The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Herbal Medicine for Preppers: Cardamom

Episode Date: June 7, 2025

Today we discuss a spice that has medicinal properties and a fascinating history.  I also explain why today's podcast is a bit late and why there may not be one next week... infection and dental surgery... NOT FUN!Please subscribe to my youtube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzuBq5NsNkT5lVceFchZTtgThe Spring Foraging Cook Book is available in paperback on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CRP63R54Or you can buy the eBook as a .pdf directly from the author (me), for $9.99: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-spring-foraging-cookbook.htmlYou can read about the Medicinal Trees book here https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2021/06/paypal-safer-easier-way-to-pay-online.html or buy it on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1005082936PS. New in the woodcraft Shop: Judson Carroll Woodcraft | SubstackRead about my new books:Medicinal Weeds and Grasses of the American Southeast, an Herbalist's Guidehttps://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2023/05/medicinal-weeds-and-grasses-of-american.htmlAvailable in paperback on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C47LHTTHandConfirmation, an Autobiography of Faithhttps://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2023/05/confirmation-autobiography-of-faith.htmlAvailable in paperback on Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0C47Q1JNKVisit my Substack and sign up for my free newsletter: https://judsoncarroll.substack.com/Read about my new other books:Medicinal Ferns and Fern Allies, an Herbalist's Guide https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/11/medicinal-ferns-and-fern-allies.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BMSZSJPSThe Omnivore’s Guide to Home Cooking for Preppers, Homesteaders, Permaculture People and Everyone Else: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/10/the-omnivores-guide-to-home-cooking-for.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BGKX37Q2Medicinal Shrubs and Woody Vines of The American Southeast an Herbalist's Guidehttps://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/06/medicinal-shrubs-and-woody-vines-of.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B2T4Y5L6andGrowing Your Survival Herb Garden for Preppers, Homesteaders and Everyone Elsehttps://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/04/growing-your-survival-herb-garden-for.htmlhttps://www.amazon.com/dp/B09X4LYV9RThe Encyclopedia of Medicinal Bitter Herbs: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/03/the-encyclopedia-of-bitter-medicina.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B5MYJ35RandChristian Medicine, History and Practice: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2022/01/christian-herbal-medicine-history-and.htmlAvailable for purchase on Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B09P7RNCTBHerbal Medicine for Preppers, Homesteaders and Permaculture People: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/2021/10/herbal-medicine-for-preppers.htmlAlso available on Amazon: www.amazon.com/dp/B09HMWXL25Podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/show/southern-appalachian-herbsBlog: https://southernappalachianherbs.blogspot.com/

Hey y'all, welcome to this week's show. First of all, I'm sorry I'm late. Yes, I usually try to do this podcast Thursday or Friday, get it posted on Friday, but even an herbalist sometimes encounters unexpected medical issues. In fact, you know, that's what I always say. The reason I'm an herbalist is because I get sick. That's why I need herbs. That's why I use herbs. It's not like being an herbalist means you never get sick, right? I don't know why people get that misconception.

I mean, they don't assume their doctor never gets sick. Well, apparently I had a sinus infection and didn't know it. You know, I thought I just had a cold and I'm just doing my normal thing and a few days ago, I broke a tooth and Yeah broke it real bad broke it off to the base it basically shattered the nerve was exposed and First thing it hits me is just intense pain. So all I thought to do was deal with the pain. You know, I mean, it's really serious intense pain when you break a tooth. And you know, I mentioned this tooth had cracked a few months ago and I was waiting to get home and get settled in and go see my regular

dentist. Not that I really have a regular dentist, haven't been to a dentist in a very long time, dentist, not that I really have a regular dentist, haven't been to a dentist in a very long time, but I thought you know I could get by. But yeah the tooth just totally shattered essentially and I went to bed and the next morning that little sinus infection that was no big deal, certainly treatable with herbs and everything, turned in, it had infected the the tooth, you know, exposed nerve. That's a real big deal when you get an infection in your tooth like that. It can go to your heart. You can die, you know. Well, it didn't go to my heart immediately. Thank God for that. The glands in my throat, the lymph nodes all under my jaw swelled up and I really couldn't swallow,

couldn't talk, so of course I couldn't do a podcast. But fortunately, there's a family friend who is a dental surgeon, a real nice guy. He's actually a Christian from Kuwait and he's been in America most of his life. Really cool guy. Really one of my favorite people to talk with. Very just absolutely brilliant, politically conservative, interesting, very interesting person. And I sent him a text and I said, you know, I broke a tooth and can you recommend somebody? Well he gets on the phone with me right away and told me, yeah, you have an infection and this is an emergency.

I'm going to go ahead and write you a prescription for penicillin and you need to take it, take it at least three days and then come see me basically just brings me in the back door and does an examination it says yeah that tooth's got to go but you're still very sick and let's give it a week and just use orogel and take ibuprofen and try not to chew on that side of your mouth so God willing next week I'm going in to have a tooth pulled. So for obvious reasons I mean I've been running hugely I mean super high fevers. Literally to the point where my teeth are shattering so bad which is not a good thing when you

have broken tooth that I've had to stick my hand in my mouth to keep my teeth from you know clacking together and then I'll be hot and sweaty the next you know and I'll have a good three nights without sleep because of the pain and the fevers and you know it's been not a lot of fun around here to say the least but I've managed it. One thing you should definitely add to your bug out bag or to your home medicine cabinet is OraGel. OraGel is a topical anesthetic for tooth pain. You may have heard of this before. I knew of it when I used to work in the drug store

as a kid. I mean, it is a lifesaver because that is debilitating pain. And, you know, actually getting a tooth knocked out doesn't hurt that bad. You know, I've done that before. It was able to be put back in. You know, I was playing basketball, kid hit me in the mouth with his elbow.

Not a big deal, right? Broken tooth, you know, I guess a real bad cavity could be an issue, I don't know. But that really, that'll really do it if you're in the woods and or you were in a bad situation you broke a tooth you know you could take well I would say you could take a whole bottle of aspirin or ibuprofen it's not gonna dent the pain but of course it would kill you so don't ever try to do that there are herbs that are effective and what I used before I had

the oral gel was gilsimium. Gilsimium is very much like the opium poppy but it's not in the same family. Also a little too much of that will kill you. So there are herbs you can use. Of course you can use clove. I did try to use clove. The pain was just too intense. Clove oil normally will numb out a toothache, but not when the nerves expose. We talked a couple weeks ago about Calamus. Calamus will do the same thing. I tried it. Yeah, it was a little numbing, but not in that intense pain. Ora gel-counter. You can find it at any drug store or grocery store. It's it's a small tube. Like if you think about a tube of Neosporin, it's probably half that amount

in the tube. Costs about eight or ten bucks. Totally worth it that one tube will last you for weeks even if you were applying it for you know every couple of hours and when I got the orogel like the next morning It popped into my head you need orogel, right? So I went and got the orogel and started putting it on it took probably about six applications before it I felt had any effect and then things started to settle down and I thought yeah I'll be able to sleep tonight, you know, but then the fevers kicked in and you know, so Still lifesaver add that to your kit. Make sure you have or a gel Alright, so that's my PSA for the week. I

Definitely, you know, I like to do everything I can with herbs but you know, God gave us brains God gave us brains and God gave scientists brains and they came up with really good antibiotics such as penicillin and really good topical treatments such as orogel and neosporin and cordaid those are things I will not be without you know that those go into my kit, no doubt. Alcohol wipes, you know, various things that, you know, our ancestors would not have found in nature. Do not take them for granted.

Never take them for granted. I never, certainly never do. There are medications that I don't use, that I don't believe in. There are a lot of them but there are basic things most of which are over-the-counter or generic and cheap I mean my penicillin cost me 15 bucks I mean it's not like you know that and that's why a lot of doctors don't you know they don't really want to prescribe the cheap generic antibiotics

because the pharmaceutical companies don't make a fortune and the doctors don't get their kickbacks and they actually do, whether they wanna call them kickbacks or free vacations and pretty drug reps that come around, you know, there's a lot that goes on in doctor's offices in that regard. But of course you're probably aware of the Jase case

and such as that. Definitely good, have those on hand. You know, but still sometimes, you know, I didn't know I had a sinus infection. And when my tooth got infected, I, had I not talked with my friend who's a dentist, I probably wouldn't have known what was going on. He's like, your tooth is now infected.

You know, oh, well, you probably had a sinus infection and when you went to sleep that night, it went straight to the tooth. Now we have to deal with this right away or it's going to go to your heart and you're going to die. Sometimes you do need, just one thing to have the antibiotics on hand like with the Jase case which is a very good thing to have. There are a couple competing companies that do this now. It's about what, $300 bucks you get I think five antibiotics and some other emergency

meds. Good to have, definitely good to have. But you also need sometimes just someone to tell you you're sick when you don't know you're sick. That's always my problem. I keep going, I keep working, I just ignore it until it becomes a major issue. That's been the case my entire life.

My mother's the same way, my grandfather was the same way. We just, we don't give in to pain. I mean, that's what, you know, my friend told me. He said, you're so laid back, you're so calm. The word he was looking for was stoic. He said, when you told me you were in, you broke a tooth and you were in a lot of pain, I took it seriously because I know who you are.

Sometimes you need that person. And, you know, I think a lot of us, a lot of you listening to this show, because most of us are guys, most of us are preppers, most of us are homesteaders, most of us are woodsmen. We've learned to put up with a lot of pain. It's just part of our life, right? And we get cut, we get burned,

we get bruised and sprains and strains and we just keep going. A lot of us have kept going through broken bones and not even had them set. I have fractures, not a compound. But you know, just break something, just tape it up and keep going. On my left arm I got about a six to eight inch scar. And that was, I was at work one day when I was in my twenties and a glass shelf fell on me. It split my arm open so deep, you know, you could see all the way down. I mean, it cut through muscle, it cut through tissue.

I mean, it was really, really deep. It was a very extremely bad cut. It did nerve damage in fact. They rushed me to the emergency room. The doctor, very jovial Indian doctor, didn't even give me an anesthetic. He just started stitching. He cleaned the wound and stitched me up and the whole time I'm just sitting there talking with him. We're laughing, we're joking. He thought I was hilarious. You learn to ignore pain. You learn to refocus.

That's something we all do. I don't care if you're working on a farm, you're working in a factory, you've gotten hurt and worked through it. If you're listening to the show, that's more than likely who you are. Now, you could be a computer jockey, and maybe you've never even had a hang down. I don't know.

But if you're an outdoorsman, you've certainly been through it. There is a downside to that. The downside is you don't always know when you're sick. You keep going and like my friend told me, if he hadn't put me on antibiotics that day, more than likely I'd be dead right now because that infection would have gone to my heart. And I am still dealing with this.

You may be able to hear it in my voice. I've got a little bit of pneumonia. It really did get pretty serious on me pretty quickly. So and these antibiotics they don't work that fast It's gonna take you know, three four or five days before it clears everything up, but I'm here talking with you today. So thank God I had a good friend and who had a little more sense than I did My mother was also telling me I had an infection and I'm like, I'm fine, I'm fine.

I just need this pain to stop. Let me get some orogel. Well, I wasn't fine. Sometimes we are not fine and we need to, it's, I don't know, I'm stubborn. It's not a matter of pride, I'm just stubborn by nature. I don't see it as a sign of weakness. I just, I'm stubborn. It's not a matter of pride. I'm just stubborn by nature. Well, I don't see it as a sign of weakness. I just... I'm stubborn? Well, anyway, let's get into our book for the week. I mean, our herb for the week, and it's out of the book.

The Encyclopedia of... Sorry. The Encyclopedia of Medicinal Bitter Herbs. And this is one of the most interesting That you're gonna find in the spice cabinet. This is not one you're gonna find in the wild. It does not grow in North America and For some reason in the past couple of decades I'm gonna say since about 1980 It's fallen out of use in a lot of recipes. It used to be one of the most important spices,

one of the most valuable spices of all, and it shows up in so many old recipes. It's highly medicinal and it's called cardamom. Now, cardamom is actually the third ingredient in theriac. Theriac which comes from theriocum which comes from Mithridrate which was the formula invented by the king of Pontius Mithraotides. We talked about this many times. It was probably the first digestive bitter but he formulated it to be a cure for all, everything, a panacea. A cure for every plague, every cold and flu, but especially for poisons and venomous bites because he was a king

and they were always trying to assassinate him. It's also an ingredient in the larger, great Swedish bitters, which was probably formulated by Paracelsus, the great, probably the greatest physician of the middle ages. It's now just thought of as a spice and that's, you know, like a lot of these people just think of spices, but they began as medicine. Here let me get a sip of a drink and I'll start to tell you about cardamom. Now it

originates in India and Indonesia and it's been used in Ayurvedic medicine for centuries. Modest use of cardamom is recorded in the ancient, the most ancient Sanskrit text. It was used in Egyptian medicine. It's recorded in the Ebers Papyrus, one of the oldest written records we have in the entire history of humanity. It was highly valued and used medicinally by the Babylonians and Assyrians and was one of the main spices that led to the ancient spice route through the Persian Gulf linking Asia to the Mediterranean region. My word, my tongue's still a little swollen too. So this is one of the spices that formed the modern world. I mean now we value gold. Okay gold has always had a value

gold used to be just worth how much cardamom and seriously cardamom and cinnamon and Various spices it could buy or silk or you know last week we talked about camphor You could put in there, you know myrrh and frankinc and, you know, that was the value of gold. Even today, what's gold worth? Well, gold's worth how many dollars you can turn it into. Gold actually has no intrinsic value, believe it or not. Well, what's a dollar worth? Well, a dollar's worth what it can buy. So gold's worth how many dollars you can get for it, and dollars are worth how much you can actually buy with them. So let's think about that.

That's going to fluctuate every day with inflation, right? What's the only store of value that actually always gains value over time, never loses value, and upon which all other things hinge. Raise your hand if you know the answer. It's land. Land, there's only so much of it. You can't print up more land. You cannot discover another vein of land. There's always finding more gold and silver. You can't discover more land. There's as much land as there is square footage of earth. And that land has always been valuable, will always be valuable, will never lose value.

Land can be used to grow food, land can be used to grow timber. Land can be used to build houses. Land can be used to hunt and fish and raise livestock. In other words, we look at gold as something precious. Gold is only worth dollars. Are dollars precious? Well, their value rises and falls with the economy. Dollars are only worth how much food you can buy, essentially. Well, when it comes down to it, how much food you can buy depends on the availability of land to raise food. You buy land

and you can generate a lot of your food for free. You can generate a lot of your fuel for free you can generate a lot of your fuel for free Think about it next time people are talking about you know gold or crypto or stock market investments or dollars What is what is it ultimately worth? when it always comes down to is How much land it's worth. If you looked at the money in your bank and the money in your pocket as this whatever I don't

like I said I don't know if it's care of its gold I don't care if it's a Bitcoin I don't care if it's a dollar is worth a square foot of land I think that puts things a lot more in perspective. Because if you don't have land, you're always gonna need more and more dollars because you're gonna have to buy everything. So no matter how much gold you invest in, no matter how much stocks you invest in,

no matter how much crypto or whatever you invest in, bonds, you name it, you're always going to have to have more and more of it to spend to provide for your needs. You're always going to have to have more and more of it to spend to provide for your needs. You're going to have to pay for rent or a mortgage. You're going to have to pay property taxes, which you're going to have to pay either way, but they're a lot cheaper on raw land

than they are on houses and, you know, in town land. You're going to have to buy food. You're going to have to buy water. You're going to have to buy heating, fuel, etc. If you buy land, not only does your investment continue to gain value, because every year there are more people and less land to go around, you have, you can make, you can grow your own food, you can grow timber for fuel. You could even get into textiles if you wanted to. That's your deal. Whatever. You could put up solar panels. You can have a well. You can have a creek. You can do rainwater catchment. You could divide off some of it and turn it into build houses and rent them to other people. You know, you can have livestock, you can hunt and fish, you can put a business on that property,

you can do whatever you want to out of that business, and you're not paying rent to a landlord. You know, I just try to get this through to people. People are always going on and on about gold and investment and all that. And it's like, you know, that's all well and good. But eventually you've got to turn that gold into cash to spend it.

And that's the value of that cash is going to be very determined on, very determined by, I should say, the economy at the time, the government of the time, the cost of food in the grocery store and fuel in the tank. So you're gonna have to turn that gold back into cash. You can't go to the grocery store

and hand them a gold bar and walk out with its value in groceries. Trust me, I've been through a hurricane when all the ATMs were down and there was no way to use anything but the cash in your pocket and I had to take at that point what I valued as precious silver coins and turn them in at face value just to put a little gas in the car and buy a little food.

Not good. Not good at all. I took like $4,000 worth of collectible silver coins and had to cash them in for a BELF. Maybe $100? Because you go down to your gas station and you hand them a quarter and it's a quarter whether it's made from silver and it's a hundred years old or not or a silver dollar You never want to be in that position. You absolutely never want to be in that position So, you know you have to learn to keep cash on hand for emergencies, but I'm telling you if you have land Unless something happens like the hurricane last year where you have flooding that's never

been seen before, you can just stay right on that land and you're going to have your needs provided for if you have that homesteading and prepper mentality of I'm going to grow some food and I'm going to store some food and I'm going to keep a little livestock and I'm going to hunt and I'm going to fish and I'm going to have dry firewood and I'm gonna hunt and I'm gonna fish and I'm gonna have dry firewood and I'm gonna have three or five sources for fresh water. So think about it whenever anyone's telling you you got to invest in gold you got to invest in gold right now you're pretty much buying at the top of the market you're buying high are you really gonna be able to sell it for more than you're buying it for right now I don't know. Maybe?

I'm not telling you you can't. If you invested in gold, you know, 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago, you probably made some money, but it's still only worth the dollars. You know, if you had taken the same amount of money and put it in land, my gosh, I mean, I was just talking with a fellow the other day about this very subject and he's like, you know, in the 80s, I could have bought a hundred acres for $5,000. And I mean, cause I just told him, you know, back around oh eight during the

crash, there was a hundred acres of old cotton fields. Yeah. Then he had some work, but I could have gotten a hundred acres for a hundred thousand. He's like, hell in the eighties, I could have gotten a hundred acres for 5,000. and he's like hell in the 80s I could have gotten 100 acres for 5,000. Now what are we getting, what are our, you know, what are your kids gonna be saying 20 years down the road. I could have bought 100 acres for

this price and it's what 10 times that now. And if you actually, if you're land rich and cash poor, you're actually a whole lot better position than you are if you're land rich and cash poor, you're actually at a whole lot better position than you are if you're cash rich and land poor. A lot of people, it's sort of like the goal of permaculture. If you read like Paul Wheaton's stuff, he's always talking about this. Your income, your average income,

if you have a permaculture homestead, maybe less than $12,000 a year. But your real lifestyle, your real amount of food and goods that you're generating off your land is more than $100,000 a year salary, more than can be purchased on $100,000 a year salary, especially if you have cottage industry and such as that, which you can do if you have land. So anyway, let me get back to cardamom. Boy, I have watered forestry on this.

You can probably tell I'm a little off today. So, Diaz-Cortez said of cardamom, taken as a decoction in a drink with water, it is able to heat. It is good for those who have illness of the nerves, coughs, sciatica, maybe nervous tension could have been what he talked about. He could have been talking about what they used to call comitralis, I think is how it's pronounced.

And it was veins and arteries adjacent to the nerves that were constricted. And of course it could be nerve pain, it could be various things. So let's not pay too much attention to that. But then he also mentioned sciatica and paralysis. So that would be the warming, soothing, relaxing, makes a little sense there.

But good for cough, sciatica, paralysis, hernias, convulsions, and griping. That's basically intestinal pains and gas. It expels rectal worms. It actually has some vermicompost properties, which is one of the reasons it was so valuable. Taken as a drink with wine, it is good for those who have defective kidneys and difficulty urinating. It is good for one who has been stricken by a scorpion. And that's probably how it ended up in the old theory act, you know, as a remedy for scorpion bites. Who knows?

I hope to never be bitten by a stung, I guess stung by a scorpion. They actually freak me out. That's like the one insect I have a phobia about. They look like little skeletons and they sting you. Okay, I'm glad I don't live where they're around. I mean, if you live out in like the desert Southwest and you deal with scorpions all the time,

you're probably laughing at me, but I have never seen them except in zoos and they are freaky looking. I mean, yeah, I mean, I've been around black widow spiders and brown recluses and cottonmouths and copperheads and venomous creatures all my life. I don't know what it is about a scorpion, but that thing freaks me out. Anyway, he says, taken as a drink, bark of the root, which no, combined with bark of

the root of bay, which kind of makes sense. But if you want bay tree, bay laurel root bark, you're gonna have to grow a bay tree yourself. It's not something you can buy these days. It breaks kidney stones and other urinary gravel. Taken as an inhalation, a smoke, the fumes, would bring on menses and could be a little dangerous during pregnancy, so don't do that if you're pregnant certainly.

But combined with vinegar takes away parasitic skin diseases. Another reason it was very valuable in the ancient world. I mean, they had a lot of parasitic skin diseases, much of which was just called leprosy, but it wasn't true leprosy but it wasn't true leprosy but that anything that could help was very very valued also mixed into ointments and used that way so there more than 4,000 years of documented use of cardamom I mean and now you may find it on the spice aisle in your grocery store that's about the only place you ever see it. And a lot of stores probably don't even carry it anymore. You may even have to go a specialty spice shop to get quality fresh cardamom.

So Romans are said to have chewed cardamom for tooth health and have used it in perfumes. In Alexandria it was used to pay taxes. So in ancient Alexandria it was more valuable than money. Vikings brought the spice to their homeland where it became popular in Scandinavian cuisine. Yeah, a lot of cardamom shows up in Scandinavian recipes. And they are delicious. I absolutely love Scandinavian food. Some of it's a little odd to our taste, like

salty licorice candies. I love them. Fermented fish. If it's not too smelly, I like it quite a bit actually. But anyway, the British secured colonial plantations to cultivate and export cardamom. That's how important this was. Surprisingly though, the British herbals make scant mention of cardamom. In other words, they don't say it a lot. They don't talk about it a lot. I'm probably running a little fever right now actually. I may use some words I don't normally use sometimes. According to Ms. Grieve, she said cardamom was stimulant, aromatic, but The seeds, according to Ms. Grieve, she said cardamom was stimulant, aromatic, but rarely as cinnamon. Cardamom is not that pungent or ginger in fact. When chewed in the mouth

the flavor is not unpleasant and is said to be good for colic and disorders of the head. In flavoring often combined with oil of orange, cinnamon, clove and caraway. That's usually more how you see it in my experience in Scandinavian cooking is cardamom in caraway two very different Spices that combine really well really very well and of course, it's often combined with orange and cinnamon Physicians desk reference for herbal medicine still this cardamom This is you know, it's gonna be on your doctor's shelf if he cares anything about herbal medicine. Still this cardamom. This is, you know, it's going to be on your doctor's shelf if he cares anything about herbal medicine. It's what his text is referenced to tell him is this safe, can it be combined with the drugs he's prescribing to you. It's official text. And to this day it says

that the essential oil cardamom is antibacterial and antimicotic. It has coliogag properties in animal experience experiments. The essential oil caused an increase in secretion of bile and a reduction of gastric juice production. Cardamom is also used in folk medicine for digestive complaints, vomiting and diarrhea, morning sickness and loss of appetite, as well as Rome-Held syndrome. I am not sure what Rome-Held syndrome is. I'm gonna have to look that up.

It's R-O-E-M-H-E-L-D. In Chinese medicine, cardamom is used for stomach ache, nausea, vomiting, and flatulence. In Indian medicine or Ayurveda, cardamom is used for disorders of the urinary tract. So, although rarely used in herbal medicine today, in any tradition really other than Ayurveda, cardamom remains the third most expensive spice in the world market. Maybe that's why we don't really see it showing up in cakes and cookies and pickles and other modern recipes. It's really expensive.

The most expensive of course would be saffron. So this is the third most expensive. That means it's still pretty darn pricey. It was once called the queen of spices and it ranks just under vanilla and saffron in price. So those are the two. Vanilla is actually in its raw form. Fairly expensive depending on where you get it from. Now I usually order Mexican vanilla beans. There are a few sellers on eBay.

I can get like three full vanilla bean pods for like five bucks. I don't consider that to be very expensive considering that I can make a quart. I could probably make at least a quart of vanilla flavoring just by taking those three pods, putting them in a jar and pouring vodka over them and sitting them back for a month. Compared to how much real vanilla extract sells for the store, that's a deal and a half. I mean you get like one ounce, maybe two ounces of vanilla flavoring for about five bucks and I can make a quart. Then the beans are still useful. You take them out, scrape the seeds out, make

vanilla ice cream that's delicious homemade vanilla ice cream is just amazing or put them in cakes and cookies or whatever you want to do you can flavor sugar you can just literally just stick those pods right down in a bag or a box of sugar and all your sugar is gonna be vanilla flavored so I don't consider really vanilla to be overly expensive if you do it yourself but like I said if you buy it from the store or you buy it from a market whatever you're gonna pay a lot for your vanilla especially if it comes from Madagascar and I think that's where the best vanilla comes from if I remember correctly but the Mexicans

pretty darn good really very quite good actually it's if you've never had real vanilla you've never experienced vanilla it's it's not people talk about plain vanilla ice cream or plain vanilla cake no it with the real stuff is not plain at all it's amazing but anyway that's that wraps up carbon and I mean, you know, I never knew when I got into herbal medicine, all the fascinating history and the geopolitics and the economics that I was going to end up studying. This is what keeps me interested. You know, it doesn't interest me so much. Someone, you know, I don't mind doing this.

I do it on a daily basis. Somebody will say, I've got a sore throat, you know, can you recommend an herb? And I'll say, you know, I don't make recommendations. But here's an herb or two that has been traditionally used for this purpose. Of course, I'd say sage, or I'd say mint or something like that. People ask me all kinds of questions from really simple conditions to really complex issues. And I'm always glad to send them information.

But while knowing that information is practical and useful, what really excites me, what really keeps me interested in the continued studying of herbal medicine is just the fascinating history, the characters, the world events, the culture. I mean, sometimes words that have developed, and of course the folklore, I mean, all the myths and such around so many herbs and herbal practice. It's just really fascinating. I mean, you're like, wow. So our ancestors actually once believed

there was a fern that grew on this island I think that we called Scythian lamb that actually formed little cotton balls that would turn into miniature sheep drop off the plant and turn into actual living miniature sheep. Who came up with that one? I mean I spent literally I spent probably a week when I wrote my book on medicinal ferns. It's a real fern. Obviously it does not produce little lambs but that was widely believed even by educated botanists, men of science for several hundred years based on stories told by sailors who had been to this island.

When they came back and told them this, and they probably got a big kick out of making up this story and telling it to educated men who believed it on its face. There are poems written about it. It's crazy, crazy. It's really why my book on medicinal ferns is one of my favorites because it's got a lot of that folklore, a lot of the myths and legends in it that I just had to include. It's just delightful, actually.

If you like stories and tall tales I mean you got to love this stuff well anyway y'all hopefully I could talk to you next time next week I don't know when this tooth is gonna get ripped out or cut out or how this is gonna work and in what shape my mouse gonna be come it's looking like he probably probably going to do it next Thursday if that works out. I don't know if I'm going to be talking to you next week or not. I may need a week off.

I'm going to go ahead and get this one out of the way and let you know what was going on and say a few prayers for me. I'd appreciate it. Also, I mentioned my friend in Italy, Alyssa, who's had decades-long struggles with the mafia. The mafia wanted to take over her family's cheese business, Pecorino cheese. Her father resisted them. They killed her father.

They took the business. They pretty much bankrupted the family. They're now trying to take her home. So, Alissa Brunelli, please keep Alissa Brunelli in your prayers and her family. She's gone from being one of the wealthiest families in Italy to losing everything due to judicial corruption and the mafia. The mafia basically owns the judges

and there's no justice in a Roman court. I think most people would tell you that. So keep Alyssa in her prayers and you know, because she's really looking at losing her home, which was her maternal grandmother's home. It's not in any way legal. They have no legal right. It was never a part of one of the company assets or anything. So if you would please say a prayer for Alyssa Brunelli

and if you happen to know anyone that can help her and her family in Italy with their legal battles that have been going on for quite a while now, let me know and I'll put you in immediate contact with her. She's, I mean, I think the attorneys have ripped her off, those who were supposed to be representing her interests, they pretty much stole as much from her as the mafia has. So it's not a matter of, do you know an attorney in Italy? She's been through the best attorneys and they're just as crooked as American attorneys. But if there's any, you know, if you've got any political influence, you got any kind of influence in Rome, hey, let me know because she could use all the help she can get.

Or if you happen to know a rich Italian person that would be generous and charitable and, you know, help her out because she's she's about to be potentially homeless I mean she's literally spent everything fighting the Mafia and now they're taking what she has left so be sure to at least say a prayer for Alyssa Brunelli and her family and if you want to look her up she's on Twitter and you can look up the Brunelli Pecorino cheese story and all that. Yeah, so keep her in mind and in your prayers if you would. So anyway y'all have a great week and I will talk to you next time. The information in this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or condition.

Nothing I say or write has been evaluated or approved by the FDA. I'm not a doctor. The U.S. government does not recognize the practice of herbal medicine and there is no governing body regulating herbalists. Therefore, I'm really just a guy who studies herbs. I'm not offering any advice. I won't even claim that anything I write or say is accurate or true. I can tell you what herbs have been traditionally used for, I can tell you my own experience, and if I believe in herbs, help me. I cannot nor would I tell you to do the same.

If you use an herb anyone recommends, you are treating yourself. You take full responsibility for your health. Humans are individuals and no two are identical. What works for me may not work for you. You may have an allergy, a sensitivity, an underlying condition that no one else even shares and you don't even know about. Be careful with your health. By continuing to listen to my podcast or read my blog, you agree to be responsible

for yourself, do your own research, make your own choices, and not to blame me for anything ever.