February 26, 2025 • 40 mins
This episode continues our series covering the top-selling herbs in the United States. As we give you our thoughts about these popular herbal supplements, we’re hoping to help you break out of the box. These herbs are frequently pigeon-holed into very narrow ranges of application – the answers to the question “what is it good for?” are usually very limited! There’s more to say about them than their most effective selling points or marketing campaigns.
If you’re a practicing herbalist, you should be well-informed about the herbal supplements people take most frequently. You should know what’s popular, and why. You should know how to answer people’s questions about these herbs, how to sort hype from health, how to identify better alternatives, and which ones simply aren’t worth the money. This series is intended to help you do that!
If you’re new to herbalism – we’re glad that we get to help you form your initial opinion of these herbs. More broadly, though, this will serve as an introduction to marketing literacy in the realm of herbal supplements, as well as some good materia medica study.
In today’s episode we cover apple cider vinegar and cranberry supplements.
5. Apple Cider Vinegar – Malus spp.
6. Cranberry – Vaccinium macrocarpon
- HHP 224: Herbs A-Z: Urtica & Vaccinium
- HHP 006: Dynamic Desk Work + Crazy for Cranberries (discussion of cranberry starts around 25:30)
Find the first episode of this series here: HHP 240: Herbalists’ Views on the Top-Selling Herbs (Part 1): Psyllium, Elderberry, Turmeric, Ashwagandha
Whether you’re a brand-new beginner or an herbalist with experience, it’s always helpful to study the herbs in depth! Our comprehensive presentation of herbal allies is in our Holistic Herbalism Materia Medica course. It includes detailed profiles of 100 medicinal herbs!
Like all our offerings, this self-paced online video course comes with free access to twice-weekly live Q&A sessions with us, lifetime access to current & future course material, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more!
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Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hi, I'm Ryn and I'm here at Commonwealth Holistic
Urbanism in Boston,Massachusetts, and on the
internet everywhere. Thanks tothe power of the podcast, Kati
and I are sort of tag teaming ,uh, podcast episodes today. So
I think we're gonna releasethem one or two days after each
other. Um, but if you didn'tcheck out the one that she just
made, then you definitelyshould find that in the feed.
(00:34):
Today, my topic is gonna be acontinuation of a series. I
started a few episodes back ,uh, looking at the top, selling
herbs in commercial products,commercial supplements , um,
and continuing on today with acouple extra to continue that,
to continue that series. Um,the idea with this series
again, was just that these arepopular herbs. Lots of people
(00:57):
are taking them, taking them inthe form of these supplements,
and they're being advertisedand sold and, and promoted. Um,
usually along fairly narrowlines. So we're looking to do a
couple things. One is just tomake sure that you, the
listener is familiar withthese, with these herbs, and
familiar with the forms ofsupplements that are occurring
out there in the marketplaceand being most prevalent in
(01:19):
what people are taking mostoften. And then it's also to ,
um, give you a bit of ourperspective on those same
plants and to try to broadenthat a little bit, because most
frequently , um, supplementsthat get popularized in this
way, they get pigeonholed atthe same time, and they get put
into a box, and it's a veryspecific box. You take this
thing for that problem, andit's quite limited actually. So
(01:41):
our perspective is gonna be alittle bit broader, and I'm
gonna try and share that withyou as we go along. So , um,
first I just wanna remindeverybody that I'm not a
doctor. I'm an herbalist and aholistic health educator. So
the ideas discussed in thispodcast do not constitute
medical advice, no state orfederal authority licenses
herbalist in the United States.
So these discussions are foreducational purposes. We wanna
(02:03):
remind you that good healthdoesn't mean the same thing for
everyone. Good health doesn'texist as some objective
standard. It's influenced bythe individual's needs,
experiences, and goals. Soplease keep in mind that I'm
not attempting to present asingle dogmatic right way that
you must adhere to. Everyone'sbody is different. So what I'm
talking about may or may notapply directly to you, but I
(02:24):
hope that it'll give you somenew information to think about
and some ideas to research andexperiment with. Even further
finding your way to betterhealth is both your right and
your own personalresponsibility. That doesn't
mean that you're alone on thejourney, and it doesn't mean
that you're to blame for yourcurrent state of health, but it
does mean that the finaldecision, when you're
considering any course ofaction, whether it's discussed
on the internet or prescribedby a physician, that's always
(02:47):
your choice to make. All right, so continuing on talking
about top selling herbalsupplements. And if you missed
the first episode in thisseries, remember this is data
derived from a market report.
Um, and it's dealing withinformation from the year 2023.
Um, 'cause that's the mostrecent data we've got. So
that's what we're gonna workwith for now. Um, we addressed
(03:09):
the, the top four , uh,bestsellers in the prior
episode, which was episodenumber number 240 if you wanted
to scroll back. And in thatone, we looked at cilium , uh,
species of plantago, right?
Cilium, elderberry, turmeric,and ashwagandha. Today, we're
gonna continue on with numbersfive and six on the list, and
(03:30):
those are gonna be apple cidervinegar or apple and cranberry.
All right , so somesimilarities in these two, some
crossovers for us to discuss.
Let's get started. Looking atapple cider vinegar. Um, this
is the way these supplementsare labeled. Apple cider
vinegar supplements , uh, applecider vinegar or capsule or
(03:52):
gummy. Um, or of course, the,the liquid itself, you can
actually just go and buy applecider vinegar and you can take
that supplement, supplementsupplement if you would like
to. Um, so when you findyourself in a shop and you look
at a line of supplements andyou see that there's an apple
cider vinegar product, whatyou're gonna notice is that
(04:15):
these are presented in themarket as being for blood sugar
regulation. Um, the thing aboutapple cider vinegar supplements
is that they've been around fora while , and of course, apple
cider vinegar itself has beenaround for a really, really
long time. Humans discoveredthat particular , um, result of
(04:35):
a fermentation process a very,very long time ago in
pre-history, if you wanna callit that. But , uh, we didn't
actually really see apple cidervinegar supplements getting
super popular until fairlyrecently. And if we look at
the, the history data from the, the top sellers list, apple
cider vinegar as an entitywasn't really on that list for
(04:57):
a bunch of years. The firstseveral years that I was paying
attention to this stuff, itwasn't there. Um, but it
emerged several years back andit kind of crept up and then
leapt up the , um, the charts.
And I think my impression hereis that the biggest single
factor in the increase in salesfor apple cider vinegar
supplements has been thedevelopment of gummies. Um ,
(05:17):
people love gummies, a nicelittle sour gummies kind of
appealing. And you can takeapple cider vinegar and you can
essentially , um, what you'redoing is concentrating the
acetic acid, right? That is theacid that's inside apple cider
vinegar. Apple cider vinegar issomething like 3% or 5% acetic
acid , uh, you know, in thebottle. And the rest of it is
(05:41):
just water, right? Um, so whenthey make an apple cider
vinegar supplement, whetherit's in a gummy or it's in a
capsule, they'll take the applecider vinegar, they will
evaporate the water, retain theacetic acid, and there are some
other plant acids like malicacid is gonna be in there as
well, right? Um, Malikconnected to malice , the
(06:02):
botanical name for Apple, right? It's all all
connected. Um, but yeah, youwill see , um, uh, you will,
you will get right, just the,the concentrated , um, uh,
plant acids, malic acid, aceticacid, et cetera , and those are
going to have been separatedfrom the H2O molecules, right?
The water itself. That's whyyou can have a gummy, and it
(06:24):
can be equivalent to taking adose that's like a tablespoon
or a shot glass , um, or half ashot glass of apple cider
vinegar as a liquid itself. Allright ? So the development of
those gummies increased thepopularity for that one. Also,
some other herbs, you know, Ithink we , I talked in the last
, uh, episode in this seriesabout ashwagandha gummies being
extremely popular. Um, that'sanother one that seems to have
(06:47):
gotten broader reach when thatformat, that format , uh,
became available. Yeah. Allright . So , uh, look, it is
true that apple cider vinegarcan improve blood sugar
regulation. It is mosteffective at doing this when
you take it close to the mealitself. So rather than like
taking this on an emptystomach, you know, between
(07:08):
meals in the day or taking thisfirst thing in you when you
wake up in the morning and not, not eating for a while or ,
or other, you know, patterns oftiming and dosage that we might
recommend for this or thatproduct for apple cider vinegar
itself, or supplements of applecider vinegar as like an
extract, they're most effectivewhen you take it either like
(07:29):
together with the meal or justbefore the meal. Because really
what we're trying to do isalter your digestive processes
a little bit. When you take ashot of apple cider vinegar
before a meal, you areintroducing a bunch of acid
right into your stomach, andthen you're gonna go and eat.
So, part of the jobhere of the acids is to aid
your digestion to workalongside your stomach acid and
(07:51):
enhance your digestion of yourmeal. Make sure that that,
that, you know, it's like thesecond step of breakdown. You
know, the first one is allhappening in the mouth with
chewing and saliva, right?
Second step here in thestomach, trying to make sure
that that process is goingreally, really well, so that
everybody further down, youknow, your small intestine,
your large intestine, they'vegot an easy time of it from
there. Then there are also somedirect changes in the way your
(08:13):
body's gonna handle and absorbsugars that result when you
have consumed the acids justbeforehand. So, yes, these are
, these can be helpful. They'renot gonna be revelatory,
they're not going to completelychange somebody's health status
if all they do is incorporate ,uh, a supplement of apple cider
vinegar. You're not gonna takesomebody from being a diabetic
(08:34):
to making them have normalglycemia, right? Totally
healthy, totally quote unquotenormal blood sugar levels. If
all they do is take these, butin combination with some diet
changes, maybe some reductionin refined carbohydrates, maybe
some increase in protein, otherkinds of rational things we
could do to improve the, thequality and the nutrient
(08:54):
density of the diet, this canbe a helpful thing to add on
top of that, right? It is,again, like what we're talking
about with all these things issupplements. They are
additional to the foundationalchanges that we might make in
our baseline habits of eatingand moving and sleeping and
dealing with stress and all ofthat kind of thing. Alright ?
All right. So , um, that's kindof the, again, the most popular
(09:18):
reason people are taking these.
When herbalists think aboutapple and we think about apple
cider vinegar. Well, those aretwo different things, and we're
gonna talk all about Apple injust a moment. But first,
let's, let's stick with a CVapple cider vinegar. So
herbalists are most familiarwith this as a menstrom, as a ,
as a liquid that we use toextract , uh, activity and
(09:41):
chemistry from our plants sothat we've got it in a form
that we can do somethinghelpful with, right? Um, a
simple example of an applecider vinegar extract is fire
cider. And fire cider may besomething that you're already
familiar with. Um, it may besomething that you've prepared
for yourself at home. Um, firecider is a simple apple cider
(10:05):
vinegar extract of pungentherbs like garlic, onion,
ginger can throw turmeric inthere if you like. A lot of
people do these days. Um, youcan put horseradish for like ,
like a nice , uh, pungentquality. You can throw cayenne
into there to really add fireto it. And you can add other
herbs as well to alter theflavor, make it a little more
(10:26):
appealing. A lot of people liketo add something with a citrus
element that could be citruspeels themselves. It could be
something like lemongrass orlemon balm to get a little bit
of that element into there. Um,when we make our fire cider,
we'll often include sage androsemary and , and things like
that as well. Um, but you know,when you do that, you put the
(10:46):
herbs in your, in your, youknow, items into a jar, cover
them with apple cider vinegar,let it soak, let it macerate
for a period of time, and thengo ahead and strain it out. And
now you have that liquid, youcan take shots of it, you can
take spoonfuls of it, and, youknow, all those herbs are like
hot and pungent and warming,and they're stimulating to
(11:06):
blood circulation, to immuneactivation, respiratory
defenses. And so this is like acommon thing people prepare to
help get through cold flu covidseason. Um, or anytime when
you're feeling like I've beenexposed to a lot of germs, like
I traveled on the city bus, orI got on an airplane, and I'm
gonna take a little bit of thisto kind of boost up my defenses
(11:27):
and try to prevent thelikelihood of getting ill. So
that's one, you know, prettywell known example of working
with apple cider vinegar as amenstrom. But you can infuse
lots of herbs into vinegar. Um,and this is a , a nice menstrom
to work with, particularly whenthere are limitations on
alcohol, right? Somebody mayhave an allergy to alcohol and
(11:50):
they can't consume any,somebody may have a religious
or , um, uh, uh, uh, personalreason , um, for not consuming
any alcohol at all. That caninclude a history of
alcoholism. But there's otherreasons that people choose to
do this. And so some folks arenot gonna wanna take an herbal
tincture , uh, made in alcohol,and instead we can prepare an
(12:10):
extract into vinegar and theycan work with that. In general.
I will say that vinegarextracts don't tend to be quite
as potent as alcohol ones, butit does depend on which
specific herb we're talkingabout. And sometimes, depending
on your purpose, we're not hereto maximize potency above all
other things. Uh, sometimes thefact that they'll take it at
(12:30):
all is a big win. And so that'sgonna be our higher priority,
right? Alright , now, applecider vinegar itself does have
some of its own actions orqualities, right? We can look
at that substance the way wecan look at, at any, any herb
that we choose to work with. Soapple cider vinegar is
energetically speaking cooling,and that might surprise you a
(12:53):
little bit because of the, thefeeling of acid is often
described as a burn. Um, orwhen you taste it in your
mouth, it can feel like a, likea , like a hot or like an
irritating sensation. Herewe're looking past that initial
moment of reaction and going alittle further in time and
seeing the, the result of, say,repeated applications. One
really great way to see this isif you have a pimple, a nice
(13:16):
red, irritated spot on yourface, or right on the tip of
your nose or wherever else, youcan take apple cider vinegar
and , uh, put a little bit onyour fingertip and apply it
right on that spot. And oneapplication isn't gonna make it
disappear, right? But if you dothat repeatedly, say three to
five times a day, or five toseven times a day, you should
start to see a , a perceptiblechange. Maybe take some before
(13:38):
and after photos, after oneday, two days, that kind of
thing. You should see thatchange. And what you observe is
that that swollen red , uh,irritated tissue is going to
shrink, it's gonna lose thatred coloration, it's gonna fade
back down. So the shift fromthat red state back to a like
normal, normal skin tone coloris a cooling change, right?
(14:02):
That shift from a swollentissue state to one that has
shrunk back down to appropriatenormal size is a drying
influence that we're observing.
And it's also a tonifyinginfluence as well, right? So we
can, we can see these actionsof , uh, of the, of the fluid
through direct observation,just like that, okay? So , um,
(14:22):
when we have othermanifestations of, of hot damp
laxity going on, and oftentimesskin prep presentations are the
best way to observe that,right? Something that's again,
swollen, red, oozing, eh ,okay? These are rational times
to go ahead and work with apreparation of apple cider
vinegar. We're gonna tightenthat up. We're gonna cool it
(14:42):
down and we're gonna dry itout. Of course, this stuff
tastes acidic, it tastes sour.
Um, things that have a sourflavor in the world of
herbalism tend to also all ,all be in line with those
energetic qualities. Cooling,dry tifying . You can think
about rose hips or hibiscuscalyx, the , the flower part as
good examples there. Those arethings that we wanna prepare
(15:05):
and maybe drink as a sun tea ona hot summer day when we're
feeling hot, when we're feelinghumid , right? And we
want to correct for thoseinternally and in our, in our
feeling, in our experience.
Those are the kinds of thingswe're gonna work with. So apple
cider vinegar is , uh, a souragent, just like those, it is
(15:27):
anti-inflammatory on contact asI've been describing. And then
there's another element ofapple cider vinegar as a
topical worth mentioning, whichis that it has some
antimicrobial qualities to itas well. So if one of those
sores or rashes that I've beendescribing that's got the
ooziness to it , um, if it'soozing, it's open, and if it's
open, it's susceptible toinfection. Um, so something
(15:48):
like this can both becorrecting the tissue state
we're observing and alsoprotecting against microbial
damage. Very nice. Okay? Andthen of course, we can be
working with apple cidervinegar, not just by itself. We
can be working with thatinfused with other herbs. So if
you wanna have a little bottleof some apple cider vinegar,
keep it in your bathroom forwhen you get little spots, you
(16:10):
know, little pimples you wannawork on, then , um, you could
have that just be plain a CB ,that's fine. Or it could be
infused with rose petals, or itcould be infused with elder
flowers, or it could be infusedwith calendula, right? It's a
way to power up the agent thatyou're working with beyond what
apple cider vinegar has tooffer in and of itself. All
(16:33):
right ? But apple is of course,more than just a source for
making vinegar out of Apple isa whole tree. It is a plant
, right? It is a , anherb in the world. Apple itself
, uh, the , the apple, thefruit itself is well a fruit,
okay? First and foremost, it isa fruit with all of the good
things that that implies. Um,and here I wanna maybe make a ,
(16:57):
a comparison. Um , for those ofyou who are , are knowing a
little bit about herbalismalready, right? You might think
about Hawthorne berry as beingreally nutritive and being
anti-inflammatory andsupportive to the heart and all
of those things that itabsolutely is. Yes. Um, but
when we think about Apple,sometimes we're like, yeah,
apple, whatever, they're good.
(17:18):
You know, I heard that they cankeep a keep a doctor away, you
know, if you eat one every dayand that's nice, but, eh , come
on, it's just an apple, right?
It's just a food. Who cares? Wecare, right? Um, these plants
are in the same family, right?
Apple, Hawthorne, cherry, otherrose family fruits like prunes
and, and , um, um, slow, right?
(17:41):
Like slow, like, like thesource for slow gin , that's
from a tree called blackthorn.
Um, and it's a , a similar typeof a fruit, right? So all of
these share in severaloverlapping qualities, right?
They share in having somedegree of anti-inflammatory
action for us, some degree ofsour flavor, along with some
sweet flavor as well,especially the ones that humans
(18:01):
have done more , um,interaction with over the
centuries, right? More , um,selective breeding to make the
fruits larger and sweeter,right? So, of course we have
apple varieties that are very,very sweet and just a little
bit sour. Um, but , uh, if youtry wild apples, sometimes you
try to eat them and they're sosour and so astringent that
(18:24):
they're not very appealing , right? But of course,
those are also presentation bythat tree of medicinal
attributes, tannins andconcentrated fruit acids and
things that have thesemedicinal virtues for us. Um,
so , uh, apple is like aHawthorne berry that you can
eat in several bites and holdin your hand,, right?
(18:46):
That's one way that you mightthink of this plant by analog
to a little, little better ,um, better respected medicinal
herb that we can work with. Hmm. All right . Um, another thing
worth noting, and I think it'sparticularly worth pointing out
when we're talking about applesthemselves and not just the,
the family in general, is thatapples are a really excellent
(19:07):
source of pectin. Pectin is aprebiotic fiber, and not
notably, this is not theprebiotic fiber that we speak
about most often. 'cause that'sinulin inulin from dandelion
root, chicory root, burdockroot , uh, campaign , right?
Um, the sunchoke plant , youknow, and those, those tubers,
(19:28):
they give us a lot of inulincontent. Inulin is a prebiotic.
That's the word we use here.
These are food for yourfriendly gut flora. Um, and so
if it is true that an apple aday keeps the doctor away, I
think one big reason why thatwe can understand now is that
it helps your flora, it helpsyour guts. It supports the
(19:49):
friendliest kinds of bacteriathat could possibly live in
your belly. Um, so that'sreally, really valuable. And
again, when we're doing work toreconstitute healthier gut
flora, that's not only aboutkilling off the microbes,
that's not only about taking,you know, berberine capsules or
other things to try to targetunfriendly critters in the, in
the intestines and drive themaway. Um, we have to feed the
(20:12):
good ones. We have to supportthem. And , um, prebiotic
fibers are a major way to dothat. Inulin is again, the
first thing that le leaps tothe mind of a lot of herbalists
when they're trying to do thatwork. Oh, I wanna build healthy
flora. Okay? We can feed themwith the burdock root
decoctions. Great, yes, true,true, but let's also get some
apples, right, or apple sauce ,right? This isn't gonna be
(20:33):
destroyed on cooking. Um, infact, you know, pectin is used
to stabilize jams and jellies,and oftentimes these kind of
plants are, are included insuch a recipe. Like, like rose
hips in particular is reallyhigh in pectin or Hawthorne
berry is also very, very highin pectin. Um, and so those can
be included as a way tostabilize that, that
(20:55):
preparation. Um, but you know,if you just eat an apple, you
get a decent dose of pectin asas well that way, or , uh,
apple sauce , uh, for peoplewho maybe can't chew very much,
but we do wanna take care oftheir flora. Thinking of maybe
an elder, somebody with chronicillness or something like that.
Apple sauce is a great way tocombine that. And, you know,
with apple sauce , uh, hey,that's a good place to mix in
herbal powders. Um, you canstir herbal powders into apple
(21:19):
sauce . It shouldn't have likea clumpy or a gritty texture to
it once it's fully integratedand the sweet familiar flavor
of the applesauce can overwhelm, um, many maybe, but not all,
but , but many herbal flavors ,uh, that, that might not be
super appealing just to swallowon their own. Mm-hmm
. All right . Andthen , uh, so that's the apple
(21:41):
fruit, right? In different waysthat we can work with that. And
then there's the apple leaf.
Okay? Um, so apple leaf here webreak out our, our acronym JFA
Jfa, just another Rose familyastringent, J-A-R-F-A jfa, just
another Rose family astringent.
Yeah. And this is basically away to say that if you have
(22:03):
leaves from a rosebush from anapple tree , um, from a wild
cherry tree from other rosefamily members, you are
guaranteed to find those leavesto act as a stringent, and
that's a very valuablemedicinal attribute, right?
That can be applied topicallywhere we want to tighten up
tissue that's oozing or leakingor lax . Um, and that could
(22:26):
include various types of woundsand rashes can also include
hemorrhoids, right? Or varicoseveins. Um, we can soak in these
kind of preparations to tightenthose up. Um, and then
internally speaking, ASTstringin can be very helpful
whenever there's laxity ordamage to the intestinal
lining. So damage can show upin the form of things like
ulcers, whether that's in thestomach or in the colon, or
(22:48):
anywhere in between. And thenlaxity is gonna be manifesting
as leaky gut syndrome orintestinal hyperpermeability,
right? So these are, these arefairly common and it's often a
good idea for people to getsome stabilization , um, of
their membranes by getting abit of a stringency from our
plants on a consistent basis.
Apple leaf is by no means themost popular or most common ,
(23:12):
um, a stringent herb that wewould work with or recommend,
but I want to mention it sothat we're not leaving it outta
the picture and we recognizethat many parts of that plant
have something to offer to us.
Okay? Um, in the show notes,I'm including Katya's recipe
for some paleo apple frittersin case that's one way you'd
like to enjoy Apple. And I'malso linking to a monograph
(23:34):
from the herbalist, JimMcDonald about Apple, because
this is one of the very few ,uh, monographs you're gonna
find out there about Apple. And, um, as usual, Jim goes into
some really nice depth and it'sworth reading, so I hope you'll
check that out as well. Allright , let's go ahead and move
on to , um, item number six onthe bestseller list. And that
(23:56):
is Cranberry vaccinium macrocarp . So cranberry , uh,
cranberry is pretty well knownamongst the general public
amongst folks out there in theworld as a remedy to resolve
urinary tract infections. Um,and many people are aware of
that, whether it's in the formof a cranberry supplement that
(24:17):
you buy, you know, capsules ortablets or something like this,
or if it's in the format ofcranberry juice. And , um, yeah
, I always , whenever I get tothis point, I like to pause and
comment that , um, we dodefinitely prefer sugar-free
cranberry juice when we'reworking for the resolution of a
UTI, we find it to be moreeffective. We find it to be
(24:40):
more certain to work in the waythat we expect. Um, and so that
is our definite preferencethere, for sure. However, I
have to admit that sugaredcranberry juices have proven
effective for this kind ofintervention , um, in a number
of different trials. Not to saythat they're a hundred percent
effective all of the time. Notto say that there's no reason
(25:02):
to prefer the sugar free , butjust to admit that, look, if
all you've got is some storebrand cranberry juice, you
know, there's some sugar intothere, it's still gonna help a
bit. It's still worth includingin your UTI resolution
protocol. Um, which if you areinterested in that, then you
may , uh, you may have noticedthat episode 241 , uh, just
(25:25):
recently we discussed twodifferent herbal UTI formulae
moving beyond Dova , ursi andCranberry, and getting into
other herbs that work very wellfor this , uh, for this
situation. So you're not stuckwith cranberry, but that also
means that, or , or that thatdoesn't mean that we totally
ignore Cranberry entirely, andwe say, oh, that's terrible.
(25:46):
Don't even take it. No. Um, itis actually helpful, and it
does, it does do some , uh,some, some beneficial work
here. Um, now when we look atthe supplements that are
derived from cranberry and are,are sold out there, usually
just said , uh, to supporturinary health with this idea
that they're clearly gonna be ,um, chosen when somebody's
(26:08):
dealing with a UTI, you'll finda few different things. You'll
find some supplements that arelike a full cranberry extract,
and you'll find some that aremore of an isolate. So the word
isolate means that you'vechosen one constituent from the
target plant, you've separatedeverything else away from it,
and you're just presenting asupplement of that single
constituent. When it comes tocranberry, what that's gonna be
(26:31):
done with is a , uh, unusualsugar , um, called DNOs . So
this is a particular , um,particularly unusual sugar ,
um, in that it's not going tofeed , uh, microbial infectious
invaders. It's actually goingto , um, to be a detriment or a
(26:54):
, uh, uh, an agent that worksagainst them , right? Um, so
DNOs has , um, been a target ofstudy , uh, when it comes to
cranberry and urinary tractinfection for, for a fairly
long time. And there's beensome, you know, identified
modes of action there at the,at the molecular or the
bacterial level to say, okay,this is how it helps. This is
(27:16):
what it does to preventadhesion, prevent the ability
of the microbes to maintaintheir hold on the wall of the
bladder or the lining of the,the tubes of the urinary tract,
right? Um, if we can preventtheir ability to hold on,
they're easier to flush out.
And so that's what cranberryand , and this particular sugar
(27:39):
are helping to do. Um, I liketo always point out when things
are not as reductionist as theymight seem at first glance. And
this is one case just like thatbecause it turns out that it's
not only the DNOs that isbehind the activity of
cranberry , um, when we havethe whole plant , the whole
fruits, the whole juice ofthem, we're also getting other
(28:03):
polyphenols , uh, from that.
Polyphenols is a big categoryof chemical constituents that
occur in plants. A lot ofmedicinal elements that turn up
in our medicinal plants are inthat group. Polyphenols, a lot
of times they serve asantioxidants, sometimes they
have other roles. And in thiscase , um, some of the
polyphenols , uh, fromcranberry and also also from
(28:26):
other vaccinium species, youknow , um, like Lingen berry ,
um, and indeed like blueberry ,um, they, they share in this,
this content of, of polyphenolsthat can serve to, once again,
combat urinary tract infection.
So that's pretty nice. That'spretty nice. Um, so anyway,
(28:47):
what I meant to say , uh, amoment ago, and I think I
skipped over that, was you willoften find isolated DEOs
supplements. They might belabeled cranberry, and then it
might just say, DEOs . If youread the supplement facts
label, you should have claritythere around whether it is an
extract or if they just namethe, the herb. Like if the
label just says cranberryvaccinium, macro carp, what you
(29:09):
have there is dried powderedberries stuffed, like powdered
out and stuffed into the, theshells. If it said cranberry
vaccinium, macro caronextracts, that would mean that
they, well, they made anextract, right? Some menstrom
some process to pull some stuffout of the cranberry, and now
that's what's in your capsule.
But if it just said de DEOsfrom cranberry, okay, now you
(29:32):
know that it is just thatisolate, that one single
constituent, all right ? Um, soas usual, my preference, my
preference on this kind ofthing is gonna be give me
everything the plant has tooffer, get it as close to a
full representation of what'sin the actual berry as
possible. That's what we trust,that's what we find over and
over again to be mosteffective. And also, you know ,
(29:54):
just to be most similar toeating the berries, to crushing
them and drinking the juicethat you make yourself, you
know, things like that. Okay?
Now, any of these formats maybe helpful for a UTI and , um,
that's why these are goodsellers, right? Because people
find them , um, by reputationand they find them to be
effective when they try it out.
(30:15):
You'll, you'll even find , um,tablets of isolated DNOs
available for veterinarypurposes. Um , for example,
like you can feed this to yourcat and help them to resolve
their urinary tract infection.
Um , it's nice to havesomething like that , um, in
the isolate form. It's lesslikely to be rejected , um, by
(30:35):
a particularly picky eater likemany cats are. Um, and so that
might be easier to work with ,um, or that, let me say,
definitely will be easier towork with than trying to get
your cat to drink cranberryjuice. Uh , especially because
the doses when we're talkingabout cranberry juice are
fairly large. If you have a UTIand you can consume an entire
(30:56):
quart of cranberry juice everyday until your UTI feels
resolved, that is the dose thatI'm aiming at when I'm making
this kind of recommendation.
Um, and so you think for a cat,yeah, we're gonna scale down,
but we'd still want an M to bedrinking it like water, and no
cat is gonna do that. So thatis a situation where the
isolate makes sense. Um, for ahuman, especially one who can
(31:17):
handle a bit of sour flavor ,um, we do prefer to have you
drink that, drink that straightor mix it 50 50, mix it half
and half with , um, with tearight now, we can get other
herbs in the mix. That could begolden rod , that could be
nettle , um, that could be Uber, ur sea , right? That could be
any of a number of things thatare gonna activate the kidney
pathway, increase urine flow,flush away the microbes, kill
(31:39):
them directly. Like we canoverlap all those actions
together. Um, but cranberry isreally, really handy there. All
right , but let's get beyondUTI , right? So cranberry is
applicable for a lot of otherthings as well, because it's a
berry, it's a antioxidantpowerhouse. It's really rich in
pigment compounds, things thatserve our bodies in multiple
ways to keep inflammation down,to keep our metabolism working
(32:03):
the way that we want it to, tokeep things humming along in a
nice good manner. It's a food,it's a fruit. It's beneficial
in all those broad spectrumways. So those are easy to kind
of summarize real quick, likeI've just done, but they're
also very, very important topursue and to incorporate into
our daily habits and make surewe've got them there. And
something that tastes good andis fairly familiar and easy to
(32:24):
get your hands on. These arealways beneficial, right? You ,
if you're a longtime followerof our show, you know that
these are the kinds of thingswe spend most of our time
focusing on and talking about.
That's the style of herbalismwe practice. Yeah . Um, now the
poly polyphenols and alsoanother constituent group
called anthocyanins that wefind in cranberry and other
(32:47):
berries, okay , um, are reallybeneficial. They provide
anti-inflammatory activity.
They provide what we callvascular support, which is to
say maintaining , uh, a healthydegree of integrity in your
blood vessels, in the tubes ofyour body. Um, this is
particularly relevant in thecontext of , um, covid because
(33:09):
covid damages those tissues andthe antici from our berry
friends, cranberry, yes, butalso blueberry and blackberry
and any other berry you care toname. Um, they're supportive
to, to those tissues. They'rehelping to maintain good
integrity so that they're notbreaking, they're not leaking,
they're not sub sub subject toa lot of inflammation, and
(33:30):
they're ready to do their thingjust the way you want. All ,
um, cranberry is diuretic andthat look, that can be relevant
beyond UTI, right? Just theflushing effect. Diuretics can
be helpful when there's fluidretention in the body that
might be around the belly, thatmight be down in the legs or in
the ankles. Um, but diureticsare an important part of any
(33:53):
strategy that we've got to stirup the fluids in the body,
distribute them more evenly,and , um, take away those spots
where things are gettingstagnant and pooling right or
congealing. Um, so diureticscan be, can be helpful for lots
of different reasons whenthat's part of our overall
goal. And cranberry is a quiteeffective one. Um, both the
(34:17):
berry and also the leaf ofcranberry. And its relatives
like blueberry, like bilberry,like lingen berry. Um, and then
beyond the vaccinium genus intoother , uh, other berry types
as well, like raspberry andblackberry and strawberry. In
all of these cases, we findover and over again that both
the berry as a food , um, and asource for, you know, other
(34:39):
things you prepare, like fruit,leather, stuff like that. Um,
uh, but then also the leaves ofall of those plants have found
some benefits for blood sugarregulation. This shouldn't
really surprise us from atraditional perspective because
the fruits have sweetness, butalso a pretty significant
amount of sourness. And theleaves have a touch of sourness
(35:00):
and a discernible astringencyto them. The reason I say that
this doesn't make anybodysurprised that it could be
helpful for blood sugardysregulation issues, is that
those issues manifest withfluid retention. They manifest
with dampness , uh, theymanifest with , uh, a
(35:21):
development of heat thataccumulates as a follow on to
the damp, damp stagnation. Sothese remedies are cooling and
drying and draining. Um, and ,uh, I , I should note I am
talking here specifically aboutwhat would progress into type
two diabetes, right? Type onediabetes is a bit different.
There still may be somebenefits from these in that
(35:43):
case because of improvements ininsulin sensitivity. Um, but
primarily when we talk aboutthese as remedies, both current
and traditional for , uh, bloodsugar problems and diabetic
progressions, we are talkingabout type two . Um, too much
sugar in the blood, right?
These are really reliable , uh,for that kind of thing, and
(36:05):
we're often combining severalof them together. Um, could be
several of these leaves ofberry that could be mulberry
leaf is a really nice one , uh,along with cranberry leaf,
along with blackberry leaf, andthen maybe together with tulsi,
maybe together with cinnamon,these other herbs that have
different me methods or pathpathways to improving blood
sugar balance or, or regulationinside of the body. Um, so that
(36:30):
is a place where we foundsomething very helpful to do
with the leaves of theseplants. And , uh, again, we
like to, to look beyond the,the shiny red fruit , um, or at
least to look with thattogether. Uh, it's beautiful
green leaves. Yes, yes. Allright . I've got a couple of ,
um, other episodes of ourpodcast to refer to you two .
(36:51):
Those are in the show notes.
Um, one was just recentlynumber 2 24 that was in our
herbs A to Z series, and weprofiled vaccinium species
there, including cranberry. Um,and then way back at the very
beginning of our, our , ourpodcast journey, episode six ,
uh, we had , uh, a topic therewhere we discussed cranberries
(37:12):
and a few different , uh, fewdifferent methods to work with
them. So you can check both ofthose out in the show notes and
learn a bit more aboutcranberry. All right , um,
cranberry is also one of theherbs that we cover in our
material medica course, and itdoes turn up in our urinary
health course as well. Um ,apple , um, the apple cider
(37:33):
vinegar gets a good longdiscussion. It's its own
chapter on urban fused vinegarsin our medicine making course.
And we mention apple cidervinegar and apple leaf and
things like that in asprinkling of other courses
throughout our program. Um, ifyou don't know, in addition to
doing the Holistic Herbalismpodcast, we run a whole herbal
school online. It's , uh,Commonwealth Holistic
(37:55):
herbalism, and you can findus@commonwealthherbs.com. You
can find our course offeringsspecifically@online.com, wealth
herbs.com . And of course,there will be links to all of
this in the show notes. But Ireally do encourage you to
check out some of our courses.
They're all self-paced, they'reall video learning focused .
You can progress at your ownpace. You can take as much time
(38:16):
as you need to complete thecourses. Your access doesn't go
away once you sign up with us.
There's no ticking timer foryou to learn everything as fast
as you can and cram it all in.
We love it when students learnslow. Um, but you can
keep the pace that you like.
You can , uh, proceed throughthat as quickly or as leisurely
as you want to, and you getsupport with us all along the
way, through twice weekly liveq and a sessions , um, and also
(38:40):
and access to the entirearchive of a couple hundred of
those that we've , uh, recordedfor our students already. You
have , um, in every lesson, inevery course, you can open up a
discussion thread up in thecorner and you can type in
questions for us and get ananswer within a day. Um, we
have our active studentcommunity where you can chat
with others about what they'relearning and doing , um, and
(39:01):
what you're up to and all ofthe other good stuff that comes
along with all of our courses,right? It's available to you.
So I do encourage you to checkthose out. Um, if you're a
podcast person, then I wouldreally appreciate it if you
would , uh, subscribe to ourshow. If you're not already, if
you would rate our show onwhatever platform you use,
maybe even leave a review forus , um, that does, you know,
(39:23):
every podcast says it right,but that does help us to reach
more people and get the wordout there. Um, so I would, I
would very much appreciatethat. Alright , that's it for
today. Uh, I hope you learned anew thing or two about Apple
and about Cranberry. Um, I'llcontinue on this series a bit
later. The next one's up. We'regonna involve discussions of
(39:43):
wheat, grass and barley, grassand beet root, and ginger and
green tea. So some cool stuffto get to , um, when we
continue on the herbalist viewson the top selling herbs. And I
hope that you'll be with uswhen we when we come to those.
For now, take care ofyourselves, take care of each
other, drink some tea, andwe'll be back soon.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Bye.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hi, I'm Ryn and I'm here at Commonwealth Holistic
Urbanism in Boston,Massachusetts, and on the
internet everywhere. Thanks tothe power of the podcast, Kati
and I are sort of tag teaming ,uh, podcast episodes today. So
I think we're gonna releasethem one or two days after each
other. Um, but if you didn'tcheck out the one that she just
made, then you definitelyshould find that in the feed.
(00:34):
Today, my topic is gonna be acontinuation of a series. I
started a few episodes back ,uh, looking at the top, selling
herbs in commercial products,commercial supplements , um,
and continuing on today with acouple extra to continue that,
to continue that series. Um,the idea with this series
again, was just that these arepopular herbs. Lots of people
(00:57):
are taking them, taking them inthe form of these supplements,
and they're being advertisedand sold and, and promoted. Um,
usually along fairly narrowlines. So we're looking to do a
couple things. One is just tomake sure that you, the
listener is familiar withthese, with these herbs, and
familiar with the forms ofsupplements that are occurring
out there in the marketplaceand being most prevalent in
(01:19):
what people are taking mostoften. And then it's also to ,
um, give you a bit of ourperspective on those same
plants and to try to broadenthat a little bit, because most
frequently , um, supplementsthat get popularized in this
way, they get pigeonholed atthe same time, and they get put
into a box, and it's a veryspecific box. You take this
thing for that problem, andit's quite limited actually. So
(01:41):
our perspective is gonna be alittle bit broader, and I'm
gonna try and share that withyou as we go along. So , um,
first I just wanna remindeverybody that I'm not a
doctor. I'm an herbalist and aholistic health educator. So
the ideas discussed in thispodcast do not constitute
medical advice, no state orfederal authority licenses
herbalist in the United States.
So these discussions are foreducational purposes. We wanna
(02:03):
remind you that good healthdoesn't mean the same thing for
everyone. Good health doesn'texist as some objective
standard. It's influenced bythe individual's needs,
experiences, and goals. Soplease keep in mind that I'm
not attempting to present asingle dogmatic right way that
you must adhere to. Everyone'sbody is different. So what I'm
talking about may or may notapply directly to you, but I
(02:24):
hope that it'll give you somenew information to think about
and some ideas to research andexperiment with. Even further
finding your way to betterhealth is both your right and
your own personalresponsibility. That doesn't
mean that you're alone on thejourney, and it doesn't mean
that you're to blame for yourcurrent state of health, but it
does mean that the finaldecision, when you're
considering any course ofaction, whether it's discussed
on the internet or prescribedby a physician, that's always
(02:47):
your choice to make. All right, so continuing on talking
about top selling herbalsupplements. And if you missed
the first episode in thisseries, remember this is data
derived from a market report.
Um, and it's dealing withinformation from the year 2023.
Um, 'cause that's the mostrecent data we've got. So
that's what we're gonna workwith for now. Um, we addressed
(03:09):
the, the top four , uh,bestsellers in the prior
episode, which was episodenumber number 240 if you wanted
to scroll back. And in thatone, we looked at cilium , uh,
species of plantago, right?
Cilium, elderberry, turmeric,and ashwagandha. Today, we're
gonna continue on with numbersfive and six on the list, and
(03:30):
those are gonna be apple cidervinegar or apple and cranberry.
All right , so somesimilarities in these two, some
crossovers for us to discuss.
Let's get started. Looking atapple cider vinegar. Um, this
is the way these supplementsare labeled. Apple cider
vinegar supplements , uh, applecider vinegar or capsule or
(03:52):
gummy. Um, or of course, the,the liquid itself, you can
actually just go and buy applecider vinegar and you can take
that supplement, supplementsupplement if you would like
to. Um, so when you findyourself in a shop and you look
at a line of supplements andyou see that there's an apple
cider vinegar product, whatyou're gonna notice is that
(04:15):
these are presented in themarket as being for blood sugar
regulation. Um, the thing aboutapple cider vinegar supplements
is that they've been around fora while , and of course, apple
cider vinegar itself has beenaround for a really, really
long time. Humans discoveredthat particular , um, result of
(04:35):
a fermentation process a very,very long time ago in
pre-history, if you wanna callit that. But , uh, we didn't
actually really see apple cidervinegar supplements getting
super popular until fairlyrecently. And if we look at
the, the history data from the, the top sellers list, apple
cider vinegar as an entitywasn't really on that list for
(04:57):
a bunch of years. The firstseveral years that I was paying
attention to this stuff, itwasn't there. Um, but it
emerged several years back andit kind of crept up and then
leapt up the , um, the charts.
And I think my impression hereis that the biggest single
factor in the increase in salesfor apple cider vinegar
supplements has been thedevelopment of gummies. Um ,
(05:17):
people love gummies, a nicelittle sour gummies kind of
appealing. And you can takeapple cider vinegar and you can
essentially , um, what you'redoing is concentrating the
acetic acid, right? That is theacid that's inside apple cider
vinegar. Apple cider vinegar issomething like 3% or 5% acetic
acid , uh, you know, in thebottle. And the rest of it is
(05:41):
just water, right? Um, so whenthey make an apple cider
vinegar supplement, whetherit's in a gummy or it's in a
capsule, they'll take the applecider vinegar, they will
evaporate the water, retain theacetic acid, and there are some
other plant acids like malicacid is gonna be in there as
well, right? Um, Malikconnected to malice , the
(06:02):
botanical name for Apple
connected. Um, but yeah, youwill see , um, uh, you will,
you will get right, just the,the concentrated , um, uh,
plant acids, malic acid, aceticacid, et cetera , and those are
going to have been separatedfrom the H2O molecules, right?
The water itself. That's whyyou can have a gummy, and it
(06:24):
can be equivalent to taking adose that's like a tablespoon
or a shot glass , um, or half ashot glass of apple cider
vinegar as a liquid itself. Allright ? So the development of
those gummies increased thepopularity for that one. Also,
some other herbs, you know, Ithink we , I talked in the last
, uh, episode in this seriesabout ashwagandha gummies being
extremely popular. Um, that'sanother one that seems to have
(06:47):
gotten broader reach when thatformat, that format , uh,
became available. Yeah. Allright . So , uh, look, it is
true that apple cider vinegarcan improve blood sugar
regulation. It is mosteffective at doing this when
you take it close to the mealitself. So rather than like
taking this on an emptystomach, you know, between
(07:08):
meals in the day or taking thisfirst thing in you when you
wake up in the morning and not, not eating for a while or ,
or other, you know, patterns oftiming and dosage that we might
recommend for this or thatproduct for apple cider vinegar
itself, or supplements of applecider vinegar as like an
extract, they're most effectivewhen you take it either like
(07:29):
together with the meal or justbefore the meal. Because really
what we're trying to do isalter your digestive processes
a little bit. When you take ashot of apple cider vinegar
before a meal, you areintroducing a bunch of acid
right into your stomach, andthen you're gonna go and eat.
So, part of the job
your digestion to workalongside your stomach acid and
(07:51):
enhance your digestion of yourmeal. Make sure that that,
that, you know, it's like thesecond step of breakdown. You
know, the first one is allhappening in the mouth with
chewing and saliva, right?
Second step here in thestomach, trying to make sure
that that process is goingreally, really well, so that
everybody further down, youknow, your small intestine,
your large intestine, they'vegot an easy time of it from
there. Then there are also somedirect changes in the way your
(08:13):
body's gonna handle and absorbsugars that result when you
have consumed the acids justbeforehand. So, yes, these are
, these can be helpful. They'renot gonna be revelatory,
they're not going to completelychange somebody's health status
if all they do is incorporate ,uh, a supplement of apple cider
vinegar. You're not gonna takesomebody from being a diabetic
(08:34):
to making them have normalglycemia, right? Totally
healthy, totally quote unquotenormal blood sugar levels. If
all they do is take these, butin combination with some diet
changes, maybe some reductionin refined carbohydrates, maybe
some increase in protein, otherkinds of rational things we
could do to improve the, thequality and the nutrient
(08:54):
density of the diet, this canbe a helpful thing to add on
top of that, right? It is,again, like what we're talking
about with all these things issupplements. They are
additional to the foundationalchanges that we might make in
our baseline habits of eatingand moving and sleeping and
dealing with stress and all ofthat kind of thing. Alright ?
All right. So , um, that's kindof the, again, the most popular
(09:18):
reason people are taking these.
When herbalists think aboutapple and we think about apple
cider vinegar. Well, those aretwo different things, and we're
gonna talk all about Apple injust a moment. But first,
let's, let's stick with a CVapple cider vinegar. So
herbalists are most familiarwith this as a menstrom, as a ,
as a liquid that we use toextract , uh, activity and
(09:41):
chemistry from our plants sothat we've got it in a form
that we can do somethinghelpful with, right? Um, a
simple example of an applecider vinegar extract is fire
cider. And fire cider may besomething that you're already
familiar with. Um, it may besomething that you've prepared
for yourself at home. Um, firecider is a simple apple cider
(10:05):
vinegar extract of pungentherbs like garlic, onion,
ginger can throw turmeric inthere if you like. A lot of
people do these days. Um, youcan put horseradish for like ,
like a nice , uh, pungentquality. You can throw cayenne
into there to really add fireto it. And you can add other
herbs as well to alter theflavor, make it a little more
(10:26):
appealing. A lot of people liketo add something with a citrus
element that could be citruspeels themselves. It could be
something like lemongrass orlemon balm to get a little bit
of that element into there. Um,when we make our fire cider,
we'll often include sage androsemary and , and things like
that as well. Um, but you know,when you do that, you put the
(10:46):
herbs in your, in your, youknow, items into a jar, cover
them with apple cider vinegar,let it soak, let it macerate
for a period of time, and thengo ahead and strain it out. And
now you have that liquid, youcan take shots of it, you can
take spoonfuls of it, and, youknow, all those herbs are like
hot and pungent and warming,and they're stimulating to
(11:06):
blood circulation, to immuneactivation, respiratory
defenses. And so this is like acommon thing people prepare to
help get through cold flu covidseason. Um, or anytime when
you're feeling like I've beenexposed to a lot of germs, like
I traveled on the city bus, orI got on an airplane, and I'm
gonna take a little bit of thisto kind of boost up my defenses
(11:27):
and try to prevent thelikelihood of getting ill. So
that's one, you know, prettywell known example of working
with apple cider vinegar as amenstrom. But you can infuse
lots of herbs into vinegar. Um,and this is a , a nice menstrom
to work with, particularly whenthere are limitations on
alcohol, right? Somebody mayhave an allergy to alcohol and
(11:50):
they can't consume any,somebody may have a religious
or , um, uh, uh, uh, personalreason , um, for not consuming
any alcohol at all. That caninclude a history of
alcoholism. But there's otherreasons that people choose to
do this. And so some folks arenot gonna wanna take an herbal
tincture , uh, made in alcohol,and instead we can prepare an
(12:10):
extract into vinegar and theycan work with that. In general.
I will say that vinegarextracts don't tend to be quite
as potent as alcohol ones, butit does depend on which
specific herb we're talkingabout. And sometimes, depending
on your purpose, we're not hereto maximize potency above all
other things. Uh, sometimes thefact that they'll take it at
(12:30):
all is a big win. And so that'sgonna be our higher priority,
right? Alright , now, applecider vinegar itself does have
some of its own actions orqualities, right? We can look
at that substance the way wecan look at, at any, any herb
that we choose to work with. Soapple cider vinegar is
energetically speaking cooling,and that might surprise you a
(12:53):
little bit because of the, thefeeling of acid is often
described as a burn. Um, orwhen you taste it in your
mouth, it can feel like a, likea , like a hot or like an
irritating sensation. Herewe're looking past that initial
moment of reaction and going alittle further in time and
seeing the, the result of, say,repeated applications. One
really great way to see this isif you have a pimple, a nice
(13:16):
red, irritated spot on yourface, or right on the tip of
your nose or wherever else, youcan take apple cider vinegar
and , uh, put a little bit onyour fingertip and apply it
right on that spot. And oneapplication isn't gonna make it
disappear, right? But if you dothat repeatedly, say three to
five times a day, or five toseven times a day, you should
start to see a , a perceptiblechange. Maybe take some before
(13:38):
and after photos, after oneday, two days, that kind of
thing. You should see thatchange. And what you observe is
that that swollen red , uh,irritated tissue is going to
shrink, it's gonna lose thatred coloration, it's gonna fade
back down. So the shift fromthat red state back to a like
normal, normal skin tone coloris a cooling change, right?
(14:02):
That shift from a swollentissue state to one that has
shrunk back down to appropriatenormal size is a drying
influence that we're observing.
And it's also a tonifyinginfluence as well, right? So we
can, we can see these actionsof , uh, of the, of the fluid
through direct observation,just like that, okay? So , um,
(14:22):
when we have othermanifestations of, of hot damp
laxity going on, and oftentimesskin prep presentations are the
best way to observe that,right? Something that's again,
swollen, red, oozing, eh ,okay? These are rational times
to go ahead and work with apreparation of apple cider
vinegar. We're gonna tightenthat up. We're gonna cool it
(14:42):
down and we're gonna dry itout. Of course, this stuff
tastes acidic, it tastes sour.
Um, things that have a sourflavor in the world of
herbalism tend to also all ,all be in line with those
energetic qualities. Cooling,dry tifying . You can think
about rose hips or hibiscuscalyx, the , the flower part as
good examples there. Those arethings that we wanna prepare
(15:05):
and maybe drink as a sun tea ona hot summer day when we're
feeling hot, when we're feelinghumid
want to correct for thoseinternally and in our, in our
feeling, in our experience.
Those are the kinds of thingswe're gonna work with. So apple
cider vinegar is , uh, a souragent, just like those, it is
(15:27):
anti-inflammatory on contact asI've been describing. And then
there's another element ofapple cider vinegar as a
topical worth mentioning, whichis that it has some
antimicrobial qualities to itas well. So if one of those
sores or rashes that I've beendescribing that's got the
ooziness to it , um, if it'soozing, it's open, and if it's
open, it's susceptible toinfection. Um, so something
(15:48):
like this can both becorrecting the tissue state
we're observing and alsoprotecting against microbial
damage. Very nice. Okay? Andthen of course, we can be
working with apple cidervinegar, not just by itself. We
can be working with thatinfused with other herbs. So if
you wanna have a little bottleof some apple cider vinegar,
keep it in your bathroom forwhen you get little spots, you
(16:10):
know, little pimples you wannawork on, then , um, you could
have that just be plain a CB ,that's fine. Or it could be
infused with rose petals, or itcould be infused with elder
flowers, or it could be infusedwith calendula, right? It's a
way to power up the agent thatyou're working with beyond what
apple cider vinegar has tooffer in and of itself. All
(16:33):
right ? But apple is of course,more than just a source for
making vinegar out of Apple isa whole tree. It is a plant
, uh, the , the apple, thefruit itself is well a fruit,
okay? First and foremost, it isa fruit with all of the good
things that that implies. Um,and here I wanna maybe make a ,
(16:57):
a comparison. Um , for those ofyou who are , are knowing a
little bit about herbalismalready, right? You might think
about Hawthorne berry as beingreally nutritive and being
anti-inflammatory andsupportive to the heart and all
of those things that itabsolutely is. Yes. Um, but
when we think about Apple,sometimes we're like, yeah,
apple, whatever, they're good.
(17:18):
You know, I heard that they cankeep a keep a doctor away, you
know, if you eat one every dayand that's nice, but, eh , come
on, it's just an apple, right?
It's just a food. Who cares? Wecare, right? Um, these plants
are in the same family, right?
Apple, Hawthorne, cherry, otherrose family fruits like prunes
and, and , um, um, slow, right?
(17:41):
Like slow, like, like thesource for slow gin , that's
from a tree called blackthorn.
Um, and it's a , a similar typeof a fruit, right? So all of
these share in severaloverlapping qualities, right?
They share in having somedegree of anti-inflammatory
action for us, some degree ofsour flavor, along with some
sweet flavor as well,especially the ones that humans
(18:01):
have done more , um,interaction with over the
centuries, right? More , um,selective breeding to make the
fruits larger and sweeter,right? So, of course we have
apple varieties that are very,very sweet and just a little
bit sour. Um, but , uh, if youtry wild apples, sometimes you
try to eat them and they're sosour and so astringent that
(18:24):
they're not very appealing
those are also presentation bythat tree of medicinal
attributes, tannins andconcentrated fruit acids and
things that have thesemedicinal virtues for us. Um,
so , uh, apple is like aHawthorne berry that you can
eat in several bites and holdin your hand,
(18:46):
That's one way that you mightthink of this plant by analog
to a little, little better ,um, better respected medicinal
herb that we can work with. Hmm. All right . Um, another thing
worth noting, and I think it'sparticularly worth pointing out
when we're talking about applesthemselves and not just the,
the family in general, is thatapples are a really excellent
(19:07):
source of pectin. Pectin is aprebiotic fiber, and not
notably, this is not theprebiotic fiber that we speak
about most often. 'cause that'sinulin inulin from dandelion
root, chicory root, burdockroot , uh, campaign , right?
Um, the sunchoke plant , youknow, and those, those tubers,
(19:28):
they give us a lot of inulincontent. Inulin is a prebiotic.
That's the word we use here.
These are food for yourfriendly gut flora. Um, and so
if it is true that an apple aday keeps the doctor away, I
think one big reason why thatwe can understand now is that
it helps your flora, it helpsyour guts. It supports the
(19:49):
friendliest kinds of bacteriathat could possibly live in
your belly. Um, so that'sreally, really valuable. And
again, when we're doing work toreconstitute healthier gut
flora, that's not only aboutkilling off the microbes,
that's not only about taking,you know, berberine capsules or
other things to try to targetunfriendly critters in the, in
the intestines and drive themaway. Um, we have to feed the
(20:12):
good ones. We have to supportthem. And , um, prebiotic
fibers are a major way to dothat. Inulin is again, the
first thing that le leaps tothe mind of a lot of herbalists
when they're trying to do thatwork. Oh, I wanna build healthy
flora. Okay? We can feed themwith the burdock root
decoctions. Great, yes, true,true, but let's also get some
apples, right, or apple sauce ,right? This isn't gonna be
(20:33):
destroyed on cooking. Um, infact, you know, pectin is used
to stabilize jams and jellies,and oftentimes these kind of
plants are, are included insuch a recipe. Like, like rose
hips in particular is reallyhigh in pectin or Hawthorne
berry is also very, very highin pectin. Um, and so those can
be included as a way tostabilize that, that
(20:55):
preparation. Um, but you know,if you just eat an apple, you
get a decent dose of pectin asas well that way, or , uh,
apple sauce , uh, for peoplewho maybe can't chew very much,
but we do wanna take care oftheir flora. Thinking of maybe
an elder, somebody with chronicillness or something like that.
Apple sauce is a great way tocombine that. And, you know,
with apple sauce , uh, hey,that's a good place to mix in
herbal powders. Um, you canstir herbal powders into apple
(21:19):
sauce . It shouldn't have likea clumpy or a gritty texture to
it once it's fully integratedand the sweet familiar flavor
of the applesauce can overwhelm, um, many maybe, but not all,
but , but many herbal flavors ,uh, that, that might not be
super appealing just to swallowon their own. Mm-hmm
(21:41):
fruit, right? In different waysthat we can work with that. And
then there's the apple leaf.
Okay? Um, so apple leaf here webreak out our, our acronym JFA
Jfa, just another Rose familyastringent, J-A-R-F-A jfa, just
another Rose family astringent.
Yeah. And this is basically away to say that if you have
(22:03):
leaves from a rosebush from anapple tree , um, from a wild
cherry tree from other rosefamily members, you are
guaranteed to find those leavesto act as a stringent, and
that's a very valuablemedicinal attribute, right?
That can be applied topicallywhere we want to tighten up
tissue that's oozing or leakingor lax . Um, and that could
(22:26):
include various types of woundsand rashes can also include
hemorrhoids, right? Or varicoseveins. Um, we can soak in these
kind of preparations to tightenthose up. Um, and then
internally speaking, ASTstringin can be very helpful
whenever there's laxity ordamage to the intestinal
lining. So damage can show upin the form of things like
ulcers, whether that's in thestomach or in the colon, or
(22:48):
anywhere in between. And thenlaxity is gonna be manifesting
as leaky gut syndrome orintestinal hyperpermeability,
right? So these are, these arefairly common and it's often a
good idea for people to getsome stabilization , um, of
their membranes by getting abit of a stringency from our
plants on a consistent basis.
Apple leaf is by no means themost popular or most common ,
(23:12):
um, a stringent herb that wewould work with or recommend,
but I want to mention it sothat we're not leaving it outta
the picture and we recognizethat many parts of that plant
have something to offer to us.
Okay? Um, in the show notes,I'm including Katya's recipe
for some paleo apple frittersin case that's one way you'd
like to enjoy Apple. And I'malso linking to a monograph
(23:34):
from the herbalist, JimMcDonald about Apple, because
this is one of the very few ,uh, monographs you're gonna
find out there about Apple. And, um, as usual, Jim goes into
some really nice depth and it'sworth reading, so I hope you'll
check that out as well. Allright , let's go ahead and move
on to , um, item number six onthe bestseller list. And that
(23:56):
is Cranberry vaccinium macrocarp . So cranberry , uh,
cranberry is pretty well knownamongst the general public
amongst folks out there in theworld as a remedy to resolve
urinary tract infections. Um,and many people are aware of
that, whether it's in the formof a cranberry supplement that
(24:17):
you buy, you know, capsules ortablets or something like this,
or if it's in the format ofcranberry juice. And , um, yeah
, I always , whenever I get tothis point, I like to pause and
comment that , um, we dodefinitely prefer sugar-free
cranberry juice when we'reworking for the resolution of a
UTI, we find it to be moreeffective. We find it to be
(24:40):
more certain to work in the waythat we expect. Um, and so that
is our definite preferencethere, for sure. However, I
have to admit that sugaredcranberry juices have proven
effective for this kind ofintervention , um, in a number
of different trials. Not to saythat they're a hundred percent
effective all of the time. Notto say that there's no reason
(25:02):
to prefer the sugar free , butjust to admit that, look, if
all you've got is some storebrand cranberry juice, you
know, there's some sugar intothere, it's still gonna help a
bit. It's still worth includingin your UTI resolution
protocol. Um, which if you areinterested in that, then you
may , uh, you may have noticedthat episode 241 , uh, just
(25:25):
recently we discussed twodifferent herbal UTI formulae
moving beyond Dova , ursi andCranberry, and getting into
other herbs that work very wellfor this , uh, for this
situation. So you're not stuckwith cranberry, but that also
means that, or , or that thatdoesn't mean that we totally
ignore Cranberry entirely, andwe say, oh, that's terrible.
(25:46):
Don't even take it. No. Um, itis actually helpful, and it
does, it does do some , uh,some, some beneficial work
here. Um, now when we look atthe supplements that are
derived from cranberry and are,are sold out there, usually
just said , uh, to supporturinary health with this idea
that they're clearly gonna be ,um, chosen when somebody's
(26:08):
dealing with a UTI, you'll finda few different things. You'll
find some supplements that arelike a full cranberry extract,
and you'll find some that aremore of an isolate. So the word
isolate means that you'vechosen one constituent from the
target plant, you've separatedeverything else away from it,
and you're just presenting asupplement of that single
constituent. When it comes tocranberry, what that's gonna be
(26:31):
done with is a , uh, unusualsugar , um, called DNOs . So
this is a particular , um,particularly unusual sugar ,
um, in that it's not going tofeed , uh, microbial infectious
invaders. It's actually goingto , um, to be a detriment or a
(26:54):
, uh, uh, an agent that worksagainst them , right? Um, so
DNOs has , um, been a target ofstudy , uh, when it comes to
cranberry and urinary tractinfection for, for a fairly
long time. And there's beensome, you know, identified
modes of action there at the,at the molecular or the
bacterial level to say, okay,this is how it helps. This is
(27:16):
what it does to preventadhesion, prevent the ability
of the microbes to maintaintheir hold on the wall of the
bladder or the lining of the,the tubes of the urinary tract,
right? Um, if we can preventtheir ability to hold on,
they're easier to flush out.
And so that's what cranberryand , and this particular sugar
(27:39):
are helping to do. Um, I liketo always point out when things
are not as reductionist as theymight seem at first glance. And
this is one case just like thatbecause it turns out that it's
not only the DNOs that isbehind the activity of
cranberry , um, when we havethe whole plant , the whole
fruits, the whole juice ofthem, we're also getting other
(28:03):
polyphenols , uh, from that.
Polyphenols is a big categoryof chemical constituents that
occur in plants. A lot ofmedicinal elements that turn up
in our medicinal plants are inthat group. Polyphenols, a lot
of times they serve asantioxidants, sometimes they
have other roles. And in thiscase , um, some of the
polyphenols , uh, fromcranberry and also also from
(28:26):
other vaccinium species, youknow , um, like Lingen berry ,
um, and indeed like blueberry ,um, they, they share in this,
this content of, of polyphenolsthat can serve to, once again,
combat urinary tract infection.
So that's pretty nice. That'spretty nice. Um, so anyway,
(28:47):
what I meant to say , uh, amoment ago, and I think I
skipped over that, was you willoften find isolated DEOs
supplements. They might belabeled cranberry, and then it
might just say, DEOs . If youread the supplement facts
label, you should have claritythere around whether it is an
extract or if they just namethe, the herb. Like if the
label just says cranberryvaccinium, macro carp, what you
(29:09):
have there is dried powderedberries stuffed, like powdered
out and stuffed into the, theshells. If it said cranberry
vaccinium, macro caronextracts, that would mean that
they, well, they made anextract, right? Some menstrom
some process to pull some stuffout of the cranberry, and now
that's what's in your capsule.
But if it just said de DEOsfrom cranberry, okay, now you
(29:32):
know that it is just thatisolate, that one single
constituent, all right ? Um, soas usual, my preference, my
preference on this kind ofthing is gonna be give me
everything the plant has tooffer, get it as close to a
full representation of what'sin the actual berry as
possible. That's what we trust,that's what we find over and
over again to be mosteffective. And also, you know ,
(29:54):
just to be most similar toeating the berries, to crushing
them and drinking the juicethat you make yourself, you
know, things like that. Okay?
Now, any of these formats maybe helpful for a UTI and , um,
that's why these are goodsellers, right? Because people
find them , um, by reputationand they find them to be
effective when they try it out.
(30:15):
You'll, you'll even find , um,tablets of isolated DNOs
available for veterinarypurposes. Um , for example,
like you can feed this to yourcat and help them to resolve
their urinary tract infection.
Um , it's nice to havesomething like that , um, in
the isolate form. It's lesslikely to be rejected , um, by
(30:35):
a particularly picky eater likemany cats are. Um, and so that
might be easier to work with ,um, or that, let me say,
definitely will be easier towork with than trying to get
your cat to drink cranberryjuice. Uh , especially because
the doses when we're talkingabout cranberry juice are
fairly large. If you have a UTIand you can consume an entire
(30:56):
quart of cranberry juice everyday until your UTI feels
resolved, that is the dose thatI'm aiming at when I'm making
this kind of recommendation.
Um, and so you think for a cat,yeah, we're gonna scale down,
but we'd still want an M to bedrinking it like water, and no
cat is gonna do that. So thatis a situation where the
isolate makes sense. Um, for ahuman, especially one who can
(31:17):
handle a bit of sour flavor ,um, we do prefer to have you
drink that, drink that straightor mix it 50 50, mix it half
and half with , um, with tearight now, we can get other
herbs in the mix. That could begolden rod , that could be
nettle , um, that could be Uber, ur sea , right? That could be
any of a number of things thatare gonna activate the kidney
pathway, increase urine flow,flush away the microbes, kill
(31:39):
them directly. Like we canoverlap all those actions
together. Um, but cranberry isreally, really handy there. All
right , but let's get beyondUTI , right? So cranberry is
applicable for a lot of otherthings as well, because it's a
berry, it's a antioxidantpowerhouse. It's really rich in
pigment compounds, things thatserve our bodies in multiple
ways to keep inflammation down,to keep our metabolism working
(32:03):
the way that we want it to, tokeep things humming along in a
nice good manner. It's a food,it's a fruit. It's beneficial
in all those broad spectrumways. So those are easy to kind
of summarize real quick, likeI've just done, but they're
also very, very important topursue and to incorporate into
our daily habits and make surewe've got them there. And
something that tastes good andis fairly familiar and easy to
(32:24):
get your hands on. These arealways beneficial, right? You ,
if you're a longtime followerof our show, you know that
these are the kinds of thingswe spend most of our time
focusing on and talking about.
That's the style of herbalismwe practice. Yeah . Um, now the
poly polyphenols and alsoanother constituent group
called anthocyanins that wefind in cranberry and other
(32:47):
berries, okay , um, are reallybeneficial. They provide
anti-inflammatory activity.
They provide what we callvascular support, which is to
say maintaining , uh, a healthydegree of integrity in your
blood vessels, in the tubes ofyour body. Um, this is
particularly relevant in thecontext of , um, covid because
(33:09):
covid damages those tissues andthe antici from our berry
friends, cranberry, yes, butalso blueberry and blackberry
and any other berry you care toname. Um, they're supportive
to, to those tissues. They'rehelping to maintain good
integrity so that they're notbreaking, they're not leaking,
they're not sub sub subject toa lot of inflammation, and
(33:30):
they're ready to do their thingjust the way you want. All ,
um, cranberry is diuretic andthat look, that can be relevant
beyond UTI, right? Just theflushing effect. Diuretics can
be helpful when there's fluidretention in the body that
might be around the belly, thatmight be down in the legs or in
the ankles. Um, but diureticsare an important part of any
(33:53):
strategy that we've got to stirup the fluids in the body,
distribute them more evenly,and , um, take away those spots
where things are gettingstagnant and pooling right or
congealing. Um, so diureticscan be, can be helpful for lots
of different reasons whenthat's part of our overall
goal. And cranberry is a quiteeffective one. Um, both the
(34:17):
berry and also the leaf ofcranberry. And its relatives
like blueberry, like bilberry,like lingen berry. Um, and then
beyond the vaccinium genus intoother , uh, other berry types
as well, like raspberry andblackberry and strawberry. In
all of these cases, we findover and over again that both
the berry as a food , um, and asource for, you know, other
(34:39):
things you prepare, like fruit,leather, stuff like that. Um,
uh, but then also the leaves ofall of those plants have found
some benefits for blood sugarregulation. This shouldn't
really surprise us from atraditional perspective because
the fruits have sweetness, butalso a pretty significant
amount of sourness. And theleaves have a touch of sourness
(35:00):
and a discernible astringencyto them. The reason I say that
this doesn't make anybodysurprised that it could be
helpful for blood sugardysregulation issues, is that
those issues manifest withfluid retention. They manifest
with dampness , uh, theymanifest with , uh, a
(35:21):
development of heat thataccumulates as a follow on to
the damp, damp stagnation. Sothese remedies are cooling and
drying and draining. Um, and ,uh, I , I should note I am
talking here specifically aboutwhat would progress into type
two diabetes, right? Type onediabetes is a bit different.
There still may be somebenefits from these in that
(35:43):
case because of improvements ininsulin sensitivity. Um, but
primarily when we talk aboutthese as remedies, both current
and traditional for , uh, bloodsugar problems and diabetic
progressions, we are talkingabout type two . Um, too much
sugar in the blood, right?
These are really reliable , uh,for that kind of thing, and
(36:05):
we're often combining severalof them together. Um, could be
several of these leaves ofberry that could be mulberry
leaf is a really nice one , uh,along with cranberry leaf,
along with blackberry leaf, andthen maybe together with tulsi,
maybe together with cinnamon,these other herbs that have
different me methods or pathpathways to improving blood
sugar balance or, or regulationinside of the body. Um, so that
(36:30):
is a place where we foundsomething very helpful to do
with the leaves of theseplants. And , uh, again, we
like to, to look beyond the,the shiny red fruit , um, or at
least to look with thattogether. Uh, it's beautiful
green leaves. Yes, yes. Allright . I've got a couple of ,
um, other episodes of ourpodcast to refer to you two .
(36:51):
Those are in the show notes.
Um, one was just recentlynumber 2 24 that was in our
herbs A to Z series, and weprofiled vaccinium species
there, including cranberry. Um,and then way back at the very
beginning of our, our , ourpodcast journey, episode six ,
uh, we had , uh, a topic therewhere we discussed cranberries
(37:12):
and a few different , uh, fewdifferent methods to work with
them. So you can check both ofthose out in the show notes and
learn a bit more aboutcranberry. All right , um,
cranberry is also one of theherbs that we cover in our
material medica course, and itdoes turn up in our urinary
health course as well. Um ,apple , um, the apple cider
(37:33):
vinegar gets a good longdiscussion. It's its own
chapter on urban fused vinegarsin our medicine making course.
And we mention apple cidervinegar and apple leaf and
things like that in asprinkling of other courses
throughout our program. Um, ifyou don't know, in addition to
doing the Holistic Herbalismpodcast, we run a whole herbal
school online. It's , uh,Commonwealth Holistic
(37:55):
herbalism, and you can findus@commonwealthherbs.com. You
can find our course offeringsspecifically@online.com, wealth
herbs.com . And of course,there will be links to all of
this in the show notes. But Ireally do encourage you to
check out some of our courses.
They're all self-paced, they'reall video learning focused .
You can progress at your ownpace. You can take as much time
(38:16):
as you need to complete thecourses. Your access doesn't go
away once you sign up with us.
There's no ticking timer foryou to learn everything as fast
as you can and cram it all in.
We love it when students learnslow
keep the pace that you like.
You can , uh, proceed throughthat as quickly or as leisurely
as you want to, and you getsupport with us all along the
way, through twice weekly liveq and a sessions , um, and also
(38:40):
and access to the entirearchive of a couple hundred of
those that we've , uh, recordedfor our students already. You
have , um, in every lesson, inevery course, you can open up a
discussion thread up in thecorner and you can type in
questions for us and get ananswer within a day. Um, we
have our active studentcommunity where you can chat
with others about what they'relearning and doing , um, and
(39:01):
what you're up to and all ofthe other good stuff that comes
along with all of our courses,right? It's available to you.
So I do encourage you to checkthose out. Um, if you're a
podcast person, then I wouldreally appreciate it if you
would , uh, subscribe to ourshow. If you're not already, if
you would rate our show onwhatever platform you use,
maybe even leave a review forus , um, that does, you know,
(39:23):
every podcast says it right,but that does help us to reach
more people and get the wordout there. Um, so I would, I
would very much appreciatethat. Alright , that's it for
today. Uh, I hope you learned anew thing or two about Apple
and about Cranberry. Um, I'llcontinue on this series a bit
later. The next one's up. We'regonna involve discussions of
(39:43):
wheat, grass and barley, grassand beet root, and ginger and
green tea. So some cool stuffto get to , um, when we
continue on the herbalist viewson the top selling herbs. And I
hope that you'll be with uswhen we when we come to those.
For now, take care ofyourselves, take care of each
other, drink some tea, andwe'll be back soon.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Bye.
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