Your Kitchen Lab: Tools And Equipment

Many herbalists and herbal medicine enthusiasts agree that home kitchen environment is the best for experimenting, formulating and making herbal remedies. Where else but in your home kitchen you can get properly focused and inspired for the best use of your knowledge and competence in herbal medicine? Undoubtedly, kitchen lab is the best and the finest place where we can create the most effective herbal preparations and herbal remedies.

Certainly, only kitchen can provide you with everything necessary for preparing excellent herbal products. Just like a talented painter must have all his brushes within the rich of his hand, a herbalist should have all the tools for experimenting with the existing and newly discovered medicinal formulas easily available. That is why it is important to supply your kitchen lab with the following essential tools and equipment.

• Boxes, bottles, jars, pots and other types of containers. Those will be used for storing your herbal preparations, as well as for stirring, mixing, boiling and doing whatever is required for receiving a final herbal product. Remember that the most important rule is to avoid using aluminum containers as they can be toxic (especially while processing your herbal materials by using heating). It is recommended to use ceramic, glass, stainless steel, cast iron or other containers.
• Various types of measuring cups. Plastic measuring cups are the best choice, and remember to have a variety of those for measuring liquid, powder, dried herbal materials and so on.
• Scales. No need in buying  too expensive or too sophisticated ones, but accuracy is primary, of course.
• Wooden or rubber spoons, spatulas and other various stirring tools. Again, do not use aluminum tools. Have a variety of stirring tools like wide and narrow, small and large spatulas, etc.
• Mortar and pestle. This equipment will mostly have emotional and decorative function, however, there are occasions to use mortar and pestle as well. In particular, they will come in handy when you need to deal with tough materials like bark, roots and so on.
• Filters and strainers. Keep ready various types of filtering equipment like paper filters, strainers of various size and mesh structure, pieces of fabric and so on.
• Funnels and special pouring devices. They will make your job easier while transferring liquids and other materials from one container to another.
• Cotton muslin or cheesecloth for straining herbs.
• Coffee grinder machine, food processor, blender, graters and other devices for processing your medicinal herbs and plants. You may not have them in your kitchen lab, but if you do – it would be excellent!
• Thermometers. They can be necessary for monitoring the temperature during some certain processes while making herbal preparations.
• Paper towels, various rags, sponges and so on. Keep those things ready in your kitchen lab for various wiping and cleaning purposes.

Author Info: Hi! My name is Carla and I am a 5th year medical student at HYMS. I am interested in alternative medicine and I have done months researching the topic of herbal medicine. Besides, I like interviewing people and learning more about their experiences with one or another type of herbal treatments. I am willing to contribute to this site with my knowledge, and I would be happy to help you out to the best of my ability with any specific questions or problems related to alternative medicine.

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