Rachel Shackleton's blog

Bitter herbs are plants with a distinctly sharp, bitter taste that have been used for centuries to support digestion, cleanse the body, and anchor many healing and seasonal rituals in folk traditions. They work primarily by stimulating the body’s digestive reflexes and vital organs, while carrying a rich heritage of myth, magic, and everyday use in kitchens and health clinics alike. 

How Bitter Herbs Support Digestion and Affect the Body

Many of us struggle at this time of year with the cold, damp, short days and long nights. I feel I have to accomplish everything by 430pm when the sun goes down even though there is still many hours before bed. Mind you having said that, by 6pm I’m ready to retire, but usually manage to avoid that temptation! 

Over 2,000 years ago, Hippocrates, often called the “Father of Medicine,” shared a simple truth that continues to echo through the centuries: “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”

In our fast-paced, convenience-driven world, this quote feels more relevant than ever. Today, food is too often treated as a quick fix for hunger rather than the foundation of our health. Yet Hippocrates’ wisdom reminds us that every bite we take has the potential to heal—or to harm.

The Power of Everyday Choices

In today’s high-pressure business world, it’s easy to grab a soapbox about healthy eating—then realise that daily realities make it far harder than it sounds. Consider the challenges we all face:

• Demanding jobs and deadlines that leave little time to prepare food.

• Back-to-back meetings that mean lunch is whatever you can grab in five minutes.

• Stress from the unexpected—technical glitches, urgent client requests, supply chain disruptions.

• Family responsibilities—school runs, after-school activities, caring for children or elderly parents.

At this time of year we naturally think about our immune system, wanting to be sure that it is functioning well and fully to manage the transition from the warm and hot summer days to cooler days and colder, longer nights. Vitamin C is perhaps the one vitamin that stands out as it plays an important role in helping the body fight both bacterial and viral infections more prevalent at this time of year.