One evening last month, herbalist Brigitte Mars popped open a root beer she'd bought because the label advised 'With Valarian,' a herb used as a sedative.
She sipped, and let the flavors roll around her tongue, searching for the valarian's assertive taste, but tasted nothing but root beer.
More tellingly, her nose detected nothing but root beer. One unmistakable characteristic of valarian is its 'nasty smell,' as Steven Karch writes in 'The Consumer's Guide to Herbal Medicine' (Advanced Research Press, $30).
'It was supposed to have valarian in it,' Mars said later, 'but I couldn't taste the herbs in there, so I can't imagine there was much. In some sodas, I can taste the ginseng or the ginger. But if you can't taste the herb, the herbs are just there to cash in.'
Look in the health-food section of many local supermarkets and you will find cans of soup that are instead labeled 'dietary supplement,' because they are enhanced with St. John's wort, an herbal antidepressant, or cold-fighting echinacea.
You'll also find bottled drinks that look like 'natural' sodas but are labelled 'metabolic enhancer' because they're fortified with ginseng, yerba mate or other herbal components. Cereals contain echinacea and elderberry. Ice cream has St. Johns wort.
David Kroll, an assistant professor of pharmaceutical sciences and toxicology at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center's School of Pharmacy, is bemused at the concept of marketing biologically active herbs-antidepressants, memory-enhancers, cold- fighters - to peddle potato chips, ice cream, cereal and other products. Would consumers buy cereal advertised 'with Aspirin Decongestants'?
'If a person is seriously depressed, then it probably wouldn't hurt them to use St. Johns wort in food, but they would need a therapeutic dose to be effective,' said Mars.
'And a therapeutic dose would be in caplet or tincture or tea form. You couldn't get it by eating soup wwith St. Johns wort three times a day.'
Although she has reservations about some herbally enhanced foods, Mars likes the fact that more people are taking herbs seriously.
I've bought breakfast cereal with gingko, because I like the taste. But that doesn't mean I don't take a gingko supplement later if I'm going to give a talk at a school that day. I think if you like the flavor, and it meets your nutritional needs - low fat, low sugar, high fiber - then you can enjoy those things.
But eating a cereal with gingko isn't as therapeutic as taking gingko twice a day.
- BY : Claire Martin
- SOURCE : Denver Post1999.08.08
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