Medicinal Plants - Natural, Wholistic, Organic, Side-effect-free, Safe

Nutrition is not just about stopping you feeling hungry or fueling your energy supply, it is also about maintaining your health and wellbeing,

Plants which offer valuable nutrition may not, as first taste, appeal as a food source, however if yo9u only eat to avert hunger, you will eventually fall sick and need to eat for health.

We believe you can eat to feed you hunger and maintain your health at the same time which is the very essence of natural preventative health care or medicine.

Earliest records that now survive, show that our ancestors discovered that some plants are good for food and others have healing properties, many have both.

This was the first step in a lengthy process of trial and error by which early man in different communities slowly built up the knowledge about plants.

Hippocrates (460-377BC) - who formulated the oath taken by many graduating physicians (the Hippocratic Oath) - known as the "Father of Modern Medicine" was fond of saying "Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food".

This clearly indicates that in ancient Greece the association between diet, plants and health was well-known and respected.

This knowledge has been handed down generation by generation by word of mouth and intuition.

Herbal Medicine uses herbs fresh and dried, added to your food, or as herbal teas, in tincture form, and as an extract.

If you look at the plant kingdom you can often recognise the signature that nature has provided. Some leaves look like a heart, others like blood vessels, others like veins and so on. Known as the doctrine of Signature, these indications have guided mankind's use of Nature's pharmacopia for thousands of years.

There are thousands of different types of herbs and many trees and barks are used for medicine as well.

Some of the medicinal plants we use daily at Middle Path include:

• Aloe Vera ( Barbadensis miller )
• Catsear ( Hypochaeris radicata )
• Cayenne Pepper ( Capsicum frutescens )
• Chickweed ( Stellaria media )
• Cobblers Pegs ( Bidens Pilosa )
• Coconut ( Cocos nucifera )
• Coriander ( Coriandrum Sativum )
• Dandelion ( Taraxacum Officinale )
• Golden Rod ( Solidago virgaurea )
• Herb Robert ( Geranium Robedianum )
• Lemon ( Citrus limon )
• Loquat ( Eriobotrya japonica )
• Papaya or Pawpaw ( Carica papaya )
• Plantain or Ribwort ( Plantago lanceolata & major )
• Shepherd´s Purse ( Capsella bursa-pastoris )
• Stinging Nettle ( Urtica dioica )
• Turmeric ( Curcuma Longa )
• Vervain ( Verbena officinalis )
• Wild Raspberry ( Rubus rosifolius )
• Yellow Dock ( Rumex crispus )

We dry quantities of herbs for making teas by infusion, in Australia it has become illegal to refer to these as “medicinal” or “therapeutic” - in fact to make any public statement suggesting thay have any beneficial effect upon a person's health - and so we offer them as teas.

Most of these plants have been used throughout mankind's history on planet earth for their medicinal and therapeutic properties.

Here you can see a quantity (about 12 KG) of dock leaves ready to start its processing journey.

You can see what's involved in processing a plant to make a herbal tea here.