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ESSIAC HERB QUALITY
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ESSIAC CIRCLE OF FRIENDS
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CERTIFIED ORGANIC, US-GROWN HERBS — SHEEP SORREL ROOTS INCLUDED
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What Is Our “SPECIAL BLEND” ESSIAC TEA HERBS?
Essiac tea is only as good as the herbs in it. Therefore, the quality of each Essiac herb is paramount to the effectiveness of the tea. Also, we adhere strictly to Rene Caisse’s proven formula and recipe.
On April 4, 1974 Rene M. Caisse wrote a letter to Dr. Chester Stock of the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research stating:
“The herb that will destroy a cancer (a malignant growth) is the dog-eared Sheep Sorrel, sometimes called sourgrass. The entire plant must be used.”
In May of 1974 Rene Caisse further explained to Dr. Stock how Sheep Sorrel worked in relation to the other three herbs:
“It took years to find out the one herb that actually worked on the growth itself [Sheep Sorrel]. The other herbs [Burdock, Slippery Elm & Turkish Rhubarb] I used to purify the blood and throw off any infection thrown off by the malignant growth as it regressed.”
Our “Special Blend Essiac Tea Herbs” are the highest quality herbs for making Essiac tea in your own home just like Rene Caisse made!
As Nurse Caisse stated: “If it works, don’t change it!”
“Of the four herbs in the recipe, the quality of the Sheep Sorrel [Rumex acetosella] seems to be the deciding factor as to the overall effectiveness of the Essiac formula and it was the one herb that Rene isolated during her early years of research as having a direct effect on cancerous tumors.” [ESSIAC ESSENTIALS: The Remarkable Herbal Cancer Fighter; 1999; Sheila Snow; p. 22]
This is why we focus on growing the highest quality Sheep Sorrel to make our SPECIAL BLEND ESSIAC TEA HERBS.
Rene Caisse stated that Sheep Sorrel Roots are “very essential” to the Essiac tea formula. In other words, it’s not “Essiac” tea without the roots. Click Here to learn why Rene Caisse considered Sheep Sorrel Roots to be an essential part of her Essiac Tea formula.
We grow our own certified organic sheep sorrel [Rumex acetosella] with the focus on both the leaf and the roots. The roots are not available from herb companies on the internet and Sheep Sorrel leaf is no longer grown commercially in the US. The imported Sheep Sorrel is very low quality (See below).
We call our sheep sorrel leaf and roots “Better Than Organic” because we exceed the government-ordained standards for organic certification. Click here to learn more about how we grow our sheep sorrel.
The picture on the left below shows our Sheep Sorrel Leaf that was just harvested from our certified organic Sheep Sorrel field. At this stage the leaf is quality inspected with all the “weeds” and any other extraneous material removed by hand. It is now ready to be immediately placed on the drying racks.
The picture on the right shows our certified organic Sheep Sorrel Roots that have been washed and are now ready to be placed on our drying racks.
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All the parts of the Sheep Sorrel plant are used in our SPECIAL BLEND ESSIAC TEA HERBS . Each part has different qualities that deliver different health benefits if they are all included and all parts have been traditionally used since time immemorial by native cultures.
Therefore, we blend each part in specific proportions depending upon the health benefits derived from each part. We must then harvest each plant depending upon their stage of growth as we progress through spring, summer and fall.
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The first picture on the left, below, shows how we hand cut the leaf with cordless Makita clippers early in spring before the flower/seed stalks emerge. This is the prime time for harvesting leaf as recommended by Rene Caisse. The leaf is the most important part which causes a metastasized cancer to retreat to the tumor and then the body can expel it with the assistance of the three other Essiac herbs as well as the other parts of the Sheep Sorrel plant. This page describes how Essiac works on cancer: How Essiac Works on Cancer Cells.
The second picture shows the next stage where Sheep Sorrel sends up a flower stalk. The flowers contain oxalic acid but not as much as the leaves. Oxalic acid is the main component that detoxes cancer cells as explained in this article: Essiac Tea & Oxalic Acid.
The third, middle picture shows our Sheep Sorrel field with flowers at different stages of development. Depending upon the stage of development and whether the flowers are male or female, the colors range from light green to yellow to red.
The fourth picture shows Sheep Sorrel Roots fresh from the field and how we rinse the soil off the roots with pure deep well water. We employ quality control at every stage of our herb operations and so we throw out any extraneous material that is not Sheep Sorrel roots at this and every stage.
We then immediately transfer the Sheep Sorrel roots and leaves to the drying shed. (The leaves are not washed as that would degrade the quality). While loading the leaves on the drying racks we employ quality control by discarding any remaining weeds. (The irony is that most of the “weeds” that we discard are actually edible and medicinal herbs. Of course, it is only Sheep Sorrel that we keep.)
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After the roots and leaves are thoroughly dried we then cut them into smaller pieces with a garden mulcher so we can powder them later with our hammermill at our herb processing center. After cutting we bag up the roots and leaves in large Mylar foil bags and add oxygen absorbers to preserve freshness.
Oxygen, moisture, light and heat degrade the medicinal and nutritional quality of herbs so we are always mindful to preserve the quality and freshness of the herbs throughout the four seasons. That is why we always add oxygen absorbers at every step of our harvesting, processing and storing.
We then transport the herbs to our processing center where we powder them with our hammermill. As we powder them we blend together all the aerial parts of the Sheep Sorrel in their respective portions to create our SPECIAL BLEND.
The roots are powdered separately and are added afterwards in precise percentages to the total Sheep Sorrel content.
We then again place our Essiac Tea herbs in new sealed Mylar foil bags with oxygen absorbers for long term storage throughout all four seasons. Our herbs are stored in metal containers in our air-conditioned, dark storage room. We later bag the herbs into smaller, double-sealed Mylar foil bags as the orders come in.
Click here to learn more how we process, powder and store our high-quality Essiac Tea Herbs.
Although our focus on quality adds more cost for our herbs, we deliver the highest quality SPECIAL BLEND ESSIAC TEA HERBS on the planet from our field to your front door.
We are the Essiac Circle of Friends and we do it right!
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Low-Quality Imported Sheep Sorrel
US-grown certified organic sheep sorrel leaf is no longer available from the major herb companies. The main reason is that it is so labor-intensive to grow, weed, harvest and dry properly. Farm workers are now harder to find and labor costs have increased dramatically in the US.
Therefore, the major herb companies are now importing herbs from countries like Croatia and Bulgaria, which are cheaper but of very low quality. And there is no way to confirm whether they are certified organic or not. They may be labeled “certified organic”, but that is speculation at best.
CERTIFIED ORGANIC FRAUD
“Imported organic products are required to meet the same standards as domestically produced organic products. In recent years, NOC has raised concerns that enforcement procedures, particularly those governing organic grain imports, have fallen short. This has allowed a surge of soybean and corn imports fraudulently labeled as organic. A 2017 Washington Post investigation and a 2017 audit report from the USDA Office of Inspector General exposed many of the flaws in oversight and enforcement regarding organic imports.” [https://www.nationalorganiccoalition.org/organic-enforcement-and-fraud]
It is also important to note that Sheep Sorrel can be easily weeded with cancer-causing herbicides because Sheep Sorrel can survive the application of broad leaf herbicides which can be cancer-causing. That is why it is unwise to pick Sheep Sorrel leaf on the side of a road or in the median on freeways such as in western Washington State where there are miles and miles of only Sheep Sorrel growing on the freeways.
Sheep sorrel must be green and properly stored using oxygen absorbers to preserve the quality and freshness. The herbs must also be stored in order to protect them from insects and rodents.
The Sheep Sorrel powder pictures below are taken from three major herb supplier websites and none of them are green. The two Sheep Sorrel powder pictures on the left are from Croatia and the one on the right is from Bulgaria. Plus, these major herb companies do not include sheep sorrel roots in their “Essiac tea” so it is incorrectly labeled “Essiac”. As Rene Caisse stated in a letter to Dr. Chester Stock of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Sheep Sorrel ROOTS are “very essential” to the Essiac Tea formula.
We purchased Sheep Sorrel from the three companies as shown above and found that indeed none of the Sheep Sorrel leaf was green as it should be. We then made tea from each of them and the color was brownish in all three cases. We tasted the three Sheep Sorrel teas and none of them had the distinctive tangy taste that Sheep Sorrel should have.
The picture below shows our Special Blend Essiac Tea Herbs in the proper proportions according to Rene Caisse’s documented formula. The Sheep Sorrel root in the middle is 10% of the total Sheep Sorrel content. As you can see the Sheep Sorrel leaf powder (upper right) is vibrant green due to the high chlorophyll content.
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Click here to learn how we process, powder, package and store our highest quality, certified organic SPECIAL BLEND ESSIAC TEA HERBS .
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ESSIAC CIRCLE OF FRIENDS
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* BUYER BEWARE! Most Essiac companies and herb suppliers are now obtaining Sheep Sorrel leaf from Bulgaria and Croatia and it is dead plant material and not even green! Therefore, most of the Essiac sold in the US now has little medicinal value for cancer patients. We are concerned that this may eventually give quality Essiac Tea an undeserved reputation for being ineffective against cancer. This may also give false hope for cancer patients.
This is why we place so much attention on how we grow our certified organic herbs and the extra effort and care we place on quality, even though our Essiac Tea Herbs cost significantly more than other Essiac tea providers. As the old adage goes: “You get what you pay for.” *
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We do not sell nor are we associated with the trademarked (TM) or registered (R) “ESSIAC” products that are sold by other companies in Canada and the US. We only sell the herbs so that people can make Rene Caisse’s tea in their own homes. Rene Caisse never registered, patented or trademarked “Essiac” which was simply her last name spelled backwards and was originally derived from a traditional native American herbal remedy for cancer. The word “Essiac” was in common usage in the 1930s, decades before anyone tried to corner the market by “registering” or “trademarking” the word “Essiac”. Furthermore, we only use the “Essiac” formula which Rene Caisse’s best friend, Mary McPherson, officially entered into the public domain in a sworn affidavit in 1994 in Bracebridge, Ontario. This formula uses Turkey rhubarb root which is much more pleasant tasting than the Indian rhubarb products on the market (which is why Rene Caisse switched to Turkey rhubarb in her final Essiac tea formula). The HealthFreedom.info website has posted Mary McPherson’s “Essiac” formula affidavit here. This is the formula we use.
Twenty years ago HealthFreedom.info was the first website to obtain and publish on the internet a certified copy of Mary McPherson’s Essiac formula affidavit from the Town of Bracebridge, Ontario, thus settling the controversy over what Rene Caisse’s true Essiac Tea formula was.
We include sheep sorrel roots in all our Essiac Tea products at precise percentages. The percentages refer to the ratio of sheep sorrel root to the total sheep sorrel content in the formula.
The information on this website is for educational and historical purposes and not to be construed as medical advice. Everyone’s body is different so there is no one-size-fits-all for health issues. It should be noted that medical doctors are not usually taught about such subjects as herbal medicine, nutritional supplements, non-pharmceutical approaches to health, etc. Therefore, choosing an appropriate health professional is a human right and that is up to the individual seeking health improvement.
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