- Learn More About Herbs

The center of the herbal universe is China.

This is where herbal healing was born, and from where most herbs originate.

To learn more, click here Chinese herbs .

• Be careful.

What are you actually swallowing? And while you buy your herbal products in, let’s say, a local health-food store -- who are you really dealing with? You could really be dealing with one of the infamous“mountain bandits”, the people who are flooding this country with bad herbs. In particular, natural herbs are increasingly being adulterated with unlabeled synthetic substances (i.e. chemicals).

Bad herbs are growing like a plague, and local laws seem to make no difference. For example, Taiwan is a major herb exporter to the U.S., and unlabeled chemical additives are legally banned in that country. But does that make the slightest difference to the local herb industry? Not a bit!

Recent tests in Taiwan show that 23% - 27% of their herbs contain one or more chemical additives -- a fact that’s invariably hidden. This can be a major health hazard. First, because adulterants are usually added with with no uniform dosage. Second, when someone is taking prescribed western medicines, these adulterants could trigger severe side-effects.

So herbs are pouring in from Asia, to be packaged in this country, with little or no laboratory analysis. What exactly are you buying? Which herbs are pure, and contain their full potency? Which offer little medicinal value, and could even be bad for your health? You certainly can’t tell from what’s written on the label. Be warned.

It’s the same with herbs produced in countries other than China, and also locally-grown products. Increasingly, herb marketers feel it’s “not enough” to be pure and natural -- they’ve got to add chemicals.

NOTE: Plum Flower and Blue Light are almost unique in that they voluntarily submit their herbs to approved laboratories for testing for purity.

Would you like to learn more about the FDA and the drug industry vs. natural healing herbs?

• Rain forest discoveries. Tropical forests provide the natural habitat for about half, or 125,000, of the world’s flowering plant and cone-bearing species -- and many pharmaceutical drugs have already been discovered from this source. A recent articled in Economic Botany, the authors estimated that there at least 328 significant new drugs that still await discovery through proper screening of rain forest plants.

• The incredible intricacy of Chinese herbs. You wander into your local health food store or pharmacy, and you see rows and rows of herbal products. Lots and lots of ginsengs, gingkos, fo-tis, and everything else -- but how do you compare one brand to the next? Which ones have full potency, and which ones are weak -- and for that matter, why do specific herbs differ from each other?

These are important questions, and for some answers click these blue links, Searching for herbs in all the right places and "The Valley of Youth".