Gaye Levy
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As an advocate of both essential oils and medical self-care, I am constantly on the look out for credible information that will afford good health without dependence on toxic pharmaceuticals. I do not mean to imply that I totally shun modern drugs but these days, many of the newer drugs cause more harm than good.
To coin a cliché, this week’s entry in Backdoor Survival Prepper Book Festival 9 is just what the doctor ordered. In this case, the “doctor” is Cat Ellis, the Herbal Prepper, and the book is Prepper’s Natural Medicine: Life-Saving Herbs, Essential Oils and Natural Remedies.
What can I tell you about Cat’s book? As a resource for preppers, it goes into great detail describing how to assemble a home apothecary using commonly available items, and then, one by one, explains the “materia medica” for a wide range of herbs.
What is heck is a “materia medica”? Here is what Cat has to say:
“Materia Medica” is the Latin term for a reference guide detailing the ingredients of medicine and their therapeutic properties. The term is used most often with natural medicine-making ingredients such as herbs, trees, minerals, fungi, and bee products.”
In Preppers Natural Medicine, the 50 herbs in the materia medica provide specific information for making potent natural medicines. These are medicines that Cat has crafted and honed herself via years of study, training, and extensive personal experience aka trial and error. These are formulas that work!
If you have even a modicum of interest in natural remedies, you will love this book. Enjoy the interview then be sure to check in below to learn about the giveaway.
An Interview with Cat Ellis, Author of Prepper’s Natural Medicine
Tell me about your book. What is it about?
Prepper’s Natural Medicine is an herbal medicine-making guide written specifically for preppers, survivalists, and homesteaders.
It explains the vital skills necessary to make effective herbal remedies, the therapeutic properties of 50 herbs that grow in most regions of the US, and formulas to help both chronic and acute conditions.
What type of research did you have to do while writing your book?
The skills and the materia medica represent much of the Herbal Certification Course that I teach. However, I am a prepper, and have been networking with other preppers for about 7 years. I also have been reading about the most common health concerns other preppers have.
I chose to focus the remedies in the book around these concerns. This meant reading through a lot of scientific herbal studies for conditions like diabetes, antibiotic resistance, and trials of formula after formula.
How long did it take to write?
Just about 1 year.
Every book, fiction and non-fiction, includes a message. What message do you hope my readers will take with them after reading your book?
Even if there is no doctor, no hospital, and no pharmacy, you can take charge of your health preparedness.
Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself?
I’m a practicing herbalist, homeschooling mom, avid knitter, and karaoke addict.
As an author in the survival, prepping and/or homesteading niche, what are you personally preparing for?
The scenario that concerns me the most is economic collapse and the inevitable civil unrest which will follow. However, the potential for a pandemic or an EMP also concern me.
What would be your first prep-step if you were just getting started?
Taking an inventory of your assets and liabilities. This would include everything from how much food you have on hand to your financial preparedness. You can’t know what you need to do to be more prepared until you get a full assessment of where you are right now.
What book or movie, fiction or non-fiction, do you think gives the best portrayal of what could happen?
Oh, it would be a tie between The Jakarta Pandemic and One Second After.
Do you have plans for another book?
Yes, I am finishing up my second book, Prepping for a Pandemic, where I look at some of the top contenders for the next great pandemic, plus how to successfully implement a long term Self Imposed Reverse Quarantine.
Is there anything else you would like to share with my readers?
Thank you for your interest in my book. May it help you secure your family’s well being in difficult and uncertain times.
The Giveaway
Cat Ellis has reserved a copy of Prepper’s Natural Medicine for this Book Festival Giveaway.
The deadline is 6:00 PM Pacific Tuesday with the winner notified by email and announced on the Rafflecopter in the article. Please note that the winner must claim their book within 48 hours or an alternate will be selected.
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The Final Word
Over the years, I have personally tried to accumulate a wide range of books and reference materials covering the topic of survival medicine and treating the sick and wounded when there is no doctor to be found. I do this because although home remedies play a huge role in being medically prepared, they come with some risk if you don’t know what you are doing.
As a resource, Prepper’s Natural Medicine, gives me the confidence to make tinctures, tisanes, and infused oils for herbs and even weeds that are growing in my back yard. I am finding that it is well indexed and easy to navigate both by herb and by ailment. Simply fantastic.
Please do take a few minutes to enter the giveaway; you are going to want this one for its practical knowledge during both good times and bad.
To learn more about Cat Ellis and her work, visit her website at www.herbalprepper.com.
Enjoy your next adventure through common sense and thoughtful preparation!
Gaye
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Spotlight: Prepper’s Natural Medicine: Life-Saving Herbs, Essential Oils and Natural Remedies for When There is No Doctor
When disaster strikes, it will take more than food and water to keep your family alive. Prepper’s Natural Medicine empowers you with all the information needed to safely create your own medicines when a major disaster has rendered doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies unavailable.
Using healing plants widely available and easily grown throughout the US, expert prepper Cat Ellis explains how to craft renewable medicines from herbs, lichen, fungi, and other natural ingredients. She shares valuable tips for using Mother Nature’s pharmacy for situations specific to a large-scale disaster scenario, from an E. coli outbreak to an influenza pandemic.
This lifesaving guide breaks down the medicinal properties of a wide range of ingredients, instructs you on storing herbs and essential oils to extend their potency, and explains which herbs are best for vulnerable groups like children and pregnant women. The comprehensive, step-by-step instructions in this book ensure that you can be fully equipped to protect your most valuable asset in an emergency—your health.
For your convenience, here is a list of all of the books in the current Backdoor Survival Prepper Book Festival.
Prepper Book Festival 9 – Non-Fiction
Chickens from Scratch: Raising Your Own Chickens from Hatch to Egg Laying and Beyond
Prepper’s Natural Medicine: Life-Saving Herbs, Essential Oils and Natural Remedies
Shotguns: A Comprehensive Guide (PrepSmart Volume 3)
The Prepper’s Water Survival Guide: Harvest, Treat, and Store Your Most Vital Resource
The Pantry Primer: A Prepper’s Guide to Whole Food on a Half-Price Budget
Prepper Book Festival 9 – Fiction
Cascadia’s Curse
Apocalypse by Government
New Recruits (The Shadow Patriots Volume 2)
The Line of Departure: A Postapocalyptic Novel
Holding Their Own: The Toymaker
Plus: The Preppers Guide to Food Storage
No list of books would be complete without my own book, The Prepper’s Guide to Food Storage. The eBook print version is available.
Help support Backdoor Survival. Purchases earn a small commission and for that I thank you!
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64 Responses to “Prepper Book Festival 9: Prepper’s Natural Medicine”
Essential oils are my go to options for the most part. I also planted a medicinal herb garden for the first time this year and have been learning about harvesting them for use. So far the only thing I’ve tried was to help a gastro-intestinal distress bothering my daughter-in-law by making a tea of fennel, catnip and several other herbs. And it worked for her!
I have made your miracle salve and tweaked it a little for me. I added some melaleuca and other things. Works great.
I have researched and acquired many essential oils and used several with great results. What I need now is to learn about herbs and plants as medicine.
If I could grow only one herb for medicinal purposes, it would be lemon balm. My go-to essential oils are tea tree and lavender oils.
I have Systemic Lupus and it has destroyed my thyroid amongst other things going on with me. I am very much concerned what IF ANY herbal remedies that maybe out there if TSHTF, I haven’t found too much yet and how to keep DH healthy he has anklyoarthritis in his spine among other things healthwise. I haven’t tried much because of allergies(I’m a chicken at heart LOL). We have quite a few people that will be relying on us especially the grand babies that unfortunately inherited many of our allergies.
If you’re having trouble with your thyroid being low or have none…avoid cruciferous veggies like broccoli, spinach and other members of that family…as well as strawberries. My daughter has only 10% of her thyroid, she must watch even though she LOVES these foods. There are herbs just in your kitchen which can help with health AND with hubs pain, I too have a calcifying spine. I do not use OTC nor pharma meds, I use kitchen herbs so far because I’ve spent a few years learning about them. Am now expanding to those plants around me and along with the ones Cat writes about.
Dee
Thanks for the advice.
You’re welcome, we all need to work together to survive. 🙂
I love using essential oils and I think it is so important to learn as much as possible about all their healing properties. Also, to learn how to make tinctures and tisanes from what’s right in my backyard!
A friend gave me a small spray bottle of colloidal silver to use on my eczema. I would love to learn more about it, because not knowing where to get it, or how to prepare it once I did, I only use it very, very sparingly, when the eczema is particularly bad….and it always makes it feel better.
I have been doing my woods walk with my books to ID plants
I’m just starting to learn about essential oils & herbs, so I would like to learn about as many of them as I can, especially the basic ones used
I didn’t have all the ingredients for your salve on hand so I improvised: coconut oil, honey, tea tree oil. It goes on a little sticky, but I’ve noticed that my scrapes don’t scar after I use it. I love it!
Question: how do you figure out your ratios while still keeping properties viable? How much tea tree vs coconut oil, while using coconut as a carrier but keeping tea tree properties?