For those of you that happen to watch TV on Monday nights, there is a show on CBS called ‘The Big Bang Theory’. Basically a couple ‘geeks’ live next door to a ‘hot girl’ and they hang out showing us the differences they two have.

In yesterdays episode Sheldon, the double doctorate and masters degree holder having a job in theoretical physics, goes shopping with the girl next door. At the market Sheldon interrupts her buying a multi-vitamin. He tells her that a multi-vitamin does have some benefits but your body  can only take in so much. Sheldon says ‘usually all you end up with is some really expensive urine.’

What a laugh. I have discussed this before in a previous post. Your body simply only takes what it needs. Many energy drinks on the market are full of Vitamin Bs and of course caffeine. since Caffeine makes you urinate, you go to the bathroom quickly after drinking an energy drink. You now see that your pee is an ultraviolet yellow. This is how quickly your body has removed all these excess vitamins from your body.

Vitamins need only be supplemented when you are deficient in them! There has NEVER been a gain documented (that i have read) that has come from someone taking more vitamins than needed. Well, this also goes for proteins and many other things, but people still feel the need to supplement there too. Most vitamins are made by our bodies already. Guess what we need in order to make these vitamins? In most cases MINERALS! Basically eating the right food will get you all the vitamins your need which your body doesn’t make and everything you need to make these vitamins. Now, make sure you do a little research here because you need Sunlight on your skin to make Vitamin D.

So lets talk about a popular Vitamin that your body can’t make, Vitamin C. Now lets look at a small problem we may have if we are taking a supplement or multi-vitamin. People seem to think that Vitamin C prevents and cures colds and they love to take when they are sick. I will add here that there is no real proof here that Vitamin C can be used for preventative maintenance and that Vitamin C has never shortened the duration of a cold. It has only ever reduced cold occurrences in really active people in cold climates. Now, the daily recommended dosage of Vitamin C is about 100mg, which is very easy to get. Having some type of fruit and/or vegetable for lunch and dinner will almost always satisfy this. I have seen tests that show that about 300mg a day is an optimal dosage and shows gains in the human body. Again, this is not a difficult feat to obtain. Just look up what you ate yesterday and look up all the Vitamin C content.

Now, I know that Vitamin C has a history of debate over dosage, but this may be the first time you have read such information.

Lets look up a couple popular products with Vitamin C to look at this. First is Airborne a dissolvable tablet that is supposed be taken at first symptoms of a cold and taken to really knock down the length of a cold. Airborne has 1,000mg of vitamin C per tablet. Next I chose the ONE A DAY ‘ACTIVE’ multi-vitamin which has 120mg of Vitamin C. Emergen-C which also has 1,000mg of Vitamin C (I’ve seen numerous commercials on this lately so i wanted to include it). And lastly I am going to use a generic name vitamin C supplement by itself. These range from 350-1000mg, so I will pick the popular 500mg one. Now the Tolerable Upper Intake of Vitamin C is 2,000mg which is set by the government based on testing. Now the generic vitamin and the ONE A DAY are both just single supplements. Since I picked the generic 500mg, you are probably in little harm here. So even with a normal day of meals and you end up taking in 100-300mg of Vitamin C on your own, you are in the safe zone here. However the 2 marketed at ‘colds’ and ‘energy’ not only give you a single dose of 1,000mg that combined with a healthy diet puts you border-lined to much, but they both recommend taking 2-4 of these daily or ‘as desired’. Are you kidding me? Vitamin C is TOXIC in large doses. just following the instructions on Airborne could lead you to taking in 4,000mg of Vitamin C, double the recommended max! Vitamin C is an antioxidant as it sits. However, in high levels it turns into possibly making free radicals in your system. It makes you over urinate which is not good, can lead to kidney stones, birth defects, and can stop the assimilation of B12. Well there goes your ‘energy’.

Supplements are exactly what they are called, supplements. They should be there to supplement your need for vitamins at certain times when you are not getting the vitamins you need. As discussed before, minerals would qualify as more important than vitamins anyway. Assess what you need and take those vitamins. If your body could actually assimilate synthetics as it could food, then there would be food replacement pills! But there isn’t, and there wont be any time soon! Buy supplements as needed and make sure you keep in the ranges you are supposed to get.

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I’m always writing even when I’m not posting some great  info for you guys. Ive decided I’m going to start filling in the gaps of my posting to talk about articles I have written.

There are a few ‘weeds’ I’m gonna talk about in a few blog posts here. I’m talking REAL weeds. I live in Las Vegas where only casinos grow, but I literally have free access to these weeds. The full article can be found here: 3 ’weeds’ to cultivate I am not going to reword the articles for this blog post as you can read the entire article above. Let me start with one.

Dandelions are dreadful herbs to many people. They grow so easy and break up your nice lawn with yellow flower buds. People spend many hours in their lawn with a screwdriver pulling up the weed get the entire root out of the ground to pray it doesn’t grow back.
The dandelion is a very powerful herb to herbalists. I use dandelion for liver ailments and liver detox. The Chinese use the roots and leaves and its called Pu Gong Ying. Western Herbalists use mainly the roots. Dandelion has a powerful effect on the liver, and I have seen it single handed resolve liver toxins, spots, and stones. Pu Gong Ying is used in a few products at Dimmak Herbs including RockStar and UTI.
Dandelion tastes pretty good and smells great. A cup of dandelion tea works effectively on suppressing anger and explosive personalities. It is very soothing and can also be roasted and used as a coffee substitute.
Dandelion is not only non-toxic, but has properties to break up lumps. That means that dandelion can be taken in high doses over long periods to break up cysts and tumors in the body. This makes dandelion an obvious choice for cancer patients. It helps clean out the blood, detox the liver, and break up tumors. What else are you looking for in cancer treatment? Put this with the right combo of herbs and dandelion goes from the trash bin to the herb cabinet.
My last line about dandelion I wanted to add, as not everyone will read the article, dandelion is full of vitamins and minerals. You can find this in herbal decoctions that are used in mineral treatments almost every-time!

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Stress is a serious issue, bad enough that there are specific classes, degrees, and therapists for stress. Large corporations are even concerned about employees and occupational stress so much that they offer free counseling and hold seminars. I mention stress first here because it is a nervous  disorder and that is something new to most people. Other than regular nervousness other nerve disorders would be insomnia, nervous tension, crying, and restlessness. Most of these conditions will be handled a little different and I will explain. Herbs on your body that would be classified as a ‘nervine’ can either: ‘calm the spirit’, ‘anchor the soul’, or relaxes the nervous system. Calming the spirit refers mild settling down, such as a relaxing herbal tea. Honestly most herbs fall into this category although some are stronger than others. I would technically break this up a little bit, but I didn’t make the system. Mild forms of calming the spirit are usually ones that taste and smell great like Chamomile, and more powerful forms would be Valerian. When we refer to ‘anchoring’ the soul these are real powerful herbs that act heavily on your body to put you out. These are considered ‘heavy’ herbs, the anchor is pulling you down, much like you feel when you are in-fact tired. Most of these are actually minerals and should be used with caution and would include Amber and Oyster Shell. Lastly we have herbs that considered mild to medium ‘calming the spirit’ but more importantly calms the nerves and helps relieve stress, Skullcap would be a great pick here. Now, non of these issues should be taken lightly. Stress, insomnia, and tension can affect your performance, focus, and cause tightness and headaches.

Now to hit you with some knowledge. Lets talk about some real winners in the herb department here.
I can’t sleep. I hear this one all the time, but I want to break this down a little bit.
I can’t really get to sleep. Tea is gonna work best here. It is proven that regulating your body temperature you have a better sleep schedule. You don’t even need to buy herbs here, try taking a warm bath 2 hours before bed time and see how that works for you. Back to the tea. We want to employ calmatives here and ones that taste good in a tea. Chamomile, Lavender, and citrus/mint(lemon balm, peppermint) are all good here. Find what taste good for you and go with that just an hour before you want to go to bed.
I have insomnia or can’t stay asleep. Lets move to ’sedatives’ here. Getting a diagnosis would be best as it would help pick the right herbs, but lets throw something general at you and see if it sticks. Valerian, Skullcap, Suan Zao Ren, Mu Li, and California Poppy would make a great combo here. Valerian and Skullcap are really great sedatives and work as the main herbs. They both are important because depending on the condition one of these may not work for you, but the other will.  Suan Zao Ren is a great herb that is becoming popular even to Western Herbalists because Lady’s Slipper heavy use has brought it to near endangerment. Mu Li is oyster shell, and basically what is happening here is you are getting a large dose of Calcium and Magnesium as well as other minerals. Mu Li should be in half the dose as the rest of the herbs. California Poppy brings up the rear with a great ability to repair nerves and sedate pain as well. California poppy also contains no toxins like other poppies may. I would highly suggest this combo be pilled or made into a tincture as it will not taste so great as a drink!
Stress! Most nervines are tonics and this is exactly what we want to do, tonify the nervous system. This means our next formula needs to have Valerian, Lobelia, and Skullcap in it. We have already discussed 2 of these, so whats the deal with Lobelia? Well Lobelia contains lobeline and is known as a smoking replacement as it has similar properties of cigarrettes but without the nicotine. Lobelia is a herbal muscle relaxer and the reason it is important in many formulas. When your body is relaxed it will open up to treatments and allow a greater effect to be made. So we have some tonification and a muscle relaxer, what else? Honestly its up to you, there are lots of great herbs to throw in here, Hops would make a great addition and it seems the world loves hops :)… Pilling this or a tincture would be best and I would recommend the tincture as it would be an easy dosage and the alcohol would act as a stimulant. With some wide variety of herbs in this one I would also recommend Ginger for stimulation and harmonizing this combo.

If in doubt ask, but if nothing else it should help you out when walking down the aisles looking for something.

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Due to the recent comments made of a fellow webmaster at Doc1vitamins who sell vitamin supplements, I decided to talk about making sure your body has the vitamins and minerals that it needs. I admired that Doc wrote a blog stating a fact that if you aren’t deficient in vitamins in your body taking them isn’t going to do much for you. This is why I don’t really condone a multi vitamin as you would be better off testing your body for what your missing and work on helping your body assimilate what it needs. Should you be deficient in Vitamins in your body, change your diet and supplement when needed. What seems to be the blatant total overlook in developed countries is that our soil is quite deficient in minerals. So unless you grow your own food, you are missing out on minerals that are very important to bodily functions like metabolism, something everyone wants seeing how 33 million was spent on weight loss pills in the US. In reality, there should be just a great a concern to analyze your mineral content as vitamins. You should make sure you get your Minerals, just as you do with Vitamins. Well, here is a way to take in an easily assimilated mineral content of Iron, Calcium, Silicon, Magnesium, Potassium, Sulfur, Iodine, Zinc, and trace minerals. Here is what you need:
14g of each of the following herbs-
Parsley Root
Yellow Dock
Nettles
Irish Moss
Horsetail
Comfrey Root
Watercress
Kelp
Add all these herbs to a quart of water and simmer for 45 minutes. Strain liquid in a bowl and add another quart of water to the herbs and simmer for 10 minutes. Strain the liquid in the bowl with the other liquid, discard the herbs and throw all the water back on the heat simmer down for another 45 minutes and you should end up with say 3/4 of a quart or so now. If you want to get the full benefits of this and include the iron you have to add in Blackstrap Molasses. Just double the liquid of Blackstrap Molasses not going over 8oz. The molasses will also preserve what you have just made and will now keep for a couple months in the fridge! Take a tablespoon 3 times a day and that’s it!

Okay, so now your all full of minerals and have officially tasted some pretty nasty stuff, Sean how can we just keep up on our minerals? Well, you didn’t really ask that question because you love my blog and read the last post about sea salt. The SEA is where the minerals are! Seaweeds become tasteless and leave all of their minerals behind when slow cooked in something. I recommend Wakame, but Kombu is another good choice and is a better detox, but adds a touch of slippery texture to your food. Take a pinch of your favorite seaweed and add to your broth, soup, crockpot, chili, or anything your slow cooking. I recommend a small pinch per serving your making. Wakame can also be found in miso soup, a broth that is taken before meals to make sure you take in your minerals and warm up your digestive fires.

Note 1: Kelp is a secret weapon of mine for weight loss. Kelp adds delicious minerals to foods and can be taken often in capsules too.
Note 2: I would be more than happy to pack up and sell anyone a pack of mineral herbs to be made exactly as this recipe! The total is 4oz of herbs, you would need to supply the molasses. Email me at sean@blogofherbs.com if you would like to order some packs of these mineral herbs.

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