Hi, I'm Shana Lipner Grover from Sage Country Herbs, and I'm here with Mountain Rose Herbs to
talk about common medicinal garden plants. And we're going to start right here with oregano,
which is such an incredibly common, it's a culinary herb. And it's one of my favorite things to talk
about is the medicine that almost every single household in the nation, if not the world, already
has available. I like to talk about how we all have relationship with plants, whether we realize it or
not, because most people have a culinary herb cabinet or a tea cabinet. And this one is almost always
in it. There's so many different cultures that use oregano as a spice. And I think it's a really good
thing to be aware of that, historically, culinary spices were not just about flavoring, they're
about stimulating digestion with their aromatic compounds. And the stimulating of digestion helps
with digesting of things that are a little bit tougher, you know, maybe some gristly cuts of meat
or some different types of beans. And so having a lot of these really nice aromatics not only
flavor our food, but they help with things like gas and bloating and these very, very common digestive
ailments that are often just accepted as, "oh, you know, those are just things that happen," when really
there's all kinds of things that we can do about them. And the culinary herbs like oregano, it's just
an easy kind of no-brainer. So, once we realize we have something like oregano this is in the Lamiaceae
family, the mint family. It's Latin name or scientific name is oreganum. So it's a nice when
the oregano common name and oreganum, the Latin name, actually sounds similar. It's easier to remember.
And it's just so incredibly common. Honestly, out of the culinary herbs, a lot of herbs like
oregano and rosemary have really kind of broken out of that just for flavoring food perspective,
because a lot of you have probably seen oregano oil in the vitamin department,
in the immune section, because a lot of people will use oregano for things like a sore throat
or to boost immunity. Or when you have like a sinus infection, it's actually really fantastic
for lung congestion. It's a great expectorant. It of course has antiseptic and antibacterial
qualities, some antiviral qualities. So many wonderful reasons to use it.
But beyond that, you don't have to spend a bunch of money in a store buying a product when you
have oregano in your house, because the making of the most common way that you buy it is oregano oil.
And a lot of people like to assume that's essential oil, and it's not. It's just an
infused oil. It's so easy. You take generally dried herb or or new dried herb or wilted. You don't want
it to be really super fresh because you don't want that water weight, but wilted or dried herb.
Even if you're pulling your culinary herbs out of your cabinet and you haven't used them in like
say a year or longer, if you open up the jar and you give it a little squish... and I'll do it here...
It's just a little squish, and you smell those aromatics, and as long as you can
smell those aromatics, there is some medicinal function to it. You take your freshly dried herb
or very dried herb and you put it into a jar and you cover it with oil. And make
sure that as you watch the oil go down, it completely coats everything.
You might want to put the lid on it and shake it really well. And maybe you notice that actually
there's still some dried herb in there. Add a little bit more oil. You want every single bit
of herb to be completely saturated with the oil. And basically, you can just keep it in there. If
you use a little bit of heat, be careful. Don't ever burn oil. But if you use a little bit of
heat, you're going to make that extraction happen quicker. But really, you can just infuse it into oil for
one to two weeks. As long as you can smell that oil, and you smell that oregano, it definitely has
infused. Now, the other thing about this that people will say is, "Yeah, but is this as potent as what I
could buy?" It may be. And it may not be. But to me, I think a really important thing to understand
is that just because something isn't a hundred percent as potent, doesn't mean that it's zero. So
even if it's only eighty percent as potent as what you could buy, it's still functional medicine and
that is a wonderful thing. And beyond that, maybe you end up like after six months you still have
you know a bunch of oil no problem. You could use it on a cut. You could use it on a scrape. You could
use it internally. But, what you could also use it for is just you could eat it. You can make an oregano
style, like, Italian vinaigrette by using oregano infused oil. Honestly, you can do this with anything.
Rosemary infused oil, thyme infused oil, basil infused oil... One of my favorite parts about using
culinary herbs is that maybe you don't have the things come up that you need them for. That's fine. You can
use them in your cooking. Because they're also... All culinary herbs are essentially nutritional
powerhouses. And while we don't necessarily use a lot of them, drops in the nutritional bucket slowly
fill the nutritional bucket which is a total reason to use culinary herbs on a regular basis
in all different ways. You know, maybe you like to dip your bread in a little oil and vinegar.
Well, how about oregano infused oil with some balsamic vinegar? It adds complexity. It adds
flavor. It adds medicine. It's just a win-win-win relationship with herbal medicine and it costs you
essentially nothing. So I love oregano. There are so many different things to talk about it in general.
But I think the biggest thing to understand is its effect on the immune system, on the lungs, and
the respiratory system. And the way that you can use it in digestion with its aromatic bitterness.
And ultimately, that it's relatively safe, although very effective and functional. But
it's safe enough to use as a culinary herb. So that's actually what I encourage people
to do the most of. Use it as a culinary herb. Incorporate it into your daily nutrition. This
plant right here is just about ready to burst into flour, and it's going to be absolutely beautiful.
The flowers are relatively small, although not the smallest in the mint family. But you can see like
when I look at this plant, all I see is potential. Like all these little flowers are getting ready.
When I say potential, what I mean is when plants are in full flower, now they are calling out
to their pollinators, which then brings in the pollinators, which are then going to help with the
pollination. Which then means that the plant is on its way to producing a seed. Which is
the next generation. So the most vitality that a plant has is when it is in flower. So that's
what I mean by this plant is just filled with potential right now. Because it's going to go to
flower, and then it's going to get pollinated, and then it's going to produce the next generation.
And that makes for a lot more medicine that can come out of that. So you can use it as a
tea, you can infuse it into alcohol, both topical or internal, you can infuse it into oil. I've used...
I've used oregano to make an anti-infective salve to use on cuts and scrapes and boo-boos.
So many different ways. Plenty more than just what I'm talking about right now. I've done foot soaks
in oregano. Just so many wonderful ways of using oregano. Okay, there's one more that actually is
really valuable that is overlooked very commonly with culinary herbs and that is as a steam. And I
say this because just the other day I had a past student send me a message saying, "Hey, I'm dealing
with a lot of lung congestion and I'm drinking tea but I was thinking that maybe I should, um, I should
burn some sage and just huff the smoke. What do you think?" And I was like, "No. I would recommend that you
don't do that." Because smoke is an irritant, and while there's plenty of reasons about how to
use smoke as medicine when you're dealing with a lot of irritation, adding more irritation is not
actually the answer to that. And so I recommended that they put their herbs that they were going to
burn... put them into a pot of water and steam. And that steam is adding a lot of hydration and also
getting a lot of those aromatic oils into the direct area where the infection lies. And that is
a really key aspect about herbal medicine that's really wonderful especially working with herbs in
relationship to the respiratory system, because we can breathe them in and get them directly to the
area. And that's where steam is amazing. Steam can penetrate into those sensitive mucosal membranes
where smoke is going to be irritating, alcohol could actually be damaging, you know, even tea,
which is wonderful, is going right down and over. But steam can actually get and penetrate into
the lungs into the sinuses and that is a really fantastic way to be able to help with infection
moving throughout your home. You could just steam it. You don't even have to breathe it
indirectly you could steam it like a potpourri in your house. So many wonderful ways of incorporating
culinary herbalism. So I hope you're going to go out and be inspired to try some oregano!