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August 31, 2025 32 mins
Today, we discuss the medicinal use of one of our most common trees and shrubs.  It is VERY useful!. 


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Medicinal Weeds and Grasses of the American Southeast, an Herbalist's Guide
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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The name down to the clan, the clan to the.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Hey, y'all, welcome to this week's show. Today we're mainly
going to talk about oak. We've discussed oak before, we're
going to discuss soak again. Oak is one of the
most important plants in all of verbal medicine. That is, yes, Quercus,
the oak tree. Before that, I've got some brief mention
of a shrub called Pyrolauria or buffalo nut. It is

(01:56):
a native to the America's very very little used in
urban mum, but if you got one in your yard,
you might as well try to figure out how to
use it. It's also called oil nut, but mainly buffalo nut.
The plant has been used as a salve sa l
ve on sores, especially old sores, helping them to heal up.

(02:22):
And however, the seed, if you chew it, it will
induce bobbing. So probably not one you're going to use
for food, but very useful to know. It's also been
used in the treatment of colic, but I really don't
have any information as to how so. Now we will
get into oak. Now, there are sixty nine varieties of

(02:46):
oak that have documented use in herbal medicine. That said,
there are many, many, many oaks, oaks who are pretty
much all over the world. Just in North Carolina, you know,
the cradle of American forestry is it was called we
have so many oaks is ridiculous. I mean, the hardwood

(03:07):
forest is incredible. The most iconic tree of the American
South is the Angel oak. It's a live oak down
in South Carolina where the South Carolina seceded from the Union.
It's a giant, old live oak tree, absolutely beautiful. It's
a tree on the cover of my book about medicinal trees.

(03:28):
It's just gorgeous and it's huge, and it's probably one
thousand years old. Oaks have so much historical significance. They
actually have some religious significance. I mean they say the
Druids worshiped them oak trees. Nobody really knows for sure,
because what we know about the Druids was written by
the Romans. The Druids were a preliterate culture, so they

(03:52):
didn't exactly tell us what they believed. So we know
from the Romans what they think the Druids believed, though
they spoke two different languages. So take anything you read
about Druid herbalism or druid belief in practice with a
grain of salt, because in truth, we don't even know
what stone Hinge was all about anymore. We have ideas,

(04:12):
we try to figure it out, but you know, nobody
wrote down in a book what stone Hinge was all about.
So anyway, some oaks do have edible nuts. Really, all
acorns are edible to an extent. You have to leach
the tannins out of most. Now, there are certain white
oaks and burrow oaks, oaks that have just wonderful nuts,

(04:35):
so you can just you know, pick off, well, you
don't pick them off the tree, pick them up off
the ground because they fall when they're ripe, and you
can eat them. Just sell them and eat them. They're delicious.
If you ever find a tree like that, save those seeds,
because they're actually quite valuable. There what are called a
noble oak tree, an oak that grows edible acorns so
you can just eat right out of hand. It's one

(04:56):
of the most valuable of all trees. People have been
known to spend thousands of dollars on just one little
sapling from a noble oak. Sometimes oak trees that are
considered to be too tanic to eat also have edible acorns.
I was down at one of my family cemeteries a
couple of years ago and they had big water oaks

(05:18):
growing there. They have little acorns. Usually the smaller the acorn,
the higher the tanning content, and the less you can
eat it readily. And I was hungry, and I thought,
you know, I'll just try one. Pick one up, cracked it, open,
ate it. It was as sweet as nut as a pecan.
Ended up eating a handful of them right there. You know,
you never know until you try. And you can have

(05:38):
a stand of oaks rowing side by side and they'll
vary from tree to tree. Now, the way you process
tannic acorns for eating is you have to leach them.
This can be done basically three ways. Okay, the most
traditional way is to get all your acorns, shell them,
put them in a bag, a mesh bag, a pillow case,

(05:59):
whatever you got, put in a creek and just let
the water flow through it. Let's see. Probably the most
traditional easiest way. You can also crush them up and
boil them four or five times, draining off the water.
You can do it a lot faster that way. It's
not doesn't yield in as good a texture for the knut.

(06:23):
You can't store them once they've been done that way.
The ones that are actually soaked in water, you can
dry them out and store them if you have, like
crush them up or ground them even I guess you
could do that. And during the boil method, they're gonna
have to be cooked right away. They're not gonna keep.
So you can use that to bread fish or chicken
with and fry it, kind of pan fry it. You

(06:44):
don't want deep fried. It's gonna burn very quickly. A
lot of fat in any kind of nut. You could
make a meal out of them and put them in
you know, cakes, bread, pancakes, anything, anything you would use
a nut meal for. You can use that method. It's
just very good one that a lot of foragers recommend

(07:07):
that I'm not entirely sure about. It's sort of a
modern version of the soak and the creek method, and
that's to put them in a mesh bag or cloth
bag and put them in the tank of your toilet.
They will soak out the tannins in there, and every
time you flush the toilet, clean water comes in and
keep trenching them. I have an issue with this because

(07:32):
guess technically that water in the back of your toilet
is clean. It means it's not contaminated like the water
in the bowl of your toilet. But most times when
I take the back off of a toilet, there's a
lot of mold and mill doing there, and I don't
so I don't like that idea. I'm sure it works,

(07:54):
but it probably works better in a very dry environment,
like if you're in the desert southwest or something, you
probably don't get a lot of mold and mildew on
your toilet because there's just not enough humidity in the air.
So that's probably more sued to that climate. But I
don't know. I have a spring up from my house.

(08:15):
I have a creek that comes down from the spring.
There's actually a little spring house, a little enclosure around
the mouth of the spring. I can save acorns up
there anytime I want to. Got big old white oaks
in my yard, and it's not an issue for me.
That's the word I'm going to go. And when you
do that, you do get the best quality because they're

(08:35):
soaking in that good, clean, cold water, and you can
then dry and parch them for storage if you want to.
So I'm going back to the herbal uses of oak.
Oak has documented use in herbal medicine as long as
our history goes back. Discordies wrote that each part of

(08:57):
the oak is a stringent. The layer between the bark
and the wood is similar to that that's under the acorn,
and it is most therapeutic for the bowels. At A
coction of this is given for intestinal complaints, dysentery, for
spitting of blood. It's very stringent. It will stop internal bleeding,

(09:18):
it will stop excessive menstrul bleeding. It's one of our
go to remedies, one of those emergency ones for bad
diarrhea or bad bleeding of any kind. Could also be used,
made into what they call pessaries or suppositories, essentially inserted
to stop excessive discharges of minstrual bleeding. Essentially, it can

(09:40):
also be used in baths, hot baths. He says the
acorns are diuretic. That means, of course, takes off excess fluid,
but he didn't like eating them as nuts. I guess
he didn't really understand removing the tannins because he said
it causes headache. And yes, those tannons can make you sick.
They can make you very sick. But even when and
they were not tannic, he thought they caused flatulence, which

(10:03):
they're fibers, So yeah, I guess anyway. Decoction of the
bark taken with cow's milk with helping its poisonings, he believed,
and the unrife ones pound in small pieces and a
pole applied as a poultice relieve inflammation. He'd also mix
it with essentially lard and use it the same way.
Good for burns, good for cuts, good for bleeding, anything

(10:26):
where you need to have stringe and tighten up that tissue.
Oak galls are really extremely tannic. That's where a wasp
kind of gets in the bark and lays its larvae,
and the oak seals that area off to protect it.
You can tan leather with oak galls. You can tan
leather with oak bark in general, but the galls are
the highest concentration. Gerard wrote fifteen hundreds England, and of

(10:52):
course Gerard was the Queen's gardener, and William Shakespeare was
his neighbor. They love their oak trees, and many of
those plays, like A Midsummer Night's Dream and such were
written in Gerard's forest garden that he kept for the
queen under those big oak trees, and that's such a

(11:13):
huge part of British folklore in history. He says, the leaves,
the bark, the acorn cups, and the acorns himself do
mightily bind and dry. And the best of them, saith galen,
is the thin skin under the bark of the tree,
that which lieth nearest to the pulp, or the inner

(11:33):
surface of the acorn. All these stay the whites. It's
again of agule discharge, the reds, the spitting of blood,
and the lask. The decoction of these is given in
a powder of them dried for the purposes. Aforesaid if acorns,
if they be eaten, are hardly concocted, and gild no
nourishment to man's body, Well we know that not be true. Again,

(11:56):
I guess he didn't understand about the leeching out of tannins,
because once you actually leach the tannins out, or you
have what's called a noble oak, one that has a
low tan and acorn really one of the most nutritious
of all tree nuts, he said, swine fed on them.
We're particularly valued having hard and sound flesh. He said,

(12:20):
the acorns provoke urine, it's diuretic, and are good against
all venom and poison, but they are not of such
a stopping and binding faculty as the leaves and bark. Yes,
if you have internal bleeding of any kind, if you
have diarrhea, if you have to stop bleeding from a wound,
I would prefer pine pitch for that. But if you
can get to oak bark, just grab a limb and

(12:40):
scrap the bark off and make it decoction. You know,
decoction as we put one part of bark two points
parts of water and we boil the water down by half.
Then you can really a strange that tissue. It's very steptic.
It stops the bleeding and it works really well. He
mentions oak apples again. It's flucks fluxes the blood and lask.

(13:02):
That's actually the gaulls. They were called oak apples in
the fifteen hundreds. Says it's the oak apple stayeth the
women's diseases and causes the mother that has fallen down
to return again to the natural place. He's actually talking
about vaginal prolapse and that a stringent tissue tightening quality
seems to be rather effective, and that's usually done as

(13:23):
a bath the same steeped and strong white wine vinegar
with a little powder of brimstone that's sulfur and the
root of I'm not sure that ereos and he doesn't
define that would make the hair black. Okay, so Oak Park,
if you make head decoction of it, it will make

(13:46):
a very black a very dark tea essentially, And yeah,
it'll die your hair, you know. I don't think you
have to combine it with brimstone or any way anything.
But he also said it was good for sunburns, and
it is because again it tightens it a stringe a tissue.
It reduces inflammation. He also used it for freckles and
spots and such as that. Let's get to Colpepper about

(14:12):
one hundred years later. He says, so well known he
didn't have to describe it. So yeah, and oaks are
probably that well known today. I mean, that's like the
one tree just about anybody can identify. Yeah, the inner
bark of the tree and the thin skin that covers
the acorn or most used to stay the spitting of blood,
of the bloody flux, the decoxure of the bark or
the cups of the acorns do stay. Vomiting, splitting, spitting

(14:35):
of blood, bleeding at the mouth, or other fluxes of
blood in men and women lasks. Also, that's essentially diarrhea
and nocturnal involuntary flux of men wet dreams. Believe it
or not. Yes, that tightening of the tissue was believed,
and they were very concerned about that in the fifteen

(14:56):
sixteen hundreds. Not sure why, but yeah, they had a
lot of herbal remedies. The acorn im powder taking in
wine provokes the urine and resists the poison of venomous creatures.
The decoction of the acorns and the bark made him
milk and take and resist the force of poisonous herbs
and medicine. So also even by sixteen hundreds being used

(15:18):
as a remedy against poisons, that's interesting. We may need
to look into that. I mean, because you never know
when your kid's gonna eat something you shouldn't eat, right,
But I can't I have no medical evidence of that whatsoever.
Just anecdotal said it was good for the bladder, voids,

(15:39):
bloody urine, excess fluids, et cetera. Yeah, and we get
into a lot of stuff you already covered. Also good
for the liver, it's very bitter, good for the kidney
stones as a diuretic, and would stay women's courses of
course applied. Oh this is interesting. The water found in

(16:00):
a hollow place of an old oak tree is very
effectual against these foul or spreading scaps. They thought it
was good for skin infections essentially. I don't know. It
may well be it would just be rain water that
was in the hollow of an oak tree. So it's
so natural decoction. I don't see why you couldn't just
make it in your house, you know, in a pot,

(16:21):
But you know whatever. Getting up to more modern years,
we're talking nineteen thirties, Miss greeb really gets into the
history and lore, and you know, I love herbal folk lore,
but I'm not going to read everything she wrote because
she's got, you know, a thousand years of history. She
apparently the she said that both the Greeks and Druids

(16:45):
venerated the oak tree. I don't know, Like I said,
most of what we know about the Druids was written
by the Romans. Who knows, But the Romans apparently thought
it was special as well. And dedicated to Jupiter. I mean,
it's just a big, strong tree, and they live a
long time, and people have certain associations with them. I

(17:08):
know that the Romans said that the Druids thought that
mistletoe that grew in an oak tree had magical properties.
That all I know is that the Romans said the
Druids did there We have no evidence that the Druids
ever held that belief whatsoever. So anyway, you take all
that with a grain of salt. She gives a lot

(17:29):
of interesting anecdotes and poems. And this is miss Greeves,
a modern herbal It's only my book if you want
to read it, or you can get her book, you know,
two volumes, one of the best you can have. But
under medicinal actions and uses, she says, the astringent effects
of oak were well known to the ancients, by whom
different parts of the trees were used, But it is

(17:52):
the bark which is now employed in medicine. Its action
is slightly tonic, strongly astringent, and antiseptic. It has longest
stringent bitter taste, and its qualities are extracted both by
water and spirits or alcohol, and the odor slightly aromatic
it does smell pretty good. Actually, like other astringence, it
has been recommended in ag use it's fevers, hemorrhages, and

(18:14):
is a good substuit for quinine in intermittent intermittent fever,
especially when given with camamil. It's usedful in chronic diarrhea
and dysentery, or either alone or in conjunction with other aromatics,
and chucks bout everything from sore throat to prolapse. Again,
so interesting now, having said, you know, apparently this is

(18:38):
like the sacred tree of the Irish. Well we give
to John Keyho in the seventeen hundreds, he gives us
one sentence. No, I'm sorry, he's two sentences. The Irish
herbal gives us two sentences on oak. So bear that
inbind all parts of the oak have a binding nature,
and therefore are useful against diarrhea and dysentery, hemorrhages and

(18:59):
flows of all kind. The bark can be used in
gargles or for drop uvula. Yeah, so the loquacious irishman
gives us two sentences. So maybe the oak wasn't as
revered as the Romans seemed to think it was. Granted,
you know, there's a thousand years between those two accounts.

(19:22):
Things could have changed in Ireland over time. But one
to think if the oak was that you know, important
in Ireland, he would have written more than seventeen words.
But anyway, Father Nape, going to the German tradition, talked
about oak bark, and he says, are we then to
even use the bark of oak as medicine? Certainly be

(19:44):
it fresh from the tree or dried young bark of
oak boiled for about a half hour gives us sanitive decoction.
A small towel dipped into it and tied as a
bandage round the neck. Such bandages give great help to
people afflicted with thick throats and even with a win
on the throat if it is not yet grown too
large and firm. The decoction operates as a most effective

(20:06):
and harmless remedy. Complaints that the glands are removed just
as thoroughly by these bandages. Whoever is troubled with prolapse
of the rectum may often take sitting baths and decoction
of oak bark, and also from time to time and
enema of the deluded decoction. The troublesome and often dangerous
fistilla of the rectum is dissolved and healed by the decoction. Also,

(20:28):
hard tumors, if they are not inflamed, may be treated
and dissolved in the same way. Team made of oak
bark operates like resin in a strengthening way on the
inner vessels. His protegee, who was more of a professional herblist,
brother Aloisious, wrote the acorns togathered with the bark and leaves,
or used medicially. The acorns are gathered in autumn, burned

(20:51):
and ground into a powder when steeped in boiling water
to make acorn coffee. They are highly recommended for scrofula
that's infected glands of the throat and in many dispositions
which stem from it, such as diarrhea, abdominal swelling, anemia,
and lucorea. Use one sugar spoon powdered acorn in a
cup of water. The bark can be removed from two

(21:14):
or three year old branches. It has no smell but
a very stringent tastes, and is used externally in the
form of a compress, baths, washes, syringes, gargles, et cetera.
For a gargle. Take two to four teaspoons of the
bark per two cups of water for a compress two
thirds to one cup of leaves or bark per two
cups of water. Internally, one to two teaspoons of powder

(21:36):
bark should be taken in syrup, honey, etc. To control
heavy minstrul bleeding, blood spitting, blood in the stools. A
bark is also used externally in the form of a
compress for lupus, soft rotten ulcers, sores, et cetera, and
excellent remedy for lucoreas. To boil a handful of oat
bark for fifteen minutes and four cups of water, strain

(21:56):
and syringe or insert this evening. Drink one cup of
oak bark tea daily for blood spinning, heavy bleeding, painful bleeding,
urinary in confidence and continence, sorry, chronic dysentery, and excessive mucus.
So very useful actually in modern times. The Irbliss, with

(22:17):
whom I wrote the book The Herbs and Weeds, I
follow Johan Kunzel. Julana Whitsum says oak bark is my
strongest anti inflammatory and aseptic home medicine. I always have
oak bark at home, but thank god, I seldom need it.
I collect oat bark the same way I collect willow
bark and keep it dried in a jar. I would
use oak bark decoction externally for washing wounds which not

(22:39):
heal properly, or for very strong perspiration of the feet.
Interesting use, very traditional use, actually sweaty feet. He but father,
I think Wellcoonzell and Nape actually liked sweaty feet. They
thought that was a sign of health. So anyway, she says,
I use oak bark recipe for furm and cucumbers. Yes,

(23:02):
oak oak leaves. I meant to say, not oak bark,
very tannic, very good for keeping your cucumber pickles crisp.
I do that as well. She talks about using acorns
for food, and we've already discussed that the Lumby Indians
use red oak, and that's one of the more tannic oaks.
It's a lumbe. Herbil says, a handful of red oak

(23:23):
bark was boiled until the water became deep red. The
wash was used by Lumby healers rub on the skin
and affected by that was affected by poison oak. The
Lumbe also used red oak in an external wash to
bathe or to aid the treatment of chills and fever.
A tea made from the red oak was used by
many lumby healers to aid the system, especially after long fevers.

(23:47):
Bark was also used and as an a stringent, a tonic,
and an antiseptic. The tea was drank to serve as
an emetic and means make you throw up. It's very tannic.
It will actually make you throw up, and smaller amounts
to treat inoingestion, chronic dysentery, asthma, the debility of the system.
The bark was used externally and applied to sore chapskin

(24:11):
resources of the southern fields and forests. In the eighteen sixties,
talks of black oak another very strong one good for lucarea, menorrhea, diarrhea, rheumatism.
Because of its shrinking the tissue. It can be used
as a good soak for arthritic joints, pulmonary consumption to
stop the bleeding tonsillitis asthma. The galls or balls as

(24:35):
they call them, are powerful stringent, useful in diarrhea, dysentery, hemorrhage,
and intermittent fever. Used as gargle, especially for tonsillitis. Let's
see the same thing or white oak, yeah, says similar
to the black oak, but not as active upon the bowels.

(25:00):
This is stringent. In other words, let's see okay. King's
medical dimins Satory eighteen ninety eight says oak bark is
slightly tonic, meaning a little bit of the extraction in
whatever way you use, is good for digestion, powerfully as
stringent and n antiseptic. It is used in chronic diarrhea,
chronic mucus discharges, passive hemorrhage, and whenever an internal astringent

(25:24):
agent is required. See there's anything we haven't covered in that. Oh,
good for gang greeness or infected wounds. A powder of
the bark especially good for infected wounds and sores, even
gangreen and sickly intabilitated children. It helps with diarrhea, especially

(25:46):
as a result of fevers. That's the decoction, you know,
basically given as a tea. Yeah. Yeah, I think we
covered everything there. Yeah, we have, and in modern use
it's for future mentions. White oak, which we haven't really
covered a lot, says. White oak was often used medicinally

(26:07):
by several Native North American Indian tribes who valued it
especially for its antiseptic and astringent properties and used in
the treatment of many complaints. It is little, if all used,
if it all used in monnerbalism, and Okay, see, I
disagree with that because it's actually one of my go
to remedies, and anybody who owns my book probably does

(26:27):
use oak Park. Maybe more people ought to buy my books. Hey,
there's a good idea recommend my books. Let's see. It
is powerfully antiseptic and a stringent properties expectorant and tonic.
Bark is boiled and the liquid drunk and the treatment
of bleeding piles or hemorrhoids and diarrhea, intermittent fevers, costs
and colds, consumptions asthma, loss of voice, et cetera. Bark

(26:49):
has been chewed as a treatment from mouse source Externally.
It is used as a wash for skin eruptions, burns, rashes, bruises,
altars of vaginalle deuce. It has been used as a
wash for muscular pains. Yeah, the galls being more stringent.
They recommend collecting the bark in the spring. Peterson Field

(27:10):
Guide says a stringent inner bark tea once used for
chronic diarrhea, dysentery, chronic mucus discharge, bleeding in prolapse piles,
et cetera, as a gargle for sore throat and a
wash for skin eruptions, poison, ivy rash, burns, as a
hemostatic as a folk can ceremony contains tannins. Tannic Acid

(27:31):
is antiviral, antiseptic, anti tumor, and carcinogenic, so it could
actually be carcinogenic and in large amounts potentially toxic. Definitely
never want to have large amounts of tannic acid could
be very dangerous. In fact, Botany and Day says Medicinally,
the oaks are stringent throughout do the tan and the

(27:53):
bark contains querson compounds similar to salasin like aspirin. The
stringe is used internally for gum inflammation, sore throat and diarrhea,
externally used for first aid for first and second degree burns.
The tannins bind to proteins and amino acids, sealing off
the burns from weeping and from bacterial infections. A good

(28:14):
first aid plant. I emphasize that a lot the leaves
can be chewed into a mass a mash and used
as a stringent poultice. Oak galls have a high tanning
content as much as sixties seventy percent. I would avoid
the galls if you want to use those for tanning leather,
if you want to keep a small amount for an emergency.

(28:37):
I mainly use oak bark for the limbs. And you know,
it's much more predictable, a much less chance of toxicity
in my opinion, And interestingly, the physician's desk reference this is,
you know, the Doctor's book for herbal medicine tells us
it's approved by commission E for cough, bronchitis, diarrhea and
inflammation of the mouth and pharnex inflaming the skin. Oak

(29:01):
is used internally for non specific diarrhea. In smaller doses
it is used as a stomach tonic. The drug is
used externally for inflammation, inflammatory skin diseases, and inflammation of
the mouth and throat. In folk medicine, oak is used
for inflammation of the genital and anal area, separating exema,

(29:23):
a lot of different things, chill, blaines, even oak is
used in folk medicine internally for hemorrhagic stools, non menstrul
uterine bleeding, hematopsis, chronic inflammation of the gastro intestinal tract.
External uses include hemorrhoid bleeding, verico's veins. Yes, a soak,
hot foot bath, well of oak bark very good for

(29:45):
Verico's veins, uterine bleeding, vaginal discharge, rashes, chronic itching, scaly
and separating eczma, and eye inflammations they get into the galls.
I think we've already covered all that. It said. Also,
the goals were used for ginger vitis, and I guess
it's just to be that it's stringent tightening. You definitely

(30:07):
don't want to drink that. That would be more as
a mouthwash. So yeah. Interestingly, they said that it had
some sedative hypnotic effect. I don't I've never encountered that,
but something about it could make you a little sleepy.
That's all that really means. But anyway, that pretty much

(30:28):
wraps up oak. I mean, oaks are so common and increased,
incredibly useful, So I mean, get to know the oaks
in your area. There're probably thirty varieties growing around you
right now, and all you really got to do is
get out and id them and learn to use them.
And like I said, I usually do use limb bark,
never off the trunk because that can damage the tree.

(30:49):
It can wound the tree, it can lead to parasitic infection,
kill the tree. But you can cut limbs and use
that bark, and it's just there's more of the like.
Go to easiest simple home remedies I know of. Y'all
have a great week. How to audaxcent.

Speaker 3 (31:09):
The information of 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 US government does not recognize the
practice of verbal medicine, and there is no governing body
regulating herblens. Therefore, I'm really just a guy who stays herbs.
I'm not offering any advice. I won't even claim that

(31:31):
anything I write or say is accurate or true. I
can tell you what Earth has been traditionally used for.
I can tell you my own experience, and if I
believe in herb has helped me, I cannot, nor would.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
I tell you do to say.

Speaker 3 (31:43):
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 of
sensitivity and underlying condition that no one else even share
and you don't even know about. Be careful with your
health by continuing to listen to my podcast or read

(32:06):
my blog you read it. Be responsible for yourself, to
your own research, make your own choices, and not to
blame me for anything ever.
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