WEBVTT - Essential Oils: Nature's Cure? 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:04.800 Hello friends, we have a book coming out finally and 0:00:05.000 --> 0:00:09.240 it is awesome. You're gonna make me say the title again. Yeah, fine, 0:00:09.520 --> 0:00:13.039 it's Stuff you Should Know colon An Incomplete Compendium of 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:16.760 mostly interesting Things. And get this chuck. You don't have 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:19.119 to wait to order until the book comes out. You 0:00:19.160 --> 0:00:21.600 can do what we in the book biz called pre 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:24.560 ordering it, and then when it does come out, you'll 0:00:24.600 --> 0:00:27.280 be the first to get it, or among the first. Well. 0:00:27.320 --> 0:00:29.400 And not only that, you get a pre order gift. 0:00:29.440 --> 0:00:32.800 You get this cool custom poster from the illustrator of 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:36.080 the book, Carli Manardo, who is awesome. We worked with 0:00:36.120 --> 0:00:37.919 another great writer who helped us out with this thing 0:00:37.960 --> 0:00:40.440 a great deal. His name is Nils Parker, and it 0:00:40.600 --> 0:00:43.200 was just a big team effort and it's really really cool. 0:00:43.320 --> 0:00:45.760 We love how it's turning out. Yeah, we do. So 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:48.680 anywhere you can buy books, you can go pre order 0:00:48.920 --> 0:00:51.519 the Stuff you Should Know Colon An Incomplete Compendium of 0:00:51.560 --> 0:00:54.279 mostly Interesting Things, and then after you do you can 0:00:54.320 --> 0:00:57.680 go on over to stuff you Should read books dot 0:00:57.720 --> 0:01:00.840 com and upload your receipt and get that order poster. 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.200 So thank you in advance for everybody who is pre ordering. 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:07.160 That means quite a bit to us, and we appreciate you. 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:10.399 Stuff you should read books dot Com pre order now, 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:13.959 Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of I 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:23.240 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:27.440 I'm Josh Joshua Josh e um Clark h And there's 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:36.400 Charles W. Charles Chuck, Wayne Chuck, Wayne Twayne Bryant, and Jerry. 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:41.479 The Jade Dog Roland is floating around somewhere in the ether. 0:01:41.680 --> 0:01:45.360 So this is stuff you should know, everybody. Hi, Hi, 0:01:46.480 --> 0:01:52.240 this is uh the episode. I'm nervous about why because oh, well, 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:54.720 what's I mean? Why? Because she knows so much about it, 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:57.800 She's going to be like, you got this wrong. That wrong, 0:01:58.000 --> 0:02:01.520 not so much getting it wrong us. You know, it's 0:02:01.520 --> 0:02:02.880 one of these it's close to our hearts. So I 0:02:02.880 --> 0:02:04.800 feel like I got to do right by it. Oh, 0:02:04.840 --> 0:02:08.160 I'm sure you will. Like I usually don't care at 0:02:08.200 --> 0:02:13.880 all about anything we ever talked about, jeez, but this 0:02:14.000 --> 0:02:18.520 one I care about. You're like a nihilist like flee. Hey. 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:20.959 By the way, we should mention, uh, we got a 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:24.920 book coming out? Yeah, we do. Um, which not only 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:26.399 do we have a book coming out, we have a 0:02:26.440 --> 0:02:30.720 preorder gift that's ready to go now too. I think 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:35.000 we have a pre order gift which is a custom poster. 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:40.160 It's written, written by us and designed by h Carly 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:45.200 are amazing illustrator for the book. And we even have 0:02:45.280 --> 0:02:48.880 a book website. Now. Oh, is it up already? Yeah? 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:51.440 Have you seen this thing? Yeah? I saw the drafts 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:53.160 of it. I didn't see that it was up. I'm 0:02:53.200 --> 0:02:58.520 so glad you're handling things. So thank you for doing that. Yes, 0:02:58.639 --> 0:03:02.920 and that is stuff you should read. Books dot com 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:05.840 so great and it's it looks great. The web page 0:03:05.840 --> 0:03:08.080 looks awesome, and it gives you a little excerpts and 0:03:09.040 --> 0:03:12.360 you get a little peek inside. It looks way better 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:17.480 than our actual site, like our regular stuff. We are 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:19.760 we are. But so here's the deal. You can go 0:03:19.840 --> 0:03:23.959 anywhere and preorder the book now, uh, and then come 0:03:24.080 --> 0:03:28.920 I think sometime in is it October? November? Chuck the 0:03:29.000 --> 0:03:32.040 when the pre order gifts, When when the actual book 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:34.520 arrives when it comes out. I think we pushed it 0:03:34.520 --> 0:03:38.360 back a little bit into November, right, Okay, so you 0:03:38.400 --> 0:03:40.880 will eventually get the book, but in the meantime, if 0:03:40.880 --> 0:03:43.880 you go on to the website, uh, stuff you should 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:47.560 read books dot com. Um, you can upload an image 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:50.200 of your receipt and they'll say, oh, thank you for 0:03:50.280 --> 0:03:53.480 pre ordering the book. Here's your preorder gift, and you 0:03:53.520 --> 0:03:56.480 can hang it in your room next to the torn 0:03:56.640 --> 0:04:00.000 out posters from Tiger Beat magazine, wouldn't it Team Beat? 0:04:00.440 --> 0:04:04.920 I don't think so. Smart smart plants. Uh yeah, So 0:04:05.080 --> 0:04:07.600 we're we're gonna be mentioning this a lot because, as 0:04:07.680 --> 0:04:11.280 John Hodgman told us, the secret so A B, C, 0:04:11.560 --> 0:04:15.960 A BP always be plugging. That's why I know, man, 0:04:16.000 --> 0:04:19.240 that is it's gonna be on his headstone and they'll 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:21.360 probably be a QR code on his headstones. He can 0:04:21.360 --> 0:04:25.120 buy his books. Oh man, that's a great idea. Um. 0:04:25.720 --> 0:04:29.320 So we're talking today not about books necessarily. We're talking 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:32.839 more about essential oils than books, although there's plenty of 0:04:32.839 --> 0:04:34.680 books on essential oils, but that has nothing to do 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:38.200 with our book. Instead, essential oils has to do with 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:41.800 our podcast, in particular this episode of our podcast, which 0:04:41.880 --> 0:04:45.919 is on essential oils. That's right, And these are the oils, 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:51.240 these little chemicals that are stored in plants, in the 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:54.640 glands of all different kinds of plants and all over 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:58.279 the plants from pedals to stems to roots, and depending 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:00.760 on where you are in the plant, you might be 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:04.479 getting a different kind of oil from that particular spot. Yeah, 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:07.240 there there might be a certain type of essential oil 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:09.520 found in the seeds and a totally different one found 0:05:09.520 --> 0:05:12.360 in the leaves or the roots, or the bark or um, 0:05:12.520 --> 0:05:17.279 the stems, the twigs, the hair, the teeth. Basically every 0:05:17.320 --> 0:05:21.200 part of the plant can hold some sort of essential oil. 0:05:21.600 --> 0:05:23.480 And one of the things that I love about this, 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:30.400 chuck is that science isn't sure exactly what the functions 0:05:30.400 --> 0:05:33.800 are of essential oils, but they know that it's some 0:05:33.880 --> 0:05:36.400 form of communication. I mean, like scent as a form 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:39.719 of communication in the plant world in the animal world, um, 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:46.240 and these communicate different things, likely things like getaway, cow, 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:49.760 I don't want you near me and eating me instead, 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:54.320 bring on the honey bee to help pollinate me. That's right. 0:05:54.520 --> 0:05:57.640 And we'll get into, um what they have been used 0:05:57.680 --> 0:06:01.200 for and are used for. But uh, it's safe to 0:06:01.200 --> 0:06:04.240 say that since the times of ancient Egypt, people have 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:08.159 been using essential oils, certainly back then before there was 0:06:08.839 --> 0:06:13.960 modern medicine as medicine, so so we'll talk about all this. 0:06:14.040 --> 0:06:16.039 Let's let's get into also a big shout out to 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.360 Julia Layton for helping us out with this one. Yeah, 0:06:19.440 --> 0:06:21.520 Julia is back in the rotation, very happy about that. 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:26.719 So um essential oils duce. You know what in essential 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:29.920 oil is? Most people do um. But as far as 0:06:29.960 --> 0:06:34.640 like plants go, as far as chemistry goes, they're really 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:37.360 just a certain kind of compound. You can divide them 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:41.479 into two different categories. One is oxidated compounds and the 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:45.640 other is hydrocarbons. And oxidated compounds come in all different 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:51.160 forms and shapes, things like alcohols, phenols, oxides, esters, alde 0:06:51.240 --> 0:06:55.400 hydes um, and then on the hydrocarbon side there's a 0:06:55.960 --> 0:06:59.520 there they follow under worn category called terpenes. If you 0:07:00.200 --> 0:07:03.680 have ever been in a drug education class and the 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:07.920 the educator brought out that briefcase full of different drugs, 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:11.520 you may have gotten a whiff of the marijuana. That is, 0:07:11.560 --> 0:07:14.880 the terpenes in the marijuana that give it that distinctive smell. 0:07:16.240 --> 0:07:18.120 That's right. And by the way, I'm gonna read it 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:21.120 on a listener mail. At some point, uh, someone said 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:23.840 that we should not use the term marijuana anymore, Oh 0:07:23.880 --> 0:07:27.080 my gosh, why, and and use the term cannabis because 0:07:27.080 --> 0:07:31.040 apparently the term marijuana was created as sort of a 0:07:31.160 --> 0:07:36.840 racist term, uh, to make it sound wow, foreign, south 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:42.240 of the border and evil. Yeah news to me, so 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:47.400 well it makes sense. Yeah sure, wow, Okay, well we'll 0:07:47.440 --> 0:07:54.480 start calling it um. Okay, that's the new name for pot. Everybody, 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:57.160 X Factor. I think that's a TV show. We might 0:07:57.200 --> 0:07:59.600 get sued. That's a Joe Rogan TV show, wasn't it. No, 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:02.680 that was fear Factor. I bet you anything that was 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:04.520 an X Factor, and a bet Joe Rogan had something 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:06.920 to do with it. But he's like, we've got to 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:10.119 come up with a good name for the spinoff. So 0:08:10.520 --> 0:08:14.040 you were talking about um, Like you mentioned one thing, 0:08:14.040 --> 0:08:17.600 you said something about an alcohol. People are like, what 0:08:17.800 --> 0:08:21.560 in a plant? But that's true. Like if you look 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:25.200 at peppermint oil, that that great scent that you get 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:29.760 from peppermint oil is the alcohol menthol right, And all 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:32.440 of these, all these different things, they're different kinds of 0:08:32.480 --> 0:08:36.520 compounds there. Um, they have different kinds of atoms put together, 0:08:36.520 --> 0:08:39.839 they do different things, They provide different functions. Again, they 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:43.719 probably all largely have to do with plant communication to 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:47.400 other plants or two animals, but they smell different. They 0:08:47.440 --> 0:08:50.319 combine to make different smells. The thing that they all 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:53.600 have in common is that essential oils are all v 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:57.920 o c's volatile organic compounds, which are just a type 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:00.760 of compound. Usually I guess car been based. They might 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:03.160 have to be, yeah, because it's organic. So they're all 0:09:03.200 --> 0:09:06.640 carbon based compounds that have in common the fact that 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:11.520 at room temperature or at low temperatures, they um evaporate. 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:14.040 They have their their boiling point is so low that 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:17.040 it happens at room temperature, and it can happen at 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:20.120 such a low point that it doesn't actually even go 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:26.320 from solid you know, alcohols too, to liquid into gas. 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:29.960 It can sublimate sometimes just from solid into gas. And 0:09:30.000 --> 0:09:33.880 it's that gas that spreads out off of the plants 0:09:33.920 --> 0:09:37.480 stems or leaves or roads or petals, whatever, and and 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:42.080 hit our olfactory senses through our nose and we smell. 0:09:42.360 --> 0:09:44.520 But that's all it is. It's a compound that that 0:09:44.640 --> 0:09:49.480 vaporizes very easily at low temperatures and spreads through the air. Yeah, 0:09:49.520 --> 0:09:52.880 and you know those little tiny droplets they diffused through 0:09:52.920 --> 0:09:55.440 the cell membrane and then all of a sudden they're 0:09:55.480 --> 0:09:58.400 on the surface of the plant, just waiting for somebody's 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:00.920 nostrils to come by. But it's kind of like that 0:10:01.080 --> 0:10:03.960 that old question like if a tree falls in the woods, 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:07.480 does it make a sound? Like if if there's nobody 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:12.520 there to smell a volatile organic compound, does it actually smell? 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:16.400 And the answer is clearly yes, yeah, and just the 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:19.079 tiniest I mean, sometimes you can just smell with your 0:10:19.120 --> 0:10:21.880 nose and it smells great. But sometimes the tiniest bit 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:25.160 of activation, we'll get it going. Um. One of my 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:28.320 favorite things to do is on a walk when someone's 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:30.400 got one of those big, beautiful rosemary bushes out in 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:33.599 there by the sidewalk, it's just, you know, Emily and 0:10:33.640 --> 0:10:36.440 I both and my daughter to just run our hands 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:40.200 up one of those stalks and just rub our hands together, 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:44.480 and you've got delicious steak hands. Which is why I mean, 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:48.720 that's also a good example why if you grow rosemary 0:10:48.760 --> 0:10:51.360 that you use in your food, you want to grow 0:10:51.400 --> 0:10:55.320 it away from the side because who knows people are 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:57.440 touching who was walking by with what on their hands 0:10:57.559 --> 0:11:01.959 rubbing your food. Basically, hey, man, if you if you've 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:06.280 got edibles in your front yard, then that's your fault. 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:09.880 I know I'm saying, yeah, but you so you you 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:13.000 need like the public rosemary bush for people to walk 0:11:13.000 --> 0:11:15.120 by and smell. Then you need like your head stashed 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:18.000 rosemary bush up by your house, you know, right, And 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:19.400 if you go up to the house, you can lean 0:11:19.440 --> 0:11:22.080 out the window and say, hey, sir, that's my private bush. 0:11:22.200 --> 0:11:26.600 Stay away, Steer clear, steer clear. So um okay, So 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:31.360 volt organic compounds, we've kind of gotten that across I think, um, 0:11:31.440 --> 0:11:35.280 and with essential oils, this is I think pretty essential 0:11:35.360 --> 0:11:39.920 to know m hm, that when you smell something like 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:45.160 lavender or rose or juniper or something like that, like 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:48.199 you know what that smell smells like. And from researching 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:51.280 this stuff, I think scientists have managed to isolate the 0:11:51.360 --> 0:11:55.000 essential oils found in like three thousand different species of 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:58.760 plants so far, um, three hundreds of of which and 0:11:58.760 --> 0:12:00.599 we'll talk about this more later, but three hundred of 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:04.040 which have been shown to have some sort of biomedical properties, 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:07.640 which is pretty important. Um. But from all of these 0:12:07.679 --> 0:12:12.559 they've realized there is a central player, right, Like, um, 0:12:12.600 --> 0:12:15.160 what was the one that you called out? Peppermint oils? 0:12:15.160 --> 0:12:19.440 Menthol It's a type of alcohol. But if you just 0:12:19.480 --> 0:12:22.720 smell menthol, you're you're not like that that smells like 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:28.120 peppermint instead. The essential oil is that main component, that 0:12:28.200 --> 0:12:32.440 main volatile organic compound with dozens or hundreds of others 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:37.079 in varying quantities and amounts, all mixed together just perfectly 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:40.880 so that you have not menthol, but peppermint, the essential 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:44.240 oil of peppermint um. And that is what in essential 0:12:44.280 --> 0:12:49.600 oils is. It's a really intricate, complex combination of volatile 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:55.120 organic compounds. That is the essence of that plant. That's right, 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:59.679 the essence of the plant. That's exactly perfectly said. And 0:13:00.360 --> 0:13:02.000 I'll just say this now. We're going to talk about 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:04.640 them in a minute. But there is a Swiss chemist 0:13:04.720 --> 0:13:11.720 chuck Um named Paracelsus, and he was an alchemist, and 0:13:11.720 --> 0:13:13.800 it turns out the alchemists are the ones who coined 0:13:13.800 --> 0:13:18.000 the term essential oil because the alchemists believe believed in 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:22.200 five elements. The four elements were earth, wind, water, and fire, 0:13:22.760 --> 0:13:25.360 and then there was a fifth element that was like elusive. 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:27.760 It was the one that bound all the other elements 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:30.800 together and just it was the glue that bound reality 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:36.160 and existence in the universe together. And so quintessential comes 0:13:36.160 --> 0:13:40.000 from quinta essence, meaning the fifth essence or the fifth element, 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:45.160 and so quintessential is was shortened eventually into essential oil, 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:49.240 which was the thought to be the purest, most um, 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:54.400 basic fundamental essence of a plant. So that's where we 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:58.280 get essential oil is from alchemists. Boy, why wasn't there 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:01.120 a soul band in the seventies named the Fifth Essence 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:05.160 featuring Billy d Volumes they could open for earth, wind, 0:14:05.200 --> 0:14:08.080 and fire and water and they would have done the 0:14:08.080 --> 0:14:14.360 soundtrack to the Fifth Element. Yeah. Whatever, So if we 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:15.960 go back in time, if we hopp in the old 0:14:15.960 --> 0:14:17.920 way back machine, Boy, we haven't been in this thing 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:28.000 for a while. Think about it. Kick it, Jerry, it's 0:14:28.880 --> 0:14:33.080 fired up. It smells a little musty. I don't think 0:14:33.080 --> 0:14:36.400 we've been in this thing since. You didn't dry out 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:38.760 the life preservers from last time. You just threw them 0:14:38.760 --> 0:14:42.000 in there in a pile, and now they're all well. 0:14:42.040 --> 0:14:45.080 Luckily we have some essential oils on hand, because we're 0:14:45.080 --> 0:14:49.080 going back to ancient Egypt and this is when they 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:55.600 started using essential oils, integrating them into medicine. Um, the 0:14:55.680 --> 0:14:58.440 trades between you know, of course in China they were 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:02.720 doing stuff like this and the Orient and trade routes 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:05.320 between the Orient and the Mediterranean really opened up this up, 0:15:05.720 --> 0:15:09.680 opened up this trade to these sort of magical oils 0:15:09.800 --> 0:15:13.120 as far as they were concerned. We know it's not magic. Now, 0:15:14.040 --> 0:15:17.200 back back then, this was this was early medicine, you 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:19.880 know for sure. Yeah, and I mean it was. It 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:24.240 was used in traditional Chinese medicine still is. UM. It's 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:28.320 spread from Egypt to the Mediterranean, to the Greeks, to 0:15:28.360 --> 0:15:32.040 the Romans, um over to the Persians who figured out 0:15:32.040 --> 0:15:36.360 how to distill ethyl alcohol from sugar, which was become 0:15:36.400 --> 0:15:41.680 a really big component in UM. Extracting essential oils from plants. 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:46.400 It was a huge innovation. UM. And then that trickled 0:15:46.440 --> 0:15:50.200 over to Europe in the Middle Ages, and um, that 0:15:50.320 --> 0:15:53.480 is where we join up with our friend Paracelsus, that 0:15:53.640 --> 0:16:00.440 Swiss chemist who's birth name was Philippus theo ast Us 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:07.120 Aerolis Bombastus von Hohenheim. Oh man, it's amazing, and't an 0:16:07.160 --> 0:16:12.680 amazing just von Hohenheim gets some statue in my mind. Yeah, yeah, 0:16:12.880 --> 0:16:15.040 that's that's pretty amazing. But he was known as the 0:16:15.160 --> 0:16:18.120 Luther of medicine because at the time people were like, oh, 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:20.720 this Galen guy had it all figured out. There's four 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:24.440 humors and that explains everything. He's like, no, no, let's 0:16:24.480 --> 0:16:27.800 use like evidence based science. Let's use things like chemistry. 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:30.480 And this guy was an alchemist even and he died 0:16:30.560 --> 0:16:33.000 bitter and angry because no one would listen to him. 0:16:33.040 --> 0:16:36.440 But he really helped kind of push things forward as 0:16:36.440 --> 0:16:41.320 far as reforming science into thinking scientifically is concerned. Yeah, 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:44.120 and he was a big proponent of these plant oils 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:49.040 that he was extracting, and uh, the compositions were revealed 0:16:49.080 --> 0:16:52.160 in the nineteenth century, and then of course, you know, 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:54.120 the twentieth century comes along and we get much more 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:58.800 efficient with our extraction and that just means more essential oils, 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:05.840 which means more experimentation basically, Yeah, you know, and good smoking, 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:10.000 a little X factor and a little fooling around. Who knows. 0:17:10.760 --> 0:17:14.240 Should we take a break? Definitely? Now, all right, let's 0:17:14.240 --> 0:17:18.200 take a break, and we'll talk about this extraction process. 0:17:18.359 --> 0:17:22.240 Something that I see under my deck a lot these days. 0:17:22.400 --> 0:17:43.920 Right after this, so I want to say something chuck 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:47.520 with extraction um one of the reasons why essential oils 0:17:47.520 --> 0:17:50.760 are so expensive, and if you get really good at 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:54.080 essential oil, you're gonna pay a lot for it. I 0:17:54.119 --> 0:17:57.239 saw if you bought a leader, which seems like a 0:17:57.240 --> 0:17:59.280 lot of rose oil. But if you're going to turn 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:01.840 around and sell in smaller amounts of other people, you 0:18:02.040 --> 0:18:05.160 probably buy a leader if you have twenty one thousand 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:09.080 dollars to cough up for a single leader of rose oil. 0:18:09.440 --> 0:18:12.359 And the reason why essential oils are so expensive is 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:18.200 because it takes so much plant material to to get 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:22.199 that essence from it. Right, So with with roses in particular, 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:27.439 you can expect to need about five metric tons of 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:30.960 rose petals just to get a kilogram of rose oil, 0:18:32.040 --> 0:18:34.960 three thousand lemons to get a kilogram of lemon oil, 0:18:35.400 --> 0:18:38.840 and something like four hundred and forty pounds of fresh 0:18:38.920 --> 0:18:44.440 lavender flowers to get a kilogram of lavender essential oil. Yeah, 0:18:44.480 --> 0:18:47.439 for our American friends who are like, dude, what are 0:18:47.440 --> 0:18:52.240 you even talking about? Um, six hundred pounds of rose 0:18:52.280 --> 0:18:57.320 petals for one ounce of essential oil or forty to 0:18:57.440 --> 0:19:02.639 sixty rosebuds for a single goal drop of rose otto 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:07.639 essential oil. I love stuff like that. Well, essential oils, 0:19:07.680 --> 0:19:10.560 they're my favorite new thing. No, it's cool, but it's 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:14.720 also you know, sustainability is an issue because of that, um, 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:17.440 they use the most plant material to produce produce that 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:20.679 very small amount of oil. So you're throwing away the 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:23.320 rest of the plant. Well, yeah, I mean that is true. 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:26.280 But here's another way to look at it, Chuck. If 0:19:26.440 --> 0:19:30.200 if the purpose of life, genetically speaking, is to multiply 0:19:30.320 --> 0:19:36.440 as much as possible, we are helping plants by propagating them, 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:38.879 and we're doing it because those plants are producing a 0:19:38.960 --> 0:19:42.240 smell that we like. So in this sense, we are 0:19:42.320 --> 0:19:46.119 the slaves of plants who were propagating as much as 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:50.480 we possibly can to produce that smell. More. Yeah, and 0:19:50.520 --> 0:19:52.720 you know, Emily is all about essential oils for sure, 0:19:52.760 --> 0:19:56.480 but she's also gotten much more into using the whole 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:59.959 herb and the whole plant, um and trying to use 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:02.040 like as much as the plant as possible, which is 0:20:02.040 --> 0:20:04.760 pretty cool. She's like, here, just stick this whole twig 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:08.000 of rosemary up your nose and you'll be fine. She's 0:20:08.000 --> 0:20:10.359 really learned a lot. Man. It's it's pretty impressive to cease, 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:14.359 you know, and inspiring to see someone learning so much, 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:17.960 you know, midlife, uh something brand new, like going back 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:21.119 to school. Basically, yeah, I can actually attest. This is 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:23.720 not a paid plug, everybody, Chuck, does not give me 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:28.080 money for these. Um. We got some soaps and some 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:31.760 room sprays. I think I told you from from Emily 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:36.680 from her company, and we actually sent some to some 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:40.600 friends and within like a couple of weeks, they were asking, 0:20:40.920 --> 0:20:43.720 they were dead. Where can we they said, where can 0:20:43.720 --> 0:20:46.520 we get some more of this? Because we're spraying this 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:49.280 lavender spray on our pillows every night to go to sleep. 0:20:49.720 --> 0:20:52.080 And they wanted to make sure that they could secure 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:55.159 more because they were halfway through the bottle. That we 0:20:55.200 --> 0:20:58.000 said them, not even like we're out where you know, 0:20:58.000 --> 0:21:00.520 where'd you guys get this? It was we're halfway through. 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:02.040 We want to make sure we can get some more. 0:21:02.119 --> 0:21:05.440 So Emily making the good stuff for sure, that's right, 0:21:05.480 --> 0:21:07.199 and go to love your Mama dot com and and 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:09.359 check it out. She's a small business and they're all 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:14.560 hurting right now. So we always appreciate the business so extraction. 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.560 There are have been a lot of different methods over 0:21:17.600 --> 0:21:19.680 the years. As Emily told me, she's like that, you 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:22.639 know these are all ancient methods, or not all ancient methods, 0:21:22.680 --> 0:21:25.320 but many of these are ancient methods. Does she say 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:32.359 things like low first, low, these be ancient methods, wonderful? 0:21:32.920 --> 0:21:37.400 She does say all flourage, which is a very interesting 0:21:37.840 --> 0:21:43.439 older technique where you isolate these essential oils by using 0:21:43.600 --> 0:21:48.199 purified fats. And this all sounds gross, but what you 0:21:48.520 --> 0:21:50.480 would do back in the day, and I'm sure there 0:21:50.520 --> 0:21:53.399 are probably still some people doing it this way, um, 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:55.280 and you can probably go, like pay five dollars to 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:57.679 watch them dress up an al temy clothes and stuff 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:01.119 and do this. But you would get a tallow and 0:22:01.240 --> 0:22:04.520 large mixture and spread it out on a flat surface 0:22:04.640 --> 0:22:06.600 and then, uh, the first thing you have to do 0:22:06.680 --> 0:22:08.040 with any of these is you got to crush up 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:11.359 the plants really well, and you you coat it with 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:15.480 these crushed up plants, and the fat absorbs these v 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:18.760 o C s. It takes a few days. Then you 0:22:18.800 --> 0:22:21.600 filter out those plant parts, you know, because you don't 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:23.720 want those around anymore. You've gotten what you needed from them. 0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:26.760 You're done with them, get out of my sight. And 0:22:26.800 --> 0:22:30.840 then the fat will eventually become saturated with this essential oil. 0:22:31.119 --> 0:22:34.720 And then you extract that oil with a solvent basically 0:22:34.760 --> 0:22:37.280 like alcohol. Yeah, from what I saw though, it is 0:22:37.359 --> 0:22:40.440 this is a multi step process where once you extract 0:22:40.560 --> 0:22:42.760 or once you get rid of like the plant material, 0:22:43.040 --> 0:22:45.159 once you've gotten the essential oil out of it, you 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:47.639 repeat the process again and again and again until like 0:22:47.680 --> 0:22:51.560 the fat is saturated with essential oil. Yeah, that's pretty 0:22:51.600 --> 0:22:56.520 cool and that I mean, that's great. That seems very ancient. Indeed. Um, 0:22:56.560 --> 0:23:00.240 And there's another variation of it called maceration hot at, 0:23:00.920 --> 0:23:03.320 which is um where you do the same thing, but 0:23:03.440 --> 0:23:05.879 you warm the fat to kind of speed up the 0:23:05.920 --> 0:23:10.560 absorption process. So I guess that means that essential oils, 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:13.960 or at least certain kinds of them, are fat soluble, 0:23:14.040 --> 0:23:17.040 is what I'm taking from this. Yeah, I couldn't really 0:23:17.160 --> 0:23:22.160 figure out this maceration. That may be an old term um, 0:23:22.200 --> 0:23:25.280 because like a macerated oil is basically an infused oil 0:23:26.119 --> 0:23:29.760 for use a carrier oil. Now. Yeah, my understanding or 0:23:29.760 --> 0:23:33.440 my familiarity with masceration is um. When you make a shrub, 0:23:33.720 --> 0:23:37.800 a vinegar shrub to put in cocktails or whatever. Macerating 0:23:37.880 --> 0:23:44.600 is where you basically chemically mash the fruit by putting 0:23:44.680 --> 0:23:47.040 so much sugar on it that it just breaks it down. 0:23:48.040 --> 0:23:50.439 And then you take that and add vinegar to it 0:23:50.520 --> 0:23:52.439 and shake it up and let it sit for a 0:23:52.440 --> 0:23:57.359 few weeks and thank me later. One of my favorite 0:23:57.359 --> 0:24:00.760 ways of extraction is good old fashioned mechanic cold expression 0:24:01.680 --> 0:24:06.320 another good band name. And this is like uh citrus rhyns, 0:24:06.960 --> 0:24:09.399 like all those great essential oils that you get from 0:24:09.440 --> 0:24:13.879 an orange peel or or lemon peel, and you cold 0:24:13.880 --> 0:24:17.360 press this stuff and just extract those oils with good 0:24:17.400 --> 0:24:20.800 old fashioned elbow grease. This is what Lucile Ball was 0:24:20.880 --> 0:24:24.040 doing to those grapes and that classic episode where she's 0:24:24.760 --> 0:24:28.119 mashing grapes by jumping around a tub with another lady. 0:24:29.680 --> 0:24:33.800 I mean, is there anything better than taking a lemon 0:24:33.800 --> 0:24:37.440 twist and squeezing that thing into a drink and seeing 0:24:37.480 --> 0:24:41.399 those little that citrus sneeze come out of it. Yeah, 0:24:41.520 --> 0:24:43.879 and then like that it kind of floats like oil 0:24:44.320 --> 0:24:46.960