Raspberry Leaf-Spearmint Lemonade

This lovely electrolyte drink helps maintain your acid-base balance.
A hydrating and energizing Late Spring libation. Today I dug three more deep corrugations in my herbal garden by ten AM, and this delightful beverage helped me recuperate and get back to my studies.


Raspberry Leaf-Spearmint Lemonade

Two *organic lemons
Two *organic limes
4 springs of spearmint
a whole mess of raspberry leaves
tablespoon local honey
heaping tablespoon stevia powder



*It is very important to use organic, because the nature of these astringent citrus is that if they are carrying pesticides, you will be getting a very potent dose by an agent with a strong direct purative action. These citrus fruits are marvelous at helping your body to eliminate waste in the form of layers of morbid matter in your intestines and mucous membranes, allowing proper function of the digestive and respiratory systems. Digestion is so important as it effects the quality of the blood and its movement, allowing the blood to bring nutrients, oxygen, carbon dioxide, chemical messages (hormones) and metabolic waste to and from their proper tissue systems through a labyrinth of blood vessels. Without effective elimination of waste within the cells, through the lymphatic system, spleen, etc., we quickly become out of balance. When the blood is impure and the digestion is shoddy, build of lipids and fats in the arteries and around the organs happens. So much so that it is not uncommon for people to have the manual removal of debris, and the extraction of organs. The tonsils and the spleen and pancreas are useful organs to have, and not toss like yesterday's salad. Employing the use astringent foods like lemon helps the breakdown of toxic waste within the systems of the body. Bile-stimulating cholagogue herbs like gentian helps the liver to produce and the gallbladder to concentrate bile for the purpose of the digestion of fats, something most people need.

It's actually best to drink beverages slightly warm, especially cleansing agents like lemonade. It will help induce sweating which is actually best on a hot day, in terms of cooling down your body and improving your immune system.

I love my school. I've really been enjoying my studies, and have grown to adore the writers of the texts and bits and pieces of the historical context. Strangely, my grandmother grew up on a farm near the original college in Canada and I wonder if she knew any of the staff. Her mother was said to be an herbalist of sorts and it was speculated that she helped give women of large poor (Catholic) families abortions. Being that my distant relatives are very conservative and have very little imagination to speak of, it might actually be true. However, there is no evidence of this. Perhaps she knew her abortifacients, as the native Chumash and others who recalled the wisdom of the ages in the use of contraceptives such as wild rose hips to keep their cycles regular.