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Tinei Maramba fumbles in his kitchen drawer for a bag of bitter green herbs. He places a pot on the stove and fills it up with water then carefully adds the contents of the Sachet.He is slight built and fit, his loose linen shirt showing a well-trained body, we are sitting in his bachelor pad in the Avenues, sparsely furnished with an air of simplicity, deep African tones pervade the decor.
He is an intellectual and a staunch follower and collector of art. A self-proclaimed herbal fanatic, he will not have any form of processed food, no salt, no sugar, no refined maize meal. He will not drink fizzy drinks, will not smoke cigarettes but religiously carries a container of snuff everywhere he goes. Tinei will not buy over the counter drugs and swigs tea cup after tea cup of herbal drinks.
Having lived in America for eight years this appears to be rather a paradox. My own stint in England was a concoction of fast food. McDonald’s, Donner kebab outlets and fish and chips, over processed foods and GMOs. So what has driven this intellectual only 32 to shun a global trend of fast food, fast life and indulging in intoxicants?
What on earth enticed this young Zimbabwean to swim against the tide like a salmon? Tinei’s answer is surprisingly simple . . . Going herbal is cheaper than conventional drugs, herbs in food are not only delicious but also beneficial to one’s health. According to him humankind has discarded the use of natural herbs to their own detriment.
Tinei then went on to highlight a hundred and one uses of herbs from stomach ache remedies to stain removing concoctions, stress relievers and cleansing herbs.
Not thoroughly convinced that herbal medicine is the way to go I decided to conduct some research of my own. As it turns out and contrary to my perception that the current global trend is anti-natural when it comes to medicine I discovered that there is an increase worldwide of people that are turning to herbal medicine and a large percentage of those living in “the third world” rely on herbs for medicinal, spiritual and culinary purposes.
A study by the university of Maryland in the USA estimates that 80 percent of the world’s population uses herbal remedies for some part of their primary medical health care and in Germany about 600-700 plant based medicines are available and prescribed by about 70 percent of German physicians.
The study attributes this increase in the use of natural remedies to public dissatisfaction with the ever rising cost of conventional prescription medicine. This, combined with a rekindled interest in natural or organic remedies, has led to a rise in the use of herbs globally.
The use of plants as medicines predates written human history and early studies of herbal medicine have been undertaken by all forms of ancient civilisations such as early Egyptians, Sumerians, the Chinese and pre-colonial African states.
Some of the most commonly used herbs are basil, aloe vera, borage, apple mint, calendula, echinacea, ginkgo, garlic and ginseng amongst many others.
Herbal medicine is used to treat many conditions such as asthma, cancer, chronic fatigue, irritable bowel syndrome, eczema, rheumatoid arthritis and many more. Herbal remedies tend to have less side effects than conventional over the counter prescription drugs yet as they usually isn’t a regulatory body when it comes to herbals in most countries one can never be too sure of the amount of herb contained in a bottle or sachet.
This means calculating a correct dosage is very precarious and there is a the danger of taking too much or too little. Today numerous studies are being conducted pertaining to herbs as many plant species become endangered and indigenous knowledge erodes and gets lost in a fast paced technological era.
Here in Zimbabwe several organisations have embarked on herbal plant conservation projects and several herbal gardens have been set up across the country, yet despite this progress herbs are yet to gain commercial recognition.
I visited several pharmacies in Harare and to my disdain the well- stocked shelves did not carry any herbal medicines and if they did it was an extremely limited selection.
Curious to find out the reason for this lack I headed to the UZ in search for answers, who else would know better about herbal medicine than a pharmacognosist.
Online Reporter