In the past couple of years my dear old mum has given me two fantastic books that I thoroughly enjoyed reading. The first one is The Ultimate Book of Herbs by Readers Digest and the second book is Jekka’s Herb Cookbook by Jekka MacVicar. Both books devote their pages to different types of herbs and many of them can be grown in the garden too. I love the idea of growing my own. One day I hope I will be able to grow a lot of edible plants in the garden.
Many years ago we would have brought ourselves a plot of land. We would have built a house on part of that land and then grown our own vegetables and herbs on the rest of it. Nowadays, we don’t tend to grow our own as much. With the introduction of supermarkets it isn’t really a necessity anymore. A lot of families have two cars so they concrete over their front drive way to be able to put both cars on. Many back gardens now look like something from the Chelsea flower show. I’m not saying their is anything wrong with that but I do think as humans we need the earth and the herbs it grows to survive.
For hundreds of years herbs have been a part of our history. Sadly, in this modern world we are scared to utilise plants to their full potential. Herbs were once used to add aroma, flavour and texture to our foods. They are extremely beneficial to our diet and they have medicinal purposes as well. Over thousands of years it has been well documented that herbs are great to use as an antiseptic, preservatives and they can help to prolong the shelf life of food. Plus they can help to aid digestion and they are brilliant for our mental health too.
The books I have been reading have given me an insight into herbs and how many of them could help us in modern life. Many people today are suffering with a number of aliments. The information I have gathered from these books is that there is a herb in the world for all types of diseases and illnesses. It is my belief that when we lived is caves our senses would have been 10 times as strong. When we were unwell or if we began to feel unwell we would have been able to find the herbs that would help to fix us. Our instincts would kick in and we would know exactly what to do. We would find the plants that could help us to move on.
As we no longer have such a strong sense of what will help us we have to rely on books and the internet. However I do think we still know what is right or wrong for our bodies. Therefore we can help ourselves when we are unwell but we need to know the world of herbs better before we dive in. Unfortunately, The Ultimate Book of Herbs by Readers Digest is no longer available to buy but Jekka’s Herb Cookbook is still available. Both books are beautifully written and contain a large amount of information on the subject of Herbs. If you are interested in herbs I would recommend these books.
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