Natural Nutritional Ingredients
by Linda Kennard NAF
Definition of a Herb: any of several plants whose leaves, stems or seeds are used to flavour food or to make medicine.
For thousands of years humans and animals have used herbs. Humans have used herbs in a variety of ways:
• In cooking
• As perfumes
• As disinfectants
• To protect against germs
• As medicines
• As currency
Today herbs are used in much the same way except, maybe, as currency.
Some history on herbs:
Using plants to treat physical ailments is not new and the oldest surviving herbal medicine book dates back to 2700BC from China. In fact much of the herbal knowledge utilised today comes from our past.
The Ebers Papyrus, dating about 1600BC, lists some 700 drugs, charms and incantations. The majority of these drugs listed were herbs. While Ancient Babylonian tablets of clay list some 230 commonly used preparations.
The Classic Greeks were responsible for removing much of the magic from the practice of medicine. Hippocrates mentions some 250 useful herbs in his works. This was later extended by Dioscorides, a Greek physician of the first century AD, who published his De Materia Medica which contained over 600 medicinial plants.
In Britain Nicholas Culpepper (1616-1654) published a book to help ordinary people make their own herbal remedies, instead of paying for expensive formulations from doctors.
Herbs today:
Today herbal medicine has never been more popular. More and more people are turning to herbal medicine as what they see as a kinder alternative to main stream medicine.
Although the role of the horse has changed dramatically over the last fifty years, they have retained the instinct to know what is good for them. This tends to be the opposite of humans.
Horses today are managed very differently than they were many years ago. Our expectations of them also tend to be greater - today's horse now has to run faster, jump higher and go for longer. Because of this their way of life has changed. Horses are no longer able to roam in herds grazing freely on the natural herbs and plants that grow. We require them to be well mannered, well groomed and ready for the task we require of them at any given time.
As the years have gone by many of the herbs and plants that the horse would choose to eat naturally have disappeared from our paddocks. In our attempt to maximise the grass production of our paddocks we have prevented the wider variety of herbs and plants from growing in our grassland.
However, the good news is that herbs are back! There is nothing magical about the action of plants. Plant extracts work because we know they contain certain key 'chemicals' which have a direct effect on one or more systems within the body. Herbs are not a wonder cure and they are not able to cure every ailment or problem. But what they can do is to support the body's natural functions and help it to operate more efficiently.
Herbal medicine can work side by side with conventional medicine and has been known to affect a cure when all other avenues have failed.
Throughout history herbal remedies have been used by generations of horsemen and women who knew the benefits of herbal medicine for themselves and their livestock.
Next month I will select a number of specific commonly used herbs and explain more about how they can help the natural health of your horse.
