Common Food Plants:
Nature's Pharmacy
by Peter Fenton
 Mongol
doctors, it is said, use every conceivable plant to make medicines. A story is
told about a doctor teacher who sent his students into the forest during an
examination with instructions to collect those plants which cannot be used in
medicine. All the students returned with multiple specimens, except for one
young man who returned empty handed, saying that there is nothing in the forest
without medicinal value. That student was given the full mark and, later on,
became a famous doctor.
One afternoon at the ITTM in
Kalimpong, Professor Lama Chimpa, a Mongolian himself, reinforced my impression
that nature is a fully stocked pharmacy. "Medicines," he told me,
"are made from all sorts of materials. Some physicians practice only water
treatment. Such a doctor collects water from various sources: from the sea, from
the top of a mountain stream, from wells, dewdrops, rain water, melted snow. All
of these samples are kept in different containers for months or years at
appropriate temperatures. Some of this water is boiled, while some is kept in
the sun. There are people who have blind faith in water treatment. It is said
the water treatments are very good in acidic trouble or stomach upsets.
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"No part of the plant is
left unused in medical compounds. The roots, sap, flowers, and leaves are all
used in medicine preparation. Not a single flower is considered useless for
medical composition.
"Once I heard a Mongol
doctor say that all of those flowers on which butterflies sit are ready medicine
for various diseases. And these offer good vitamins, too. One can eat such
flowers without any hesitation. A flower rejected by butterflies is poison. But
even if it is poisonous, it becomes medicine when it is properly composed. Like
a notorious thief who can become a good and useful person when he is properly
trained and taught, a poisonous plant can become very effective medicine. In
fact, Mongol and Tibetan doctors use medicines prepared from poisonous plants
when the disease is a severe one."
Having seen for myself the
riches of nature's medicine cabinet, I readily agreed.
COMMON FOODS AS MEDICINE
We typically forget that many
common foods have medicinal value. Some of these plants require processing for
long-term storage. Others, like barley, beans, garlic, and squashes, can be kept
just as they are. These herbs and foods can bring relief for mild headaches,
colds, light fevers, minor cuts, and blemishes.
Common wild plants, such as the
dandelion, plantain, and sorrel are very powerful herbs. The dandelion, for
example, is unparalleled in stimulating the flow of bile from the liver. St.
John's Wort, currently hailed as an effective, natural antidepressant, is sold
in grocery stores throughout the world at very high prices. The plant, as it
turns out, has a long history of medicinal use and has always been well known
for its therapeutic properties. It grows everywhere and spreads rapidly.
Interestingly, it is classified as an undesirable weed in Idaho and everywhere
else there is grazing land. By 1950, this plant, a native of Europe, had, as the
Forest Service put it, "infested" approximately 600,000 acres of land.
Poison to one is manna to another.
Common Food Plants: Medicinal
Properties
|
PLANT
|
|
* MEDICINAL PROPERTY
|
|
apples
asparagus
barley
basil
beans
garlic
ginger
onion
orange
soy beans
|
|
*
a mild laxative
*
diuretic
*
demulcent
*
antispasmodic
*
diuretic
*
anthelmintic (vermifuge)
*
diaphoretic
*
antiseptic and tonic
*
carminative
*
natural source of estrogen
|
 This
article is excerpted from
Tibetan
Healing: The Modern Legacy of Medicine Buddha, ? 1999 by Peter Fenton.
Reprinted with permission of Quest Books/Theosophical Publishing House. http://www.theosophical.org
Info/Order book.
About The
Author
Peter
Fenton, Ph.D., is an educator, journalist, and naturalist. He has
traveled to India and Nepal, seeking the few places where Tibetan
refugees still practice Tibetan medicine in its entirety. His passion
was to preserve their ancient art and explore its secrets for our own
well-being today. He is also the author of Shaolin
Nei Jin Qi Gong: Ancient Healing in the Modern World and The Wisdom of Tai Chi:
Ancient Secrets to Health and Harmony.
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