Herb Quality is Everything – Part 1

1. Bacteria & fungi(micro-contamination). Many herbs arrive at the encapsulator already ground, thus mold or bacteria are not easily detected. So the herbs are put in a growing medium to see if unacceptable levels of mold or bacteria are present in the sample. Root herbs often contain E. Coli, as does Black Walnut hulls often harvested from the ground.
2. Check for the proper plant part by looking at the cell structure: Do you have red clover leaves or blossoms? Do you have St. John’s Wort leaves, roots or flowers? In both these cases it is the blossom that contains the important actives and if the other parts of the plant are included, you have a less effective product.
3. Chemistry: Does the ephedra have the proper balance of all 5 alkaloids? Is this a batch of Indian Valerian (which doesn’t have the active ingredient) or European Valerian, which is 4 times more expensive but contains the important actives?
   Some companies extract the essential oils from the herbs then try to resell the herbs on the market. You don’t want these.
4. Ash testing tells how much dirt is contained in the sample. Sometimes dirt is added because herbs are sold by weight. Someone brought me an Echinacea product which I opened and tasted. It tasted like dirt and did not have the unmistakable mouth feel that unadulterated Echinacea has. Don’t blame the herb if it doesn’t work. Check the quality.
5. Radiation: Russia was one of the world’s major chickweed suppliers. At the time of the Chernobyl accident, NSP is one of the few companies that would not market Chickweed because of the high levels of radiation contamination. Yet other companies had the radioactive chickweed on the shelves. Did they know? Did they check?
6. Heavy metal contamination– lead, arsenic…these can make you sick – not well. The FDA seized GNC’s calcium supplement because of the high levels of lead. Why weren’t they checking for this? This is very disconcerting to those who take supplements. (By the way, in 35 years NSP has had zero recalls because they check their raw materials before and after processing)
7. Toxic substances(DDT, Ethylene dioxide, fungicides, fertilizers) – Each of these has a chemical fingerprint that the proper instrumentation can detect. Korean Ginseng is often contaminated with pesticides that are banned in this country. El Nino was responsible for the high levels of arsenic found in Kelp. Does the company or food coop from which you get your Kelp test for these things?
8. Disintegration & dissolution studies – Does the supplement fall apart in a timely manner in the stomach environment?

So, is it time for the FDA to step in and make companies do these tests?

NO!! Government regulation always makes matters worse. Herbs need to remain food supplements that are openly available without a prescription or government regulation to the informed public. The concern many have is that the FDA has a tainted history and is likely to begin banning useful, therapeutic herbs like they have done with chaparral and comfrey and lobelia, which all have hundreds of years of safe use. (Unlike Vioxx, Celebrex, Baycol, etc.)

Pharmaceutical Companies want the FDA to hold herb companies to the same standards. But herbs are much safer and could never kill as many people as pharmaceuticals do. Rather…

We the consumers must insist that the bottle of herbs that we have in our hand came from a batch in which all the above tests were done. We the consumer must insist on quality.

Educate yourself further with some shocking stories on herb quality.