Mabel's Herb Blog

Today I'm talking with Leah at Mabel's Herb Blog. You can follow on Facebook as well.

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00:00
This is Mary Lewis at A Tiny Homestead, the podcast comprised entirely of conversations with homesteaders, cottage food producers, and crafters. If you're enjoying this podcast, please like, subscribe, share it with a friend, or leave a comment. Thank you. Today I'm talking with Leah at Mabel's Herb Blog. Good morning, Leah, how are you? Good morning, I'm good. Good. So tell me about yourself and this herb blog because I'm very curious about it.

00:29
Um, well, my name is Leah and I grew up in Southeast Texas, but I had my grandmother was from Nebraska and, um, about, I know that sounds random, but about six years ago, um, I took over the care of my mom who had Alzheimer's. And um, she had always been very.

00:58
pro-holistic care as her mother was. It was just kind of the thing her mom had taught her that, you know, in their belief, you know, pharmaceuticals, we had too big a dependence on pharmaceuticals and my mom didn't like chemicals in her body. So I mean, it kind of started as that when I was growing up. My grandma was a one-room school teacher.

01:25
this and I mentioned my grandma because that's who this is named after her name was Mabel. She was a one room school teacher so she taught a lot about you know botany and paleontology and all of this other she was a really good school teacher and that transition to us grandkids as we were growing up when we would go to visit grandma she was always teaching she was a teacher till the day she died.

01:55
in 1998, always teaching us, always showing us things as kids, which of course when you're a kid and grandma's teaching you paleontology, you're eager to go dig in the dirt and try to find dinosaur bones, you know? But the other side of that was also botany and herbalism and she taught a lot about plants and the importance of them.

02:24
Well, as a kid, you know, that's kind of the boring stuff. And I didn't really pay attention, of course. I knew then what I know now, I would have been hung on her every word. But about five, six years ago, when I started taking care of my mom, it really kind of hit home to me because they were wanting to pump my mom full of so many pills.

02:52
It was a pill for this, a pill for that, you know, and I knew that my mom would hate it. Because she'd have been in her right mind. She'd have been like, absolutely not. Let's find a natural way. And so I started studying herbs because I was like, there's got to be some kind of solution to help, you know, with her, all of her stuff, you know, not just her Alzheimer's, but everything. And um...

03:22
So I started studying plants and I realized that.

03:28
Herbalism and Western medicine, as I call it, pharmaceutical medicine, has a place to balance each other out. Herbalism doesn't have all the answers and neither does Western medicine. So that was my goal when I first started Mabel's Apothecary. And then in so doing, because in my studies, I was like, you know,

03:56
There's a lot of people out here that probably feel the same way about just shoving ourselves full of pills all the time. And so I started sharing on my website on Mabel's Apothecary.com and some friends of mine were like, Leah, you need to be putting this in a blog. You need to put this on a blog so that, you know, everybody, you know, even people who haven't been to your website can

04:24
can get this information and learn about their health. And so it kind of went from there. I started blogging about it. At first I was very gung-ho and I was doing it once a week. And then I realized that that was a huge job. So I've kind of slowed down to once a month so that I can do more in depth and get more research into my blog posts. And so that's where we are.

04:53
I got here. Wow. Yeah. Blogging once a week is a lot. Blogging once a day is a huge task. I did that for a little over a year many years ago about books and writing stuff. And after a year, I was like, I can't keep doing this. It's too much. So I understand why you would cut back to one a month. And yeah, if you have the time to put into one a month, then it can be a much more.

05:23
informative educational posts. So that's awesome. Yes. Okay. So did your, did your grandma grow herbs or did she just know about them? Oh, no, she had a yard full of herbs and plants and trees and everything you could imagine. She had, she was on a family farm. It was a century farm in Nebraska. So the family had had this farm for, I think,

05:53
when she died, it had been almost 250 years. So it was a family ancestral farm. And so there were plants from her great grandmother that were, or her grandmother, I'm sorry, her grandmother that she had planted. And then there were plants that her mother had planted and she had planted. And just over the years,

06:24
her yard was just covered in everything. And she never, it was a good thing she didn't live in HOA because they would have painted her yard kind of thing. Yeah. Because she did not believe in using pesticides. I mean, although she and her and my grandpa were farmers and pesticides had their place, you know, for their crops.

06:52
she did not allow pesticides in her yard. And so she saw value in every living plant that grew in her yard and the surrounding pastures. Even the what most people consider a nuisance such as dandelions and bull thistles and things like that.

07:22
had an appreciation and understanding and held a lot of value for every single living thing that grew in her yard. And she passed that on to my mom and me. Now, I do not have her green thumb. She had an absolutely glowing green thumb. And I have more of a brown one. It's getting better. But it's...

07:52
You know, she could take, and I witnessed this or I wouldn't tell anybody this ever happened, but she took a half of a leaf of a plant and stuck it in a pot of dirt. And by the end of the summer, there would be a small start of whatever that leaf was in that pot. Now I'm sure there was a little more to it than that, but as a child, that's all I saw was her pinch a leaf in half and stick it in the dirt.

08:22
Magic, yes. Yes. Well, I can vouch for dandelions. I tried dandelion root tea probably eight years ago. And I thought that it was going to taste terrible and come to find out it tastes like coffee to me. Oh, oh, yeah, with the root, yeah. Yeah. Add some of the flowers into it, it'll give it a floral taste. Yeah. And so if we.

08:50
If I don't want coffee, but I want, and if I don't want real coffee with the caffeine, dandelion root tea is a really good way to fake myself out that I had coffee.

09:02
Yes. And it's good for your kidneys and your liver. Mm hmm. Yeah. Much better than coffee. Well, I'm not giving up coffee because it's my favorite thing to drink in the morning, but... Oh me either. Occasionally I'm like, wow, too much caffeine today. Where's the dandelion root tea? Yeah. And it's really good. I didn't, I really thought I would hate it, but it's fantastic. No, the tea is amazing. And you can even put dandelion.

09:30
leaves and flowers in in a salad. And it's very it makes it very very floral and very not your average salad. It's really good. Yes, and I also learned a while ago because this is all I know about weeds and herbs. I learned that there is a a plant that I think is actually chicory.

09:59
that grows around here. It looks like a bachelor button. And I don't know if bachelor button is the other name for a chicory plant, I have no idea. But I had asked my husband to please, please, please dig me some from a ditch one time, because I knew it was chicory. And he was like, I don't know who that property belongs to. They probably wouldn't appreciate me digging it out. And I was like, okay, fine. So I did not get the chance to try it, but I'm gonna buy some seeds this winter.

10:29
and put some chicory in on purpose that we bought. And that way he doesn't have to feel bad about digging out wild chicory. It's probably better anyway, because I, with foraging, you have to be careful where you dig it up from, because you don't know what kinds of pesticides and other chemicals have washed down through the ditch. What kind of ick, yeah. Yeah, what kind of ick. And those do go into the plants. That's why a lot of

10:58
You'll hear some herbalists that are like wild foraging and they'll say, get it where you can off public land, but you have to be careful because the plants actually do take in the properties of the pesticides and chemicals and carcinogens that rinse off of the road and out of farm fields and things like that. And you don't want to get too much of that into your system.

11:24
No, because I don't want to die young because I was foraging something that was bad for me. Yeah, right. Exactly. But I will tell you that chicory root is very bitter. It's good for you. It's awesome for you, but it is very bitter. So you have to zhuzh it up a little bit. Yeah. It's very popular down south because...

11:53
uh, chicory coffee, uh, chicory used as a coffee was actually very, very popular, especially in Louisiana, Southwest Texas or Southeast Texas and, um, West Alabama and Mississippi. They all used it as kind of a poor man's coffee years, many, many, many years ago, but it's, it is very bitter. So just be prepared for that. So add triple the sugar. I would put in my coffee. I will, I'll make it. Probably.

12:23
Okay, so where are you located? I am located in Ozark, Missouri. It's a small community just south of Springfield, Missouri, which is where kind of one of the campuses is college campuses is Missouri, Missouri, state of Missouri, sorry. And there are several other colleges there. So it's basically a college town, but it's a little north of Branson, which is where

12:53
most people may know better because of Silver Dollar City and other things like the Andy Williams Theater and the Tillis's when they retired, they had a theater there. So that kind of place. Southwest Missouri. Okay. Awesome. I was going to ask at the beginning and I forgot. So you mentioned colleges and

13:21
study of herbs before you decided to do the blog? No, I didn't. I actually, I originally went to college for music as a music major, ended up with a degree in business administration. Okay. And this was purely purely just kind of started off.

13:47
just inquisitive and kind of a hobby kind of thing. I was kind of going through a journey, of course, with my mom and I had been through a pretty nasty divorce about 10 years ago and just kind of trying to find a new purpose in life. And it turned into a borderline obsession from there. Unfortunately, we don't have

14:16
here in the United States, there is no accredited degree you can get. Now, you can get certifications from herbal schools and things like that. And there are a lot of resources that you can go to to learn about herbs and things, which of course I have absolutely utilized. I have a friend of mine that actually used to teach in an herbal school in Florida.

14:46
And she has been kind of a mentor to me and a wonderful person. Um, so I kind of check with her to make sure sometimes when I'm not too sure about something, I'm like, eh, did I wear this clear enough? Did I, did I represent this accurately? And she'll read through my stuff for me sometimes.

15:09
Well, it's always good to have a friend in your back pocket if you need them to help out. So that's great. So my next question might be mildly inflammatory to listeners, but I'm going to ask it anyway. How do you get around the FDA when you're writing about these herbs? Because the Food and Drug Administration, they're very difficult about what you can say and what you can't say on a public forum.

15:39
So the only things that the FDA requires is that you don't make flat out claims of like cures. So for example, I can say dandelion root is very detoxifying for your kidney and your liver, but I cannot say it's going to cure your liver disease or your kidney disease. I cannot say that, you know, this is your...

16:08
cure-all for everything that ails you because I you know that is while there are tons and tons of scientific studies on a lot of herbs especially like dandelion, mullein, thyme, rosemary, things like that even they don't make claims of a cure-all or a cure for anything so I can't say that

16:39
this is going to cure your kidney disease or your diabetes or things. All I can say is that it assists with those things or it helps with those things or this is what the medicinal properties of this plant addresses in your system. So that's kind of how herbalists have to... That's where we have to be careful is not to make...

17:09
claims of curing or a treatment. It has to be worded as, here's an additional something to help, here is an alternative to, or do it in conjunction with your Western medicine. And in a lot of cases, that is absolutely the best way to go about it, because like I said, there is a happy balance between Western medicine and herbalism. There are a lot of...

17:38
I've heard some herbalists that claim, hey, this will help with your cancer. While it does scientifically have indications that it could help with cancer cells and things like that, I can't say it's going to cure your cancer. I can say it helps prevent the growth of cancer cells. So it's all wording. Exactly. Okay. Awesome. That's what I was wondering because...

18:03
We had to be really careful when we were talking about the things that we make and sell because I couldn't say this will fix what ails you because they don't want you to say that. No. Okay. So you are very into herbs. So if someone was going to start like a quote unquote medicine cabinet and medicine cabinets don't really exist anymore but you know I'm talking about.

18:33
What would you suggest be in that medicine cabinet regarding herbs?

18:41
Umm...

18:44
Well, a lot of that has to do with your medical history. Because there are herbs that can hurt more than help depending on what you have, if you have chronic illness. For example, people, I always have white willow bark. It's the original aspirin. It's what our synthetic aspirin is based off of.

19:14
is white willow bark. However, if you have a condition where you have to take blood thinners, you don't want to take white willow bark, obviously. Just like aspirin, you wouldn't want to take aspirin if you're on blood thinners because that makes it worse. It could make you bleed out and have other issues. There are quite a few, there are not, I should say, there are not that many herbs, excuse me, that

19:44
scientifically have been proven to not have counteractive results with specific medications. So it's really dependent on what is going on in your life and so that's why research is super super important.

20:12
You have to be careful. I is for me, for example, I am a type two diabetic. Mine is genetic. Um, I will never not be a diabetic. Okay. Um, however, if I take dandelion root too much, it causes because of its detoxifying properties, it makes my diabetic medication process through my kidneys faster. So while I take a once a week.

20:42
diabetic medication that's supposed to last me all week, if I take dandelion root on a regular basis, it will cause my medication to go through my system faster and thus render it ineffective towards the end of the week every week, if that makes any sense. Yes, it makes all the sense in the world. So you can't tell me what an emergency herb kit would look like because it depends on your own anatomy and physiology. Exactly.

21:12
One thing that I can tell you is Mullen. Mullen is one of those few herbs that they have not found any counter indications with any medications, with any chronic conditions, with anything that it's one of the few that don't, that they have not been able to find anything that it counteracts with. So,

21:41
That's what I mean by that. There's a few of them. There's extensive studies on it. I always go to, oh, what's the name of that website? I always use a specific website. Let me see if I can look it up. It's a government website that posts all papers on scientific studies.

22:11
see if I can find it. It's like in MDB or something like that. Well, if you don't want to take the time to look it up now, if you could just send me the link to it later, I can put it in the show notes. Yeah, absolutely. But um, but yeah, so I always suggest that you do extensive research. Don't just I mean, lots of people like to say Google is free. However, with Google, you can pay for the top results. So

22:41
Don't trust the first two or three links that you see when you Google the medicinal properties of whatever. So do some extensive research. Go into the second or third page of Google and find those places. Go to reputable places like Learning Herbs, although you have to pay for Learning Herbs. I think it's only like $8 a month.

23:10
If you use it regularly, it's really worth the money. Those people, you have a lot of new herbalists and then you have a lot of seasoned veteran herbalists, Rosemary Gladstar, Matthew Wood. All of those are people that have been doing this for decades and decades. Some of them have been doing it their whole lives.

23:37
And those are the people that I tend to listen to, which is why I try to cite all my sources that I get so that when you look at my blog, you see exactly where I got the information from. You are a smart woman. That is a good plan. Okay, so I have, I'm gonna try to stump you. There is a...

24:02
wildflower slash weed slash it grows in the woods by water, likes its feet wet, called jewelweed. Do you know anything about jewelweed?

24:13
I do not actually. Okay. Well. I don't live here in Missouri. I tend to like every once in a while I'll do something that's not native to Missouri. I have to do a lot more research about it. But so no, I have not done anything on jewelweed. Okay. Well, the reason I bring it up is that is one of our emergency kit things that we use

24:43
come to find out it's good for poison ivy. It helps with poison ivy, takes the itch out. And it's also good for like bug bites and bee stings. And we love this stuff. We use, I have like a quart mason jar full of sweet almond oil that has had the jewel weed soaked in it.

25:07
And so it's ready to be made into a salve. And I put it in lip balm tubes because it's just easier to do it that way. And my son used it last summer. He got stung by a wasp and he was like, where's the jewel weed stuff? Cause it's driving me crazy. And I said, it's right where it always is on the shelf. And he grabbed it, rubbed it on the stings mark and not even seconds later, he was like, the sting, the burn is gone. And so.

25:34
And so the reason I ask about this and whether you knew about it or not is because I was gonna say are there any side effects for jewelweed but you don't know yet. So not yet but we might see a blog post on jewelweed soon now because you brought you piqued my interest. Yeah and it's a really pretty plant. They look like little not like little they look like orchids. Little tiny orchid flower shapes. Yeah and there's yellow and there's orange.

26:04
I will tell you another one that's good for those same symptoms is, and you're probably, most people don't even know they have it in their yard, is plantain. Yes. And it doesn't matter whether it's longleaf or broadleaf. I had a very similar incident here not too long ago. I'm very bad in the spring, summer, early fall, having grown up in the south.

26:32
I am very bad about running around in my yard barefoot. I love to put my feet in the grass, touch, you know, have the grass between my toes. It is a comfort. I call it my grounding when I run around. I ground to the energy and the space of earth that way for me. I just love it. But anyway, I was running around my yard, taking care of all my plants in my yard or checking on them actually.

27:01
And I thought I stepped on a rock, to be honest with you. I was like, ooh, I stepped on a sharp rock. Because Missouri, in southern Missouri, our ground is extremely rocky. So sometimes these little rocks will work the way up through the soil. And so I didn't think anything about it, but I was like, ah, that kinda hurt. And then when I got done, you know, checking my plant, which I was almost done checking my plants anyway, I started to walk towards the house and I realized that it was starting to...

27:30
radiate like get worse and I was like maybe I didn't step on a rock well I sat down and looked and I had a little stinger stuck out on one of my toes and I said nope I got stuck I got stung I stepped on something and it stung me rightfully so um so I ran out my yard found some plantain in the ground and chewed it up and stuck it on there and within a few seconds that sting came out it wasn't hurting anymore

28:00
And then I took some turmeric and black pepper and made a paste out of it and kind of put it on it to kind of take the inflammation because while it wasn't stinging, it still was inflamed. So I did some turmeric and black pepper and made a poultice out of that and stuck it on there. And by the next day, couldn't even tell why it even got stung. So. Yes. And this is the stuff that I love hearing about because there are so many ways to handle.

28:27
And not not an injury more of an irritation Then going in and getting the store-bought stuff out of your bathroom cabinet, you know Oh, absolutely. And I feel like you know half the time that store-bought stuff does not work like it claims especially the over-the-counter medicines Not saying it don't work. I'm just saying they don't work as well as they claim Yeah, and and I don't okay

28:56
Honey is not an herb, guys. It's a food. Honey is really good too. Honey does things that you have no idea that it will do. It can actually help a wound heal. Yes. And I didn't know about this until a couple years ago. I was like, oh, okay. It has natural antibiotic properties in it, yeah. Yeah, and like I said, honey is not an herb. It has nothing to do with growing plants. It's something that honeybees produce. We all know this, but food can be healing,

29:26
There's a word I want. Not just nutritious. Yes, thank you. And herbs can be food too. I mean, I use rosemary and garlic and chives and thyme and basil all the time. And you think it's just good for you nutritionally, but it also is good for you for things beyond just feeding you.

29:56
Right. Exactly. And the thing about herbalism is not so much because you will find that most herbalists, if not all, use honey in addition to their herbs. So they consider it part of herbalism. It's probably more would be more considered holistic care. But the only difference

30:26
holistic care is the full scope, like including your honey and your cabbage and your tomatoes and all of that other stuff. It's called all-encompassing versus herbalism just really mostly focuses on the plant, the herb side of it. But really and honestly, everything that grows is an

30:55
if that makes any sense. Yes. So your oak tree that's growing in your yard is an herb. Your rose bush growing in your front, in the front of your house is an herb. Every growing plant is actually an herb. I didn't know that that was defined that way. Thank you. Yeah. Awesome.

31:21
Okay, Leah, we are at 31 minutes and 12 seconds. I try to keep these to half an hour. So I'm gonna let you go Thank you so much for your time. I learned so much today I hope the listeners do too.

31:34
Yeah, they can always go to the blog at Mabel's blog or they can go to my website at Mabel's Apothecary.com. I have my blog there too as well, as well as my products. And I always try to make sure and tell both the medicinal side and even the spiritual side connotations of herbs because they all kind of interconnect and work together. Fabulous.

32:04
Thank you so much, Leah. Have a great day. You too. Thank you. Yep. Bye. Bye.