More on Chaga!

There's been a lot of interest in the post I did in September on Chaga and the Wild Harvesting Dilemma. As a supplement to that, I've just put up a video on YouTube taken from an Herbal Field Studies field workshop last August in which I discussed chaga.  Enjoy!

That being said, in the couple of months since I wrote that post I have seen a disturbing acceleration in the number of products containing chaga on the market. It's being added to vitamin supplements and various kinds of powdered supplements, and most disconcerting of all in food products as well! Sadly, this is the result of a lot of companies trying to cash in on the chaga craze at the expense of chaga, the environment and the people who really need it. It's also just a marketing gimmick! In most cases these products don't contain enough of the fungus to have any health benefits. However, they may have enough in them so that if these products are consumed on a regular basis for a long time our body could get used to the chaga and it won't work as well if some day we really need to use it. This is why I never recommend the use of vitamins, powders or food products that contain medicinal herbs! This is not an appropriate use of these medicines. They are not meant to be consumed in minute quantities over very long periods of time.

Aside from the fact that minute amounts of chaga (or any herb for that matter) in a multivitamin or chocolate bar are not going to do much for anyone, the bigger issue here is that chaga is difficult to cultivate and the cultivated fungus is significantly inferior to the wild harvested source. As a result, it's wild harvested chaga that these companies are using. For reasons that I explained in my previous post on this topic, wild harvesting chaga on a commercial scale simply is not sustainable. Even if the level of consumption stays at the current rate (and it is actually increasing rapidly), within a few years this fungus is going to be severely depleted in the wild like other herbs that have been over-harvested such as ginseng (Panax spp.) and goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis).

Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis) is now rare, endangered or extinct in most of its former range due to over-harvesting.

Even if it was useful to consume chaga in this way, it should not be used on a commercial scale until good quality cultivated sources are readily available. That also goes for other wild harvested herbs and foods unless they are species that are very aggressive or "invasive" by nature and the scale of harvesting isn't too large.

I strongly encourage anyone who uses herbal products to only use those that are manufactured from certified organically grown sources. In the case of chaga, if you love and respect herbs and Nature, you might even want to consider complaining to stores or companies that sell or manufacture these products. If we can raise the level of awareness of these issues maybe things will change before chaga goes the way of other herbs that have been over-harvested.

So, you might ask why I'm putting out information on the medicinal uses of chaga at all? Firstly, although the current popularity of this fungus is not a good thing, I'm hoping that some good can come of it by using it as a vehicle to help raise awareness of these issues. Secondly, I feel that it is a very important part of our healing process that we engage with Nature as much as possible and learning about herbs and making our own medicines is a great way to do that for those who are so inclined, as long as it is done in a respectful manner. Teaching people how to do this is one of the ways that I can help people to connect with Nature and the medicines that they use, as well as how to do it in a way that honours our relationship with the world we live in. Finally, chaga is an awesome medicine (when used correctly)! Nevertheless, due to the significant reduction in wild populations, I have significantly reduced my use of it to those conditions where it really excels, which are conditions of the bone marrow and autoimmune conditions that don't respond as well as I would like to some of the other herbs that I typically use for these types of conditions. I also only use it at a proportion of no more than 20% of a formula. For all of its other uses chaga works no better than many of the other herbs that I use. I also encourage everyone else to use it similarly to reduce our impact on wild populations.

Unfortunately, chaga is primarily being promoted for use as a general tonic, which leads to the greatest amount of consumption. Although it can be very effective as a tonic when used correctly, it should not be used indiscriminately. However, under the current circumstances I no longer recommend its use in this way. There are many medicinal mushrooms and other herbal immune tonics and adaptogens that are available commercially from organically grown sources that work just as well. There's no need for chaga to be used as a general tonic.

Turkey tail (Trametes versicolor) is an excellent tonic mushroom that is readily available from organically grown sources.

If you do wish to harvest some chaga for personal use, it should only be harvested in areas where there is no evidence that anyone else has been harvesting it. There should also be a fair bit of it around so that you only have to harvest from a small percentage of the fungi. Chaga often grows high up where we can't reach it, so look up. If you only find one that is growing at a level that you can reach but there are at least a few in the area growing up high, it's fine to harvest it. Look for fungi that grow out past the surface of the tree and only harvest up to 50% of any given fungus. Make sure that you leave some of the outer black crusty portion and don't cut it deeper than the surface of the tree.

Although chaga is traditionally used as a tea, it is best to make a tincture of it. The amount of fungus required per unit dose is much smaller for tinctures because they extract the chemical constituents and are assimilated more efficiently. There are some people who claim that medicinal mushrooms can not be extracted as tinctures. This isn't true! Most of the people who make these claims are affiliated with companies that use expensive high-tech extraction methods that you can't use at home. Some have been propagating this misinformation to encourage people to use their products. The key to making a tincture is that the fungus must be chopped very fine, basically to the level of a very course coffee grind. It is best to use a menstruum (extraction medium) that is 60% water, 30% alcohol and 10% glycerin. This menstruum will efficiently extract polysaccharides and other constituents that don't like alcohol, but still extract those that like alcohol efficiently as well. Finally, the herbs should be macerated (soaked in the menstruum) at least three months before you press and filter it to make your tincture.

It wasn't my intention to keep harping on this topic. There was a lot of action on my previous post on chaga, so I decided that it would be nice to put up a video on it. The video was recorded about a month before I did that post. It was coming across that butchered chaga during that field workshop that inspired me to finally write that post, although I had been thinking about it for some time. After seeing a growing number of ridiculous products containing chaga appear on the market over the last couple of months and then watching that video a few times while editing it, I felt like there was a bit more I needed to say about it. So there it is! The next post will be about something else...

More Support for Exercise!

OK, so I've been an absent parent for awhile and this child of mine is feeling somewhat neglected. The last few months have been really busy and it's easy for me to forget about this blog. It's not something that comes naturally to me.

Things haven't changed that much. I'm still really busy. In the last couple of days I harvested and prepared the following macerations: 2 litres of fresh common burdock root (Arctium x nothum); 6 litres of fresh marshmallow root (Althaea officinalis); 7 litres of fresh maidenhair tree leaf (Ginkgo biloba); 9 litres of fresh rosemary leaf (Rosmarinus officinalis). Welcome to the life of an herbalist!

Common burdock (Arctium x nothum).

So now lets get to the point of this posting. Here's some information on an interesting study that was recently published:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=exercise-lengthens-life-regardless-12-11-06

This is another study that on some level is verifying the benefits of exercise. Unfortunately, the focus of the study was on life expectancy rather on quality of life indicators. Nevertheless, life expectancy is potentially an indirect indicator of other things. For instance, presumably a big part of the reason that the people in the study who got more exercise lived longer was because they were experiencing a lower incidence or later onset of the kinds of things that can kill us. Those kinds of illnesses also reduce our quality of life. So, some level of increase in quality of life can possibly be inferred. It is, however, possible that some of the subjects got sick with the same illnesses, but they developed more slowly to a level that produced mortality. So it is still possible that some of these people were chronically sick. This wasn't covered in the study but would have been a good parallel line of enquiry that they could have pursued. It is also possible that they did collect this kind of data but haven't analyzed and/or published it yet.

There's a lot of research on the benefits of exercise and these results are to be expected. However, there was one very interesting finding that resulted from this study. The researchers found that people who are obese who exercise regularly live longer than people whose body weight is in the normal range but don't exercise. This is a very important result because it means that for many people inactivity potentially has a greater negative impact on their overall level of health and well-being than obesity. Of course, in the real world the situation is far more complex than that. For instance, inactivity is one of the major causes of obesity. But there are many people who are overweight that exercise regularly and still have difficulty losing weight. There are a lot of reasons why that might be the case, but the important thing here is that they will receive health benefits whether they lose weight or not. It is so easy to get discouraged when we don't see the visible benefits of exercise. The results of this study are an encouragement to keep at it because the benefits are real even if they aren't visible.

Although in the last few decades there has been a growing number of people in our society who are taking positive steps to implement a healthier diet and/or lifestyle into their lives, we still have a growing segment of the population that are overweight or obese. This is primarily due to diet and lifestyle issues, although we can't ignore the deeper psychological, social and spiritual reasons why people make the kinds of choices that they do. On the surface it is obvious that the typical modern lifestyle is way too sedentary. Our bodies are designed to be on the move most of the time. Things that are misused usually break down. Unfortunately, even among the more health conscious members of our society, there tends to be two distinctive camps: those who try to eat good quality natural food but rarely exercise, and those who get lots of exercise, play sports and eat crap. Diet and exercise are two sides of the same coin. Living a healthy life means eating well and being active. That is why the Harvard Medical School Healthy Eating Pyramid has daily exercise and weight control at the base of the pyramid [See: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/files/Healthy-Eating-Pyramid-handout.pdf]. This pyramid represents the best dietary and lifestyle choices that can be recommended based on the research that is out there.

The bottom line is that the modern Western lifestyle is far too sedentary. We need to spend less time sitting at a desk, in front of a computer, watching television, playing video games and driving around in our cars and SUVs; and a lot more time walking, hiking, playing sports and working out. As always, the difficult part is changing the old unhealthy patterns and replacing them with healthy patterns. Once the new patterns are established it gets a lot easier. Most people don't realize how bad they feel until they start doing things that are good for them and feel the difference.

It is also important to keep in mind that we aren't going to be able to maintain a healthy activity and lifestyle regimen if we don't enjoy it. We need to experiment a bit until we find the kind of exercise that we like if we want to be able to sustain it in the long run. Being in nature is always healthy and healing. We spend most of our lives cut off from the real world. So if getting out in a natural environment is an option I highly recommend it.

Sasha doesn't need to be convinced that exercise is good for her!

Before I sign off on this one I'm going to rant a bit on another issue that this study has brought up for me. I do take issue to some degree with the fact that the primary parameter that they are looking at is life expectancy. Our society is obsessed with wanting more of everything without any consideration of quality or consequences. Life expectancy is no exception. Most of us are so afraid of death that we will do anything to extend our life at almost any cost. I don't see any point in living an extra 10 years if we are going to spend it in a nursing home pumped full of drugs. What kind of quality of life can we expect when we force our body to continue functioning beyond it's expiry date? Of course, it is likely that we will live longer and be healthier if we live according to healthy principles. Extending our life naturally by living and eating in a way that promotes greater health and well-being is not the what I'm addressing. It's amazing how much money is pumped into "longevity" research, seeking ways to extend life at any cost. This has got to be one of the most absurd and selfish things that I can imagine. We are already over-populated and a large (and growing number) of us are significantly over-consuming. The goal of our economic pundits and the multinational corporations that they serve is to produce endless amounts of junk as cheaply as possible and make sure that everyone is consuming as much as possible. It doesn't take very much intelligence to realize that this is unsustainable. We are quickly eliminating all of the resources that our children and grandchildren will need in order to survive, not to mention all of the other beings that we share this beautiful planet with. If we find unnatural ways (drugs, stem cells, genetic manipulation, etc.) to increase average life expectancy by 10 or 20 years we will be taking even more from future generations. How about we just learn to be satisfied with what we have and live our life to the fullest? In our society we need to learn to embrace our death; to learn from it instead of pretend that it isn't going to happen. Our lives will be so much fuller and more rewarding if we learn how to live and die with dignity. To live a healthy, well-balanced life, we need to integrate the bigger picture rather than to live our life as if we are the centre of the universe. Of course, whether we intend it or not, our last act of generosity will be to nourish the fungi and bacteria that create the soil for the future benefit of all living beings!

Turkey tail (Trametes versicolor) is a medicinal mushroom that eats wood, not human remains.

But who knows what the tree was eating?