Kava

Botanical Name: Piper methysticum G. Forst.

Family: Piperaceae (Pepper family)

Other Names: Kava Kava · Ava · Awa · Yaqona · Intoxicating Pepper

Parts Used: Root and rhizome, peeled

Quick Look

Kava is the peppery root that the people of the Pacific islands have made into a calming drink for thousands of years. It relaxes tight muscles and quiets anxiety while leaving the mind clear. Reach for it in a tense, anxious spell when the body is strung as tight as the mind, and for sleep that worry and tension keep away. It is an herb for the hard stretch, not for every day.

Actions, Energetics & Taste

How It's Been Used

Anxiety & tension. Its chief use today. Herbalists reach for it in acute stress, when the mind is overwhelmed and the stress has settled into the muscles. It helps with social nerves and stage fright. The old physicians gave it for dizziness and low spirits.

Sleep. For sleep broken by anxiety and a body that will not let go: tight muscles, a clenched jaw, a knotted gut.

Tight muscles & cramps. Used for muscles that stay tight, for spasms, leg cramps, menstrual cramps and tension headaches, and for restless legs. The infused oil is rubbed into tense muscles.

Nerve pain & toothache. The old American physicians counted it among their most reliable remedies for nerve pain of the face, and used it for toothache and earache. Because it numbs the mouth, it has served as a mild local pain-reliever there.

Bladder. The old physicians' great use for it. It was given for an irritable, painful bladder and painful urination, and for bed-wetting in the young and old when the muscles are weak. Herbalists today use it for bladder spasm and an overactive bladder.

Appetite & joints. In small doses it was said to sharpen the appetite, and it was a pleasant remedy in rheumatism and gout.

The island drink. Across the Pacific the root is pounded or grated into cold water and shared at ceremonies and social gatherings.

How to Make & Take It

Preparations: Tea · Tincture · Oil Infusion

• Tea, the island way: Stir 1 teaspoon powdered root into a cup of cool water. Let it stand five minutes or more, then strain it through a cloth. Drink one to three cups in a day, waiting a quarter of an hour between cups to feel its effect.
• Tincture: 1:2 in 45% alcohol, ¼ to ½ teaspoon, twice a day. Some herbalists keep to the water drink and do not use tinctures or concentrated extracts.
• Infused oil: Steep the root in oil and rub it into tense, aching muscles.
• Buying: Herbalists choose noble Kava, the old drinking varieties, and the root only, from a seller they trust.
• How long: It is for a hard spell, not for daily use. Herbalists take it for four to six weeks at most and then take a break.

Cautions

• Herbalists have raised a concern about Kava and the liver. They tie the trouble to poor-quality material, to the stems and leaves, and to concentrated extracts, and not to the root prepared in water as the islanders make it. Herbalists do not use Kava where there is liver trouble, or alongside alcohol.
• It makes some people drowsy and slows the reflexes in large amounts, so herbalists advise against driving after it.
• It adds to the effect of sleeping pills, anxiety medicines and other sedating medicines, and herbalists do not use it with medicine for Parkinson's disease.
• Herbalists avoid it in pregnancy and nursing, as a strongly sedating herb.
• Heavy use over a long time brings a dry, scaly, peeling skin. It clears when the Kava is stopped.

Know the Plant

Kava is an evergreen shrub of the pepper family, six to ten feet tall or more, with jointed stems that grow something like bamboo and large, glossy, heart-shaped leaves. The root is a large stump with many side roots. The plant seldom flowers and does not set seed, so every Kava plant is grown from a cutting of another.

It is native to Vanuatu in the South Pacific, and islanders carried it with them to Fiji, Tonga, Hawaii and beyond. In the United States it is grown in Hawaii. Growers tell noble Kava, the kind long used for drinking, from tudei Kava, whose effects hang on too long and can bring headache and nausea.

A Little History

The botanical name means "intoxicating pepper." Pacific islanders have drunk Kava for two to three thousand years. Captain James Cook met with it in Tahiti in 1769, where the root was chewed to a pulp, covered with water and strained. King's American Dispensatory (1898) recorded that "The taste is said to resemble soap-suds and tannin," and that in large amounts it brought a quiet, drowsy intoxication, unlike that of alcohol. American physicians of that day valued it most for the bladder, and some counted it their most reliable remedy for nerve pain.

Kelp (Bladderwrack)

Botanical Name: Fucus vesiculosus L.

Family: Fucaceae (Rockweed family)

Other Names: Bladderwrack · Kelp-ware · Sea-wrack · Rockweed · Black Tang · Cutweed

Parts Used: The whole seaweed

Quick Look

Bladderwrack is the brown seaweed with the little air bladders that covers the rocks of the North Atlantic shore, and it is the seaweed the old herbals and many herb shops call Kelp. It is a salty, cooling, mineral-rich herb, valued above all for its iodine. Reach for it as a food-like source of minerals, for a sluggish thyroid that lacks iodine, and, in a bath or compress, for stiff and aching joints.

Actions, Energetics & Taste

How It's Been Used

Thyroid & goiter. Its oldest fame. People who lived by the sea and ate from it seldom had goiter, the swollen neck that comes from too little iodine, and burnt seaweed was a goiter remedy long before iodine was discovered in its ash. Herbalists use Bladderwrack for a slow thyroid that lacks iodine.

Weight. From the 1860s it was a noted remedy for stoutness. It was thought to suit best a cold, sluggish person carrying soft, loose weight, and it was said to need three or four weeks to show its effect. Even the old physicians did not all agree that it worked.

Glands. The old physicians held that it acts strongly on the glands, and the slippery juice of the bladders was rubbed on swollen glands.

Joints & sprains. A liniment of the fresh seaweed was rubbed on rheumatic joints, and a compress of it was laid on sprains and bruises. Herbalists still use it in compresses and baths for arthritis.

Stomach. Its slippery, cooling substance soothes heartburn, acid reflux and an irritated stomach.

Bladder & kidneys. It eases an irritated bladder and long-standing bladder inflammation.

Weak, flabby tissue. It was said to tone slack muscle, and was given for a fatty heart and for menstrual trouble with a weak, flabby womb.

Food & farm. A small amount eaten daily is a source of minerals. On the coasts it was fed to cattle and spread on the fields as manure.

Kelp or Bladderwrack? Bladderwrack is a rockweed of the shoreline. The true kelps are different, much larger brown seaweeds that grow below the tide line, and they hold far more iodine. Kelp powder sold for the kitchen is often one of these. Know which one you have.

How to Make & Take It

Preparations: Tea · Tincture · Powder · Compress · Bath

• Tea: 1 teaspoon dried Bladderwrack to a cup of boiling water. Cover and steep 10–15 minutes. Up to 3 cups a day.
• Tincture: 1:5 in 25–45% alcohol, ½ to 1 teaspoon, three times a day.
• Powder: A pinch to ¼ teaspoon a day, stirred into food.
• In the kitchen: Add a little to soups and broths, or mix the powder with salt as a seasoning.
• Compress: Soak a cloth in a strong, warm tea and lay it over the aching joint.
• Bath: Add a strong tea, or a bag of the dried seaweed, to a warm bath.

Cautions

• Iodine helps a thyroid that lacks it, but it can aggravate other thyroid troubles. Herbalists do not use Bladderwrack with an overactive thyroid or with Hashimoto's and other autoimmune thyroid conditions, and those with a goiter or on thyroid medicine work with a knowledgeable practitioner.
• Herbalists use it in small amounts and take breaks from it, since iodine adds up.
• Seaweeds take up what is in the water, including heavy metals. Herbalists choose seaweed from clean waters and from sellers who test it.
• Herbalists differ on its use in pregnancy and nursing, and its safety then has not been established. Talk with a knowledgeable herbalist or care provider first.
• Herbalists advise care alongside blood-thinning medicine.

Know the Plant

Bladderwrack is a perennial brown seaweed. It grips the rock with a hard, flat disk, and from it grow flat, coarse, forking fronds, yellowish to brownish green, two to three feet long, with a rib down the middle. Along the rib sit air bladders in pairs, from the size of a pea to a hazelnut, which float the fronds up when the tide comes in.

It grows between the tide marks on rocky shores of the North Atlantic, in the northeastern United States and Europe. A close cousin, called rockweed or popweed, grows on the Pacific coast. The true kelps live below the tide line in cool water, where they form underwater forests and can grow as much as eighteen inches in a day.

A Little History

"Kelp" was first the name of the ash left from burning seaweed, and Bladderwrack, one of the seaweeds burned to make it, was called Kelp-ware. In 1750 Dr. Russell gave the charred seaweed for goiter and swollen glands. In 1812 Bernard Courtois discovered iodine in seaweed ash, which explained the cure. In 1862 Dr. Duchesne-Duparc reported that Bladderwrack reduced weight without harming health, and it became a popular remedy for stoutness. By 1931 Maud Grieve could write that "kelp-burning as a source of iodine is a dead industry," though the seaweed was still gathered all along the British coast to feed the fields.

Kudzu

Botanical Name: Pueraria montana var. lobata (older name Pueraria lobata)

Family: Fabaceae (Pea family)

Other Names: Kuzu · Kudzu Vine · Ge Gen

Parts Used: Root, and the starch washed from it (kuzu). The flowers are also used.

Quick Look

Kudzu is the vine that blankets the roadsides of the South. In its Asian homeland it is an old medicine and a food. The root is a cooling, sweet remedy that loosens a stiff neck and shoulders, quenches thirst in a fever and settles the stomach and bowels. Root and flower have long been used to ease the effects of drink and to quiet the craving for it.

Actions, Energetics & Taste

How It's Been Used

Stiff neck & shoulders. The root relaxes tension and spasm in the upper body. It is used for long-standing tightness, stiffness and pain in the neck, shoulders and upper back, and it is the old Chinese remedy for the stiff, aching neck that comes with a cold or fever.

Colds & fevers. Taken for colds and for fever with great thirst, and in China to help bring out the rash of measles when it is slow to appear.

Stomach & bowels. Used for diarrhea and an upset stomach. The warm kuzu starch drink is a household remedy in Japan, and the root is added to ginger tea for nausea.

Alcohol. A Chinese text of about 500 A.D. recorded that the flower would undo the effects of drink. The flower is taken for the morning after, with its nausea, headache and thirst, and herbalists use root and flower to quiet the craving for drink.

Head & heart. Used for the headache, dizziness and ringing in the ears that go with high blood pressure. It is said to calm the heart and nerves.

Lyme. The herbalist Stephen Buhner, out of his long experience with people who have Lyme, used kudzu root as a supporting herb for its nerve and brain symptoms. He held that Kudzu strongly protects the brain and nerves, and gave the tincture for the neurological troubles of Lyme, for Bell's palsy, and for the nerve pain of Bartonella, an infection that often travels with it. It is not taken to kill the infection. It is taken alongside the herbs that do, often with Chinese Skullcap, to shield and quiet the nerves. This use rests on experience with people rather than on studies, and it has held true in practice.

Change of life. Herbalists use the root for hot flashes.

Food. In Japan the starch thickens soups, sauces and desserts much as cornstarch does. In the South the blossoms are made into jelly, and the vine is fed to livestock.

How to Make & Take It

Preparations: Decoction · Tincture

• Decoction: Cut the root into small pieces. Simmer ¼ to ½ ounce of dried root in a pint of water for 30 minutes. Drink it in two or three portions through the day.
• Tincture: 1:5 in 50% alcohol, ¼ teaspoon, three or four times a day. This is the form and amount Stephen Buhner used for Lyme.
• Kuzu drink: Dissolve 1 teaspoon of kuzu starch in a little cold water or apple juice. Stir it into a cup of water or apple juice just at a simmer, and keep stirring over low heat for 2 to 3 minutes, until it thickens. Add a little fresh ginger juice if you like. Drink it warm.
• Flower tea: Simmer ⅛ to ¼ ounce of the dried flowers in a pint of water.

Cautions

• Kudzu has a long history as a food, and herbalists count it a gentle herb.
• It contains plant estrogens, so herbalists do not use it with hormone-sensitive conditions such as breast cancer.
• Safety in pregnancy and nursing has not been established. Talk with a knowledgeable herbalist or care provider first.
• Herbalists advise care alongside medicine for blood pressure, blood sugar or thinning the blood, since Kudzu may add to their effect.
• Kudzu may help a person drink less, but a drinking problem needs more help than an herb can give.
• A high or lasting fever needs medical attention.

Know the Plant

Kudzu is a perennial climbing vine of the pea family. Each leaf has three broad leaflets, oval or lobed. After its third year it bears sweet-smelling purple to wine-red flowers. It can grow a foot in a day, and old vines reach a hundred feet, climbing and smothering whatever stands in the way.

It is native to Japan and southeast China. In America it now covers some ten million acres of the Southeast and is moving into the Midwest and Northeast. It is a declared pest: gather it freely, but do not plant it.

A Little History

Kudzu root has been used in China for more than two thousand years, and in 1249 the physician Li Dongyuan wrote down a famous kudzu-flower formula for the effects of drink. The vine came to America at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition of 1876, admired as an ornamental for its sweet-smelling blooms. In the 1930s the Soil Conservation Service planted it across the South to hold eroding soil, and by 1945 it covered half a million acres of the Southeast. By 1970 it had been declared a pest, and it is now called "the vine that ate the South." Southerners have made the best of it: Edith Edwards, the kudzu queen of North Carolina, turned it into tea, syrup and blossom jelly.