Our first Short Course, Comfrey & the PA Puzzle, is now available. Learn about the constituents in Comfrey including the details on pyrrolizidine alkaloids (PA), their toxicology & the safety of Comfrey as a traditional herbal medicine.
If you're interested in our Make Better Medicine course, Solubility & Extraction, for process based herbal pharmacy (the next step beyond the recipe based approach) click through for details. Our second Make Better Medicine course, Extraordinary Elixirs! (& Herbal Infused Honeys) is also available. This course shows you how to make concentrated infused honeys & potent, multi-tincture / multi-honey herbal elixirs. Elixir is the new syrup!
Also this Fall, we continue work on the third class in our Make Better Medicine series: The Art and Science of Botanical Tincturing! We'll cover maceration, percolation & twenty-minute tinctures using fresh or dried herbs. Learn how to make concentrated, consistent & potent hydroethanolic extractions with optimal EtOH percentage & extraction ratios. What's the best menstruum, ratio & method for tincturing your favorite herbs? Come find out how many different options and answers there are to that question! Which method is best for extracting the desired constituents from a given herb? We'll show you how a knowledge of polarity, solubility and constituent groups guides you to capture the phytochemicals that make your products more powerful. If you have a basic knowledge of how to make a tincture, this class will help you take your skills to the next level and create professional quality herbal extracts!
Registration for Semester 2 of our Herbal Constituents course is now closed. Semester 1 has wrapped up for 2023 and Semester 2 is underway. This comprehensive course goes in-depth to explore the nature of constituents, structure and function, solubility & extraction, synergy and variability, which plants contain which phytochemicals, how constituents contribute to the actions and energetics of Western herbs, and how to use our knowledge of them in clinical practice. Each class incudes a live 2.5-hour webinar with Lisa Ganora and Kat Martello ... If you really want to understand constituents and basic botanical chemistry, this could be the class for you: Two 12-week sessions, each with videos, study guides, PowerPoint decks, handouts, quizzes, optional assignments, a forum, and the live webinars. Sign up for one session or both! Registration for Semester 1 will open again in 2024.
Get your copy of Herbal Constituents today!
Herbal Constituents presents the most important concepts and research on phytochemical compounds in medicinal foods and herbs.
Basic Language of Phytochemical Structure
In a clear, step-by-step fashion, the reader is first introduced to the basic language of phytochemical structure including bonding, polarity, functional groups, isomers, and more. This non-mathematical presentation distills the information that is important for understanding the personalities and activities of constituents in medicinal herbs.
Making Herbal Medicine:
Extraction, Solubility, Solvent Polarity & More
These chapters address areas of interest for the botanical practitioner including solubility and extraction of herbal constituents, polarity of solvents and solvent systems, and other influences on solubility, phytochemical stability, and reactivity in extracts. We also explore synergy and variability in herbs and formulas, and the role of standardization.
Herbal Constituent Categories
The book presents a detailed and thoroughly referenced chapter for each of the major categories. Each chapter contains numerous illustrations and explanations of the botanical occurrence and physiological activities of the constituents, and is based on up-to-date research considered in the context of traditional usage.
Extensive Illustrated Glossary
Herbal Constituents concludes with an extensive illustrated glossary having some 250 entries that will be helpful for those needing to review some of the most important concepts and terminology from organic chemistry, biochemistry and phytochemistry.
Meet the Author
Hi! I'm Lisa, author of Herbal Constituents. It's my pleasure to offer this updated and expanded 2nd edition to students and practitioners of botanical medicine.
More about Lisa
