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Comment by lxchase | Hacker News Reader

This topic always garners a lot of polarizing views. One thing I would recommend people take a look at is the caffeine and cortisol relationship.

I'm the CEO of Rasa, one of the "coffees" made from chicory root and other adaptogenic herbs. If anyone has questions, happy to bring in our Chief Herbalist to answer.

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>Chief Herbalist

What credentials does a "Herbalist" require? Is it a protected field? Or is this like all the supplements that say they are "lab tested" by a lab owned by the supplement industry?

The question becomes how you define "herbalism" and in what cultures? i.e. Chinese herbalism is different from Jamaican. That said, in the United States, you can become a registered herbalist with the American Herbalist Guild, which involves seeing at least 200 patients over 2 years, a board interview with case studies.

As for the supplements that are "lab tested" by a lab owned by the supplement industry, I can't speak for other companies, but I'm sure that happens, unfortunately. I know that we test ours by independent and good labs, though. I wish there was more transparency around this, but it's been up to the companies to be transparent and the consumer to seek the information.

Edit: Sorry, was off on one number, not 200. 80 patients over 2 years, 400 total hours of clinical experience.

Speaking from my experience in Poland for example, in order to open legal herbalism therapy practice or herbal shop you need to pass two exams (usually preceded by a course with both theoretical and practical lessons) and gain government registered certificate. In case of a shop you also have to adhere to quire strictly controlled requirements based on what type of products you want to sell. If you want to grow and then sell herbs you have to obtain separate certificate (again by passing exams and complying with all requirements for your plantation and rest of the process) and grow them using seeds originating from government mandated sources.

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