MEDICAL MONDAY: How a Master Herbalist is Made

Hey, y'all, welcome to herbal Medicine for Preppers. I'm Judson Carroll and I'm an herbalist. First of all, on this I'd like to thank James and Ryan for making this possible. I think a lot of the Prepper broadcasting network and it's a real honor to be asked to do this. First of all, I'm a very different herbalist, and I guess you'd say maybe ninety five ninety percent of those out there that call themselves by that title. While I am a. Certified master herbalist, I actually began my herbal apprenticeship when I was around fifteen years old. I was so fortunate and blessed to grow up in a very remote part of the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina. You ever read the fox Fire books, you may be able to envision the way of life to which I was introduced. My family actually came from the eastern part of North Carolina down the coastal spots, and we were very you know, traditional people, and my family's moving into the Carolinas in late sixteen hundreds early seventeen hundreds, so there was a lot of folk wisdom and home remedies that I was exposed to growing up, but in my teens in the Appalachian Mountains, thanks to my mother meeting a man at a dump site who turned out to be an internationally famous storyteller, I got to know the Hicks family in Beach Mountain, and I got to learn from some of the most legendary herbalists really in the country. The Hicks family lived probably ten to fifteen miles down a long gravel road on the backside of a mountain in the middle of nowhere, in a three generation old cabin with one electric light bulb, an outhouse, one wood stove. For heat, and one wood stove to cook on. Bill Ray became a nationally famous storyteller thanks in part to the fox Fire Books. They made their living either cutting timber or trapping or gathering herbs. The little garden small farm provided for much of their food needs. Hunting, fishing, trapping provided for their meat. They had a spring house, that's how people stored food. This was stepping back in time at least one hundred years and probably two hundred years, and I can fully attest it was the most wonderful, peaceful experience. Of my life. It was purer peace and quiet, pure traditional wisdom and something we. Can probably never replicate. And the first thing they taught me really was how to identify the herbs, because one of the main ways they made their living was wildcrafting, going out in the woods and harvesting genseeing and golden seal and various other herbs like angelica and such to sell to the Wilcox company. It would then turn into many of the herbal products you see in the storage today. So the way I learned about verbs is very different than most people, and to this day I am very different than most herbalist. I mean, think in your mind picture someone who's into herbal medicine. It's probably, you know, some hippie girl with Harry armpits or some you know, New Age whatever. Yeah, I don't get into any of that. I am politically conservative. I am traditional, you know, red blooded patriotic American, and I'm very orthodoxed about christian The way I learned about verbalism was as different as the way I practice herbalism today. You see, most people go to an urb school and they learn a specific herbal tradition, and they have formulas in a book, and they order what they need and it's it's very much like an alternative to going to a doctor. Well, okay, you know, I get that. But the way we. Learn, the way I learned was, first of all, Ted Ray and. Rosy's son would take me out in the woods or do. Rosie's garden where she grew many herbs, and teach me how to identify herbs. Walk outside, find the plant you need. Rosie would then tell me what that plant was good for, and then in her kitchen she showed me how to prepare the plant and use it. What I practice is kitchen medicine. What I can tell you is what an herb has been used for traditionally and how I use it. And I can teach you how. To identify it, and I can teach you how to prepare it, and then you made the decision how to use it for yourself best. This is kitchen medicine. This is medicine that you should be able to practice regardless what happens. You know, the economy is on the brink of utter absolute collapse, supply chains falling apart. Our medical system is not what it once was. I mean right now, medical error, malpractice, and over prescription, those things combined with really actual medical abuse are the leading cause of death in America. I'm not disparaging doctors. I'll go to a doctor if I had a heart attack or a compound fracture or something like that. They're really good. It's treating you know, really specific acute things. But on the other hand, what a virus, let's say, is going around. If people could take care of themselves and their families with kitchen medicine, they wouldn't have to go out and spread it to other people. And you know, go sit in a doctor's office for three hours to have a ten minute appointment and be used and abused and have. Their pocket picked. And maybe we could prevent. A pandemic, right, maybe we could prevent the next pandemic if we just learned to use say, anti viral herbs on our own at hunt, if we just learned to use herbs that clear the lungs of congestion, Herbs that help break a fever or lower a fever, that can help prevent the cytokine storm, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, there are a lot of them. In fact, this is our last battle with COVID. Here was very much like the swine flu that hit right at the end of World War One. Better than any pharmaceutical or vaccine or anything was an herb called sweet anti Ardemesia and eua. That herb worked. That herb was anti viral. Unfortunately, pharmaceutical companies don't have a whole lot of incentive in utilizing the herbs God gives everybody for free. The herb fell out of use. Only at the end of this pandemic, Like in the last couple of months, did I start reading studies and articles where people had rediscovered ardemesia and eua and found it to be effective in certain applications against the COVID virus. Well, I've had that knowledge all along. That's one of the herbs that I grew. My goal here in this show is going to be to give you the knowledge so that you can be prepared for whatever happens, not wait until the last minute, not have to run to a pharmacy or order something online or go to a doctor or whatever. But you've already gone outside and you've identified several plants. And you know what they're us for. You're growing several in your garden. You have some herbs, say if it's winter time. You have them dried and ready to use. Maybe you've made a few tinctures, okay, tinctures or where we take a dry herb and extract its medicinal properties in alcohol. Or maybe you have dry herbs and you're going to extract its forradicinal properties in water, which is what we call a decoction or an infusion akaa t Herbs. Are usually pretty easy to use. Now as a master herblist, I have a working knowledge of around four hundred plants. Well, first of all, I can identify it most of them. I can tell you how to grow. I know what they're used for, and I know how to use them. That's what I do is teach people, really those four pillars. I've written six books. My most popular have been Herbal Medicine for Preppers, homesteaders and permaculture people and Growing your Survival Herb Garden for you guessed it, preppers, homesteaders. And well everybody else. Until recently, I never really saw myself as a prepper. Growing up in the mountains, especially in a rural area where the powers likely to go out at any time, and the other side of my family being in the coastal swamps where we get hit. By hurricanes all the time. And you know, growing up on a farm, an old family farm, the mindset was always grow what we need in this season, store it for the next season, have plenty of wood on hand, have some kerosene on hand, have three ways to get fresh water. In many ways, my grandfather was really a pioneer of permaculture. He designed our family farm with all kinds of edible landscaping and all the elements arranged for convenience and efficiency, and it was a self sufficient farm. You could have everything you needed right there on that farm. To the point that he. Well, he actually had its own nuclear fallout chilter that he designed with a lead door and an air filtration system and its own water source and septic. The man was you way ahead of his time. It was not like a order a plan from the Sears catalog kind of thing. He designed. He was a builder, He was a brick mason. He was a timberman. He was a farmer. He was a mechanic, he was a draftsman, he was an architect. Heed his short preservation. Growing up with him as my hero. My mindset was really a homesteading mindset, a mindset of continual preparedness. In recent years, thanks to you, good friends, I've come to realize that I've been a prepper all my life and I just didn't know it, you know. So getting a bunch of certifications in agriculture and horticulture, three Permaculture Design certificates and Advanced Permaculture Design Certificate, that was all just kind of adding arrows to my quiver. I mean, my grandfather could do anything. I grew up believing that a man should be able to do anything, you know, from plumbing to cooking, to growing a garden, to your own medicine, to fixing your own vehicle to building your own house. That's just the way I was raised. Never really thought about it a whole lot, you know. I was also very blessed to learn German folk medicine from a lot of immigrants that had come over after the World Wars. These two schools of medicine gave me everything I needed. And so I got involved in certain forums and such, and people started saying. You need to teach, you need to write. Okay, I started writing. Well, now, writing is how I make my career here. Podcasting is how I make my career. Teaching people about herbs is my career. So I you know, I hope you'll join me on this. I think you're gonna really learn a lot. You know. I laugh easily. I keep things kind of fun and lighthearted. I think I can do a pretty enjoyable show. Send me any questions or comments. Judson at Judson Ferrell dot com. That is j U D. S O n C A R R O L L dot com. It's not Justin, It's not Jason as Newlborts. She used to say. I've been called everything but a child of God. Or you can give to me through Southern Appalachian Erbs dot blogspot dot com. I'm on Getter, I'm on me Wei, I'm on GAB, I'm a moderator of the Grown Network, and at preppernet dot com. You can find me a thousand different ways. I'm sure you can contact me through this site. I'll be glad to answer any questions in any way. I can look forward to getting to know everyone. I hope you'll buy my books. There available on Amazon dot com or directly through me if you want an ebook, but the paperbacks are on Amazon. Like I said, I have six titles now, with the seventh coming out soon. But the bottom line, and the thing probably out of stress, maybe a little more than I have, is we are really on the brink of a financial collapse. That's my personal opinion, that's the opinion of most people who knows our government's been out of control for far too long and lying to us far too long. You cannot keep spending money you don't have. You can't keep printing money without it losing value. You can't keep selling all of your valuable assets to China. You cannot keep offshoring and outsourcing your energy resources. You can't keep. Pumping in unskilled, uneducated labor and incentivizing your own citizens to come drug addicts and become dependent. It's gonna crash. It's not gonna last forever. I'm sorry. Hopefully everyone in my audience, hopefully everyone listening to the show has already come to that realization. Maybe that's why you've become a proper verbal. Medicine is absolutely essential to being prepared. With freedom becomes responsibility. Responsibility of taking care of yourself and taking care of your family is well next to god most important responsibility you have. Herbal medicine isn't wohoo, it's not mysticism. It isn't you know something. Far out until the mid well, until the nineteen twenties or two, almost every single medication sold in a pharmacy and prescribed by a doctor was plant based. I have pharmaceutical journals from around nineteen hundred and herbal manuals going back through Dealizabeth ten times, through the Middle Ages, all the way back to ancient Rome and Greece. Verbal medicine is not only tried and true, with empirical evidence from thousands of generations. Literally, it's proven in laboratories, it's proven effective, and I firmly believe the use of herbal medicine should be available to every person. I mean, I'm sorry. If the government doesn't like it, if they think they have to protect us from ourselves. I believe in taking care of yourself with herbal medicine. And that's simply what I'm going to convey, is to tell you how I do it. What I do. For instance, a few months ago, I was moving a washing machine into my mother's house by myself. The dolly kicked back on me as I was going up some stairs, split my shin open, fractured the bone several inches long wound that. Just would not stop bleeding. You know, I applied, sure, I did everything first Aid tells you to do, could not stop the bleeding because you know, it's a lower extremity. Every time I stood up, it would start bleeding again. I looked around, all right, what can I use? So hey? Pine tree? Pine tree? Pine is a wonderful herb. It's not just a tree. I mean, herbs aren't just little, you know, tender plants. Trees are herbs. I went and got some pine pitch. I rubbed some pine pitch into it, put advantage over it. The pine pitch stopped the bleeding, disinfected the wound, closed the sore, and I don't even have a scar. Herbal medicine can be that simple. It can be a survival thing, or it could be something you have on hand to treat chronic allergies. I have an herbal tin, sure I use for that, or to use when you have a coal, or for whatever you got going. Like I said, I mean, I literally know like four hundred herbs and their uses in a very common sense, approachable way. I simply want to present this to you, and I think it's going to be a lot of fun. I'm looking forward to it. See y'all have a great week, and we'll hopefully have another episode. Right for you this time next week. See ya. The information of this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or condition. Nothing I say or write has been evaluated or approved by the FDA. I'm not a doctor. The US government does not recognize the practice of verbal medicine, and there is no governing body regulating herblens. Therefore, I'm really just a guy who stays herbs. I'm not offering any advice. I won't even claim that anything I write or say is. Accurate or true. I can tell you what earths have been traditionally used for I can tell you my own experience, and if I believe in herb has helped me, I cannot, nor would. I tell you to do the same. If you use an herb anyone recommends you are treating yourself, you take full responsibility for your health. Humans are individuals, and no two are identical. What works for me may not work for you. You may have an allergy of sensitivity and underlying condition that no one else even shares, and you don't even know of it. Careful with your health by continuing to listen to my podcast or read my blog you read it, Be responsible for yourself, to your own research, make your own choices, and Not to blame me for anything ever