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RE: [ITA] Ecco perche' la camomilla fa' bene
I'm not surprised at the efficacy of various herbal remedies and I've seen a lot of herbs dried which didn't seem to work very well for medicine or for food but I hadn't really thought about why dried plants were less effective. Knowing about the oils makes sense.
I expect that altering the method of storage so that only the oils are kept could make a difference in other considerations such as how the herb is used (rubbed on, eaten, inhaled) and whether it can be effectively combined with other things for different results?
Indeed dried herbs contain only a fraction of the oils, and as you said it's crucial to desiccate the plants properly to prevent bacteria/mold contamination. I think there are companies that sell plant oil extracts, usually the cheap ones are extracted using chemical solvents (thus you should not ingest these) but there are some extracted using other techniques that don't involve using nocive solvents, generally the latter are more expensive but very potent and you only need few drops to get an effect.
That's so interesting. I had no idea that there was more than one way to extract oils. I guess it may make a difference in how effective the extraction is too. Thanks, good to know and I'll watch for it!