Cook Michelle Schoffro - Be your own herbalist : essential herbs for health, beauty, and cooking

Advance praise for Be Your Own Herbalist

Be Your Own Herbalist takes us through the history and folklore of the magnificent world of herbal medicine and all it has to offer. Dr. Michelle Schoffro Cook provides practical and valuable information on how to easily incorporate herbal medicine into your everyday life. Whether you are searching for home remedies for common ailments or are an herbal practitioner, this book will certainly be useful.

Dr. Cobi Slater, PhD, DNM, RHT, RNCP, NNCP, author of The Ultimate Metabolic Plan and The Ultimate Hormone Balancing Guidebook

Be Your Own Herbalist highlights common yet extraordinary healing plants that grow wild or that can be planted in your garden or found at your local farmers market or grocery store. Michelle Schoffro Cook shares many wonderful recipes for nutritious, healthful foods and offers an essential guide for anyone who wants to bring the power of herbs into their life!

Beverley Gray, herbalist, natural health practitioner, and author of The Boreal Herbal: Wild Food and Medicine Plants of the North

Also by Michelle Schoffro Cook, PhD, DNM

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E-BOOKS

Acid-Alkaline Food Chart

Cancer-Proof: All-Natural Solutions for Cancer Prevention and Healing

Everything You Need to Know about Healthy Eating

Healing Recipes

The Vitality Diet: 21 Days to a Leaner, Healthier, Happier, More Energetic You

Copyright 2016 by Michelle Schoffro Cook

All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, or other without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

The material in this book is intended for education. No expressed or implied guarantee of the effects of the use of the recommendations can be given or liability taken. It is not meant to take the place of diagnosis and treatment by a qualified medical practitioner or therapist.

Illustrations by Peggy Duke (except )
Text design by Tona Pearce Myers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Cook, Michelle Schoffro, author.

Title: Be your own herbalist : essential herbs for health, beauty, and cooking / Michelle Schoffro Cook, PhD, DNM.

Description: Novato, California : New World Library, [2016]

Identifiers: LCCN 2016003505 | ISBN 9781608684243 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH: HerbsTherapeutic use. | Cooking (Herbs) | Self-care, Health. | BISAC: HEALTH & FITNESS / Herbal Medications. | COOKING / Specific Ingredients / Herbs, Spices, Condiments. | GARDENING / Herbs. | COOKING / Health & Healing / General.

Classification: LCC RM666.H33 C685 2016 | DDC 615.3/21dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016003505

First printing, April 2016
ISBN 978-1-60868-424-3
EISBN 978-1-60868-425-0
Printed in Canada on 100% postconsumer-waste recycled paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

I dedicate this book to the love of my life,
my husband, Curtis.
You are my inspiration in all that I do.
I am eternally grateful to share life with you, my soulmate.

Contents

A s clinical herbalists and founders of the Harmonic Arts Botanical Dispensary, we find Michelle Schoffro Cooks book to be in alignment with what we are facilitating in our company and practice: teaching people to be their own herbalists. This concept appeals to us in many ways: It takes the power of healing away from external entities and puts it back into the hands of each unique being to create their own story of health. It fosters the confidence to trust the bodys innate wisdom in working with the therapeutic properties that plants have to offer. Most important, it allows the body to work within the natural scope of what Mother Nature intended, thus limiting the need for man-made, isolated chemical compounds in the form of pharmaceuticals and highly concentrated extracts. Foreign to the bodys natural systems, these can create harmful side effects and addictive patterns.

We view the path of wellness as a way for each person to create their own adventure and design their unique lifestyle. Once a person is empowered with natural health knowledge and information, they can decipher what the best possible health choice is in any given moment. In a world full of health trends, it can be difficult to sort out what is what. Going back to basics and looking at what has healed people time and again throughout history and across a multitude of indigenous cultures brings tried-and-tested validity. By comparison, our modern allopathic medicine system is very young and limited in scope.

There is an important place for both herbal and modern medicine in the world. In this book, Dr. Cook clearly demonstrates the complementary nature of plants as health allies. Through our lifelong journeys of understanding health and wellness, we have come to recognize that what comes from the earth harmoniously aligns with our bodies, also of the earth.

In Be Your Own Herbalist, Dr. Cook not only explores traditional uses of herbs but also gives credence to current applications, skillfully weaving traditional herbalism with proven modern scientific methods. She offers up-to-date, scientifically validated findings of successful uses of plant medicine.

This book focuses on thirty-one medicinal plants that can be found across multiple bioregions and are readily available fresh or dried in health-food stores and other markets. Knowing these plants intimately is more useful than being superficially acquainted with the larger spectrum of plant medicine. This book guides you in exploring these thirty-one great plants in a multifaceted way, giving you the opportunity to build with each one the kind of relationship youd have with a dear friend. It also allows you to work with the plants from the outside in, preparing the herbs in a myriad of ways, from creating body-care products that introduce the plants properties to the frontlines of your system to cooking them and letting food be your medicine. Fun and varied herbal concoctions let you play in the kitchen and discover your favorite ways of creating wellness for yourself and loved ones.