Does echinacea actually work?

It’s well known that echinacea is one of the most widely used plants to counter colds and the flu. But do you know how to use it?

Echinacea—does it actually work?

How many people have proudly told you, "Echinacea is worthless, it doesn't even really work, it's expensive, blah blah blah..."?

Let’s set the record straight.

Personally, it’s fresh or nothing

Echinacea ground into a fine powder, encapsulated, and then stored for long periods (e.g., pharmacy capsules) is, in fact, not worth much anymore. Unfortunately, dried echinacea loses too much of its medicinal value.

Like any denatured food found on grocery store shelves. To get the maximum benefit from any food, it must be consumed fresh and alive.

If you miss the flower and root season, you’ll have to wait until next year for the flowers. It’s cruel, but there’s no choice!

A misused plant

Echinacea is VERY popular, but it is also VERY, very misused.

It is this misuse that leads many people to feel underwhelmed by its effectiveness.

The timing of taking echinacea plays a major role in the plant's action. You can't expect it to work when you are already in the middle of an infection. Echinacea actually acts BEFORE you get sick.

There's no point in consuming it long-term as a preventative measure; you take it as a "boost" when everyone around you is starting to get sick, and at the very first sign of symptoms!

A little sore throat starting to settle in? ECHINACEA.

Have you sneezed 2 or 3 times in quick succession? ECHINACEA.

Is your partner coming down with a cold and you don’t want to catch it? ECHINACEA.

So, how do we consume echinacea?

Ideally, we consume it fresh. But since fresh echinacea is scarce in the middle of winter, we extract its properties either in alcohol or in vegetable glycerin.

Two options are available to you:

Buy a ready-to-use extract

For example, those from the wonderful company Clef des Champs. They offer echinacea as a mother tincture (alcohol) or as a glycerite (vegetable glycerin). The disadvantage is that it can be very expensive when you have two kids, let me tell you. Haha. But the quality is there!

Make your own extracts

The most frugal option: harvest some fresh flowers and roots and process them yourself for the cold season. It’s quite simple, and you’ll have a super nice supply of this wonder for the winter.

You can even plant your own echinacea and grow it at home with our Pharmacopoeia Seed Kit.

Don't have access to an echinacea extract?

An alternative is to consume dried roots as a tea, but it unfortunately remains less effective. The positive point is that by knowing this, we can adjust our expectations and avoid concluding that echinacea doesn't work that well!

However, don't go buying tea bags filled with powder from pharmacy shelves, or capsules. Get high-quality organic dried roots from a trusted company. To ensure they still possess medicinal properties, they must have been harvested, dried, and stored (away from light) properly. Make sure the roots are still fragrant!

There you go, now that it's been said (that feels good, haha!), I invite you to make your own echinacea glycerite by following my recipe below!

Happy crafting!