New from Herb Pharm
These Are Not Your Ordinary Encapsulated Herbs

by Mike Gillette

While we believe that there are inherent advantages to the liquid herbal dosage form, solid dosage forms such as capsules and softgels can also be effective herb delivery options if properly made. With this in mind, Herb Pharm is pleased to announce three new encapsulated herb products created with the same meticulous attention to detail we give to all of our products.

Goldenseal Vegetarian Capsules, Milk Thistle Vegetarian Capsules and Saw Palmetto Softgels – our three new encapsulated herb products – join our two existing herb capsule products, Kava Vegetarian Capsules and Super Echinacea® Vegetarian Capsules. All of our encapsulated herbs share important characteristics that anyone seeking an herb product should consider.

The first is our exclusive use of sustainably cultivated and sustainably wildcrafted herbs. Purity and environmental responsibility are at the heart of our philosophy and work, and our encapsulated herbs are no exception. Herb Pharm only uses plants that are certified organically grown, tested free of pesticides and herbicides, or sustainably wildcrafted in their native habitat to ensure conservation of wild plants for future generations.

Next is our close attention to proper harvest timing. It's often said that timing is everything and this certainly applies to medicinal herbs where precise harvest timing and proper selection of plant part(s) are so vital to producing herbs that are abundant in pharmacologically-active constituents with optimal therapeutic efficacy.

Lastly, we never use harsh, chemical solvents to make our extracts. There's no point in selecting the purest herbal materials if in the end we pollute our extracts with harmful chemical solvents. Therefore, we only use natural, pharmaceutical-grade alcohol and distilled water, and never commonly used synthetic chemical solvents like hexane, acetone, methanol, petroleum ether or ethyl acetate. In putting our philosophies to work, the result is a purity-assured, authentic line of encapsulated herbs that you can choose with confidence and peace of mind.

Our new Saw Palmetto Vegetarian Softgels are made from the dark (deep purple to black) berries of Serenoa repens palms. While many makers of Saw Palmetto are content with unripened, green berries, we prefer ours fully ripe. It is only through ripening that the berries develop optimal levels of the fatty acids and phytosterols that support prostate gland health, which is Saw Palmetto's primary application. And unlike many others, Herb Pharm's Saw Palmetto is never extracted with hexane.

Milk Thistle is a popular herbal remedy for healthy liver maintenance. Our Milk Thistle Vegetarian Capsules are made from the dark, mature seeds of Silybum marianum plants. Our broad-spectrum extract is achieved without the use of common chemical solvents like petroleum ether and ethyl acetate, and is guaranteed to provide 140 mg of silymarin in each vegetarian capsule.

Wild populations of Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis) have been on the decline for many years, which is why we only use organically cultivated plants to make our Goldenseal Vegetarian Capsules. We grind the rhizomes and rootlets of shade-dried, autumn-harvested plants and encapsulate without further processing. Our careful timing and control of this process eliminates the need for irradiation or fumigation to mitigate microbial growth.

Rounding out our capsule line are Kava Vegetarian Capsules and Super Echinacea® Vegetarian Capsules. These products are made to promote relaxation and reduce stress, and to support healthy function of the immune system, respectively. Our Kava rhizomes and roots come from chemical-free gardens in the Vanuatu Islands of the South Pacific, one of the finest Kava growing regions in the world. Our Echinacea is grown on our own certified organic farm in southern Oregon. To fully capture the immuno-modulating compounds in Echinacea, we blend extracts of the root, leaf, flower and seeds.

So if you're an experienced herb user and prefer capsules, or you're a new herb user looking for a place to start, we highly suggest trying our encapsulated herbs. If the herb you seek is not one we encapsulate, then we hope you will reference this article and choose a brand that speaks to the important characteristics that embody a quality herbal supplement.