Tea, Capsules, or Herbal Extracts?

When you make a tea with herbs, you basically are removing the water-soluble

constituents contained in the herb itself. For some herbs this is fine, but there

are still the oily, resinous and waxy substances that you may want to utilize to get

the full effectiveness. This is particularly true when using herbs for medicinal uses.

Many people have went into health food stores and purchased herbal teas for

medicinal uses, made them into a tea and did not get the results they were looking

for. This is due to a few factors - the herb may have sat on the shelf for a long time

and the effectiveness had diminished, the herb was of poor quality to begin with, the

active constituent they needed was not water soluble, or they simply had the wrong

information on which herb they needed.

All active elements are ingested with the herbal powder in capsules, but often when

a person needs the assistance of herbs, the digestive tract is in bad shape and unable

to absorb them well. The digestive tract must break down the gelatin capsule, then

the herb itself, and then must utilize the constituents of the herb. Many elderly and

children have a hard time swallowing capsules. The shelf life of capsules is usually

longer than teas.

With herbal extracts, both the water and the alcohol-soluble elements are drawn out

of the raw herb material. Herbal extracts are much stronger than capsules or teas.

You only need to do a small amount to get benefits. All extracts should start out

with a minimum of 40% ethanol (alcohol from grain). Anything less than that does

not effectively pull out all constituents (some herbs, such as Usnea barbata, must

have 95% alcohol in order to pull out the active constituent). Alcohol will pull out

resils, oils, and waxy substances. The alcohol in the extracts allow rapid absorption

of herbs by the body and gives them a very long shelf-life provided they are closed

tightly and kept out of direct sunlight. It also aids absorption through the skin when

the extracts are applied externally (for sensitive skin, coat area with vitamin E oil first).

Extracts are effective when taken internally or applied externally. Drops of the

extracts can be put on the tongue or added to other liquids, such as water or juice.

In the case of infants or people incapable of ingesting capsules, herbal extracts are

the optimum solution.