Papaya - a world class meat tenderizer, natural digestive aid, prevents ulcers, and also a soft contact lense cleaner.Coffee
Beyond the Boost
Family: Rubiaceae; (includes Gardenia, Ipecac, Cinchona)
Genus and Species: Coffea Arabica, C. Liberica, C. Robusta
Also known as: Arabica, Mocha, Java, Espresso, Capuccino, Latte
Parts used: Roasted, ground seeds (”beans”)
Next time one of your skeptical friends starts giving you a hard time about using herbs, here’s the perfect comeback: “Do you drink coffee?” Coffee is America’s most widely used herbal infusion. The average American drinks 28 gallons a year. But coffee does more than help us “take a break.” It may help prevent asthma attacks. It may boost physical stamina. And it may help people lose weight and overcome jet lag.
Coffee can also cause significant health problems. Few Americans appreciate just how potent it is. Coffee should be used as carefully as any other healing herb. Its active constituent (caffeine) is an addictive drug.
Tribal War Tonic
Our word coffee comes from Caffa, the region of Ethior where the fabled beans were first discovered. Archeolog’ evidence suggests that prehistoric East Africans loved cotfee’s remarkable stimulant properties. They ate the red, uriroasted beans (”cherries”) before tribal wars, extended hunts, and other activities requiring alertness, strength, and stamina.
The beverage we know as coffee emerged around A.D. 1000, when Arabians began roasting and grinding coffee beans and drinking the hot beverage as we do today.
In view of coffee’s enormous popularity, it’s surprising how slowly the habit spread. For 500 years, coffee remained in the Middle East Around 1500, spice traders introduced it into Italy, and within 150 years, it had spread throughout Europe.
Until the l Zth century, Arabia supplied all the world’s coffee through the port of Mocha, which became one of coffee’s names. Then the Dutch introduced the plant into lava, and the island quickly became synonymous with coffee.
An Agreeable Stimulant
Coffee has always been more popular as a beverage than as a healing herb. But European herbalists prescribed its stimulant effect to treat opium and alcohol sedation.
America’s 19th~century Eclectics prescribed coffee as “an agreeable stimulant that frequently overcomes the soporific [sedative] effects of opium, morphine, and alcohol.” They also recommended it to treat asthma, constipation, menstrual cramps, and dropsy (congestive heart failure)
The Eclectics also recognized coffee’s downside “If taken too freely, I coffee causes I irritability, trembling, confusion, ringing in the ears, and disorders of the bowel. On the other hand, if one is accustomed to moderate amounts, headache will result if the coffee be withdrawn.”
Folk healers have used coffee for centuries to treat asthma, fever, headache, colds, and flu. But few modern herbalists include it among healing herbs. How odd. Coffee is America’s Most popular herb.