveda, and spagyric alchemy.

His mission is to develop a comprehensive approach that balances the science and spirituality of plant medicine, focusing on using plants to heal and rejuvenate the body, clarify the mind, open the heart, and support the development of the soul. This is only achieved through understanding and working with the chemical, energetic, and spiritual properties of the plants. His teachings embody a heartfelt respect, honor and reverence for the vast intelligence of plants in a way that empowers us to look deeper into the nature of our medicines and ourselves.

He lives on a homestead in the foothills of Mt. Baker Washington with his wife Whitney where he teaches, consults clients, and prepares spagyric herbal medicines.

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the plant path, your window into the world of herbal medicine, with Saja and Whitney Popham, founders of the School of Evolutionary Herbalism.
0:24.6	Hey there, everybody.
0:25.7	Saja Popham here, founder of the School of Evolutionary Herbalism.
0:29.4	And you know, if you've been in the world of herbal medicine or alternative medicine or the supplement world for a while, you have probably seen
0:40.2	some herbal fads come and go over the years, right? And I was thinking about it the other day,
0:46.5	and I thought, you know, is an herbal fad dangerous or could an herbal fad be dangerous? what even starts an herbal fad like how do these
0:57.4	things these things ever get going in the first place and i thought it led to some interesting
1:02.7	thoughts at least i thought they were interesting enough to sit down and share some of them
1:07.6	with you all so thanks so much for joining me here and I hope you enjoy what I have to share about this.
1:12.9	So what makes an herbal fad?
1:15.5	Well, the way that I've kind of noticed it happen is a couple ways.
1:19.6	One is that we find that there's a certain piece of research comes out on an herb.
1:26.7	Scientific research comes out on an herb. And this leads to,
1:32.2	you know, like it's like a major breakthrough discovery about a plant. And then usually a whole
1:38.6	bunch of companies jump all over it and start making products. And voila, there is a major surgence in people wanting that plant and
1:49.4	using that plant for a particular purpose now so there's that right there's the herbal research thing
1:57.3	and I want to talk about this one a little bit and there's going to be a whole separate post on this talking about herbal research, scientific research on herbs. So be sure to
2:05.6	check out that video if you want to hear me wrap on that a little bit more. But this one, you know,
2:10.6	the thing about research is not all of it is always well done. Not the conclusions that are
2:15.9	reached about an herb through research is not always 100% accurate.
2:21.3	Very often we see research done in vivo, which means it's done in a petri dish, which is not
2:27.3	necessarily always an accurate representation of what a plant does in a complex human body, or it's done in mice.
	...

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