Benefits of Red Sage with Toby Daly

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I’m excited to have our first Chinese medicine practitioner, Toby Daly, on the show. That he chose to talk about the benefits of red sage (or dan shen)—one of my favorite herbs to grow in a garden and perhaps one of the herbs that I have been growing the longest—just added to my delight! If you don’t already know about the benefits of red sage (Salvia miltiorrhiza), I’m confident you’ll love it too by the end of this episode.

To give you a sneak peek, red sage can help to:

► Cool and calm irritability

► Ease chronic pain

► Support the heart and pericardium

► and more

All this while having the additional distinction of being the lead player in a whole-herb formula that’s just been approved in the U.S. to go to Stage Four clinical trials. (That’s big, folks!) And, as if that wasn’t enough, red sage is absolutely gorgeous, with brilliant, large purple flowers that are beloved by pollinators of all sorts, including bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.

Any which way you look at it, there’s an abundance to enjoy and appreciate about the benefits of red sage! 

By the end of this episode, you’ll know:

► Why Chinese medicine (and, of course, clinical herbalism) always starts with the patient, not with the herbs

► What does it mean to “move the blood” and why is that important?

► How do the benefits of red sage compare and contrast to hawthorn?

► The role of humility and collaboration in herbalism

► How to make a tincture with red sage that supports the heart and the liver, the two major emotional systems in the body from a Chinese medicine perspective (be sure to download your recipe card!)

For those who don’t already know Toby, he received his undergraduate degree in Food Science from the California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo. He began studying Chinese medicine in 1997 with Sunim Doam, a Korean monk trained in the Saam tradition. He earned his master's degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine in 2002 upon completion of training at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in San Francisco and Chengdu University in China.

During his four years of training in San Francisco, he interned with the prominent acupuncturist Dr. Angela Wu and learned to apply the lofty theories he was studying in school into the pragmatic setting of a busy clinic. In 2013, he developed the Chinese Nutritional Strategies app to provide digital access to the wealth of Chinese dietary wisdom.

In 2016, proving that some people never learn enough, he completed a PhD in Classical Chinese Medicine under the guidance of 88th generation Daoist priest Jeffery Yuen. In 2021, he developed the Chinese Medical Characters app to enable direct access to foundational Chinese medical terms and concepts.

He lectures internationally and in April 2023 he published his first book, An Introduction to Chinese Medicine: A Patient's Guide to Acupuncture, Herbal Medicine, Nutrition & More.

I didn’t know Toby prior to this episode and I really enjoyed getting to know him. I think that, like me, you’ll find him to be very sweet, endearing and super knowledgeable. He didn’t even bat an eye when I interrupted him to talk about Tori Amos, so big score in my book! I’m so happy to share our conversation with you today!

-- TIMESTAMPS --

• 01:12 – Introduction to Toby Daly
• 03:37 – How trying acupuncture led to Toby’s life work
• 10:59 – The role meditation played for Toby in recovering from despair
• 12:42 – Why Toby loves the benefits of red sage (Salvia miltiorrhiza)
• 16:47 – What does it mean to move the blood and why is that important?
• 17:58 – How dan shen got its name
• 19:29 – Dan shen’s affinity for the heart
• 21:03 – Calm Spirit tincture recipe
• 22:47 – Closing thoughts about the benefits of red sage
  
• 27:28 – Hawthorn vs. the benefits of red sage for the heart
• 30:16 – Toby’s book, An Introduction to Chinese Medicine
• 34:28 – Who Toby wrote his book for
• 40:53 – What it’s like to be an acupuncturist at the grocery store
• 44:01 – Toby’s biggest herbal mistake
• 55:30 – Dan shen tidbit

Get Your Free Recipe!

Calm Spirit is a simple two-herb formula from the Taiwanese herbal tradition of my teacher Dr. Angela Wu.

Ingredients:

• 120 grams Dan Shen (Salviae Miltiorrhizae Radix)
• 30 grams He Huan Hua (Flos Albizziae)
• 1000 ml ETOH (Ethyl alcohol)

Instructions:

1. Place the two medicinals into a clean glass jar
2. Add the ETOH
3. Seal and macerate for at least two weeks. Shake the jar daily to promote extraction.
4. Strain the herbs from the tincture. Be sure to squeeze the herbs to extract all the liquid. You can compost the spent herbs.
5. Pour the tincture into amber or blue dropper bottles and label.

Connect with Toby

• Website | FlourishMedicine.com

Transcript of the 'Benefits of Red Sage with Toby Daly' Video

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Hello and welcome to the Herbs with Rosalee Podcast, a show exploring how herbs heal as medicine, as food and through nature connection. I’m your host, Rosalee de la Forêt. I created this  Channel to share trusted herbal wisdom so that you can get the best results when relying on herbs for your health. I love offering up practical knowledge to help you dive deeper into the world of medicinal plants and seasonal living.

Each episode of the Herbs with Rosalee Podcast is shared on YouTube, as well as your favorite podcast app. Also, to get my best herbal tips as well as fun bonuses, be sure to sign up for my weekly herbal newsletter at the bottom of this page. Okay, grab your cup of tea and let’s dive in.

I’m excited to have our first Chinese medicine practitioner on the show. I didn’t know Toby prior to this and I really enjoyed getting to know him. I think that, like me, you’ll find him to be very sweet, endearing and super knowledgeable. He didn’t even bat an eye when I interrupted him to talk about Tori Amos, so big score in my book!

Toby received his undergraduate degree in Food Science from the California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo. He began studying Chinese medicine in 1997 with Sunim Doam, a Korean monk trained in the Saam tradition. He earned his master’s degree in Traditional Chinese Medicine in 2002 upon completion of training at the American College of Traditional Chinese Medicine in San Francisco and Chengdu University in China. 

During his four years of training in San Francisco, he interned with the prominent acupuncturist, Dr. Angela Wu and learned to apply the lofty theories he was studying in school into the pragmatic setting of a busy clinic. In 2013, he developed the Chinese Nutritional Strategies app to provide digital access to the wealth of Chinese dietary wisdom. In 2016, proving that some people never learn, he completed PhD in the Classical Chinese Medicine under the guidance of 88th Generation Daoist priest, Jeffery Yuen. In 2021, he developed the Chinese Medical Characters app to enable direct access to foundational Chinese medical terms and concepts.

Toby lectures internationally and in April 2023 he published his first book, An Introduction to Chinese Medicine: A Patient’s Guide to Acupuncture, Herbal Medicine, Nutrition & More.

Welcome to the show, Toby.

Toby Daly: 

Thanks so much.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I’m so glad you reached out. Sometimes I get people reaching out to be on the show and it’s just so obvious that they’re just selling nutraceuticals or something, so it’s easy just to gloss over those things but you reached out and it was just such a real connection. I love what you’re doing and I’m excited to have a Chinese medicine practitioner on the show. Thank you so much for being here.

Toby Daly:

Thanks so much. Thanks so much for inviting me. I’m just so pleased to be on your program and I’m looking forward to talking to another herb lover so I’m excited too.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wonderful. The place I always love to start out is what pulled you into the plant path and brought you to us today.

Toby Daly:

Thanks for asking me about that. I started acupuncture world through kind of the world of despair. It’s sort of a tough time for me. What I did is I graduated—I finished my undergraduate and immediately got everything, Rosalee – a cute girlfriend, awesome job. I was making ice cream--new ice cream flavors for a company in San Francisco and if any of those flavors—do you guys have Trader Joe’s by you, Rosalee?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

No, I live in the middle of nowhere blissfully, so we don’t have any.

Toby Daly:

Do you know Trader Joe’s?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I do though. Yes, I have been to Trader Joe’s.

Toby Daly:

We had a contract that any ice cream flavors I made that got accepted into Trader Joe’s also, I get a huge bonus for that. So my job is eat ice cream, eat things that might go into ice cream all day long. A lot of money, cute girlfriend, I was in San Francisco and I had a great apartment with a good friend of mine. No commute. It was a six or seven-block bike ride to and from work, so I had tons of free time, money. I was going to a lot of concerts and parties and things like this – everything a guy in his young twenties can possibly want. Do you think I was happy, Rosalee?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I’m guessing there might have been something missing.

Toby Daly:

But there wasn’t any. I couldn’t find anything missing. I just kept getting unhappier and unhappier. I would talk to my friends about it and they’re like, “Let’s just go to this next concert. You’ll feel better.” I felt worse after the last concert and then just did more and more things. Everything on the outside—and I understood this later—but everything on the outside was everything I could possibly have.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I have to ask, Toby, were you going to Tori Amos’ concerts? Because if not, that might have been the problem.

Toby Daly:

I don’t know if she came to town. I had never seen a Tori Amos concert, but if she’d come through I definitely would have seen her.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Continue on. I just felt like it was my obligation to mention that because I’d be disappointed in myself if I didn’t.

Toby Daly:

That could’ve dispelled the whole thing and then I never had gone on this journey. Good thing I didn’t go to that concert. Maybe it ended up...

Rosalee de la Forêt:

There you go. There you go.

Toby Daly:

It’s easy to make it light now, but I was really unhappy and I just couldn’t figure out why. It was so confusing for me. I started feeling so lost. I traveled before in Europe and met some people that were going to Asia. It just sounded cool. I put that in the back of my mind and then as I got more and more lost, the only thing I could think to do was just get myself lost on the outside too. It was really a desperation move. Like I mentioned, everything was going so well with me financially. I had basically no obligations, no family or anything, and so I thought I’ll just go to Asia three or six months or something like that. I really just wasn’t sure what to do with myself. That trip ended up being two years of just wandering around.

I got really sick on that trip. It end up being nine countries in Southeast Asia and I got really, really sick. You can see me on the video 6’4”, 200lbs. I was down to 150, just real skeletal, really bad diarrhea and no appetite. You have to picture this a little bit too – a long red beard and long red hair and just kind of wandering around Asia. I would see things like Everest Base Camp. There’s the Taj Mahal. There’s the famous three-colored lakes of Indonesia. It was a little bit similar for me being home in San Francisco too. I was seeing all these amazing things, but nothing was really penetrating.

I was in Northern India at the time. I was on my way to Kashmir and it’s a two-day bus ride. On this two-day bus ride, the person ended up sitting next to me was a Korean Buddhist monk. I have no experience with monks or anything like that, but I just felt such a deep kinship with him, an amazing kinship with him just sitting—these two days of bus ride and then we arrived in Kashmir. Kashmir is a really dangerous place at this time. It’s beautiful but really dangerous. Someone threw a hand grenade into the farmers market the day we arrived. Anyway, the area was basically all cleared out of tourists except for this monk and I. We got a houseboat on Dal Lake and we just started chatting and talking. He kept saying to me—I kept running to go to the bathroom all the time and he kept saying, “You’re not doing very well. I’ve got acupuncture needles. I’d love to help you out and see if you could feel better.”

My background is all science. My grandfather is a medical doctor. I was pretty sure needles without any medicine going in them that’s really not going to do anything for me, so I just kept pushing him off, pushing him off for several weeks. After a few weeks of traveling together, I finally—I thought he’s such a nice man. It’s not going to do anything for me, but he’ll probably feel better if he puts his needles in. Maybe it might hurt me a little bit. That’s not going to help me but he’s so nice. This will make him feel a lot better.

I laid down. He put four needles in my body, just one side of my body. I got up from that and had a full meal and three desserts, and that’s something I hadn’t been able to do for months. I was just amazed by that so then my mind started switching – needles couldn’t do anything to, “Wow! That’s amazing what needles can do!” My teacher just kept teaching me and then he taught me. I visit him in Korea and then he visited me a couple of times in the United States and just continued my education. A few months after meeting him, he and I parted ways. I went to Pakistan and he went to—he was going to Dharamshala. After six weeks of traveling together, we switched paths. Months and months later when I was traveling, I was thinking I was just so impressed what he was able to do.

Suddenly, it started clicking in my mind maybe I could learn how to do that, so then I came home immediately. I enrolled in Chinese medical school and then Chinese medical school--that’s when I really fell in love with the herbs. I was already loving that with acupuncture and the basic theory of Chinese medicine. I’m still, to this day, I feel so lucky I wake up every morning so happy to be a clinician in Chinese medicine. It’s so beautiful and can help people so fundamentally so I’m happy about that. I had despair and then I had introduction to acupuncture, and then acupuncture unlocked herbal medicine for me. That’s the long route to how I fell in love with herbal medicine.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I’m curious, Toby. What would you say was—I think we could infer a lot of things from your story, but what would you say was the missing piece? What’s the difference between despair and then what you found?

Toby Daly:

That’s really a key part of it. My teacher, he basically, saved my life because I was just going down and I didn’t care enough to help myself. He saved my life and then he gave me something to do with it. He put me on the path of medicine, and then he also taught me meditation. Meditation is looking inside. Again, everything on the outside perfect, but inside was just a mess. Raised in this Western culture, I just had no idea you could even look inside and then actually organize things a little bit better on the inside. I just had no idea.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

What a blessing to find him and then have the six weeks. People often talk about travel and how unexpected things can happen and you never even know. This is just a beautiful story of that finding your teacher, finding yourself.

Toby Daly:

I’m pretty glad I didn’t go to that Tori Amos concert then. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Well…okay. I guess that’s all the time we have today, Toby. Thanks for being here.

Toby Daly:

Thanks for having me on the program, Rosalee. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I can concede but maybe we could compromise and say both could be possible.

Toby Daly:

Okay, yes.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

She is on tour right now, so you could still enjoy Tori.

Toby Daly:

Okay then. I’ll take that highly recommended. I’ll go check it out. Thank you.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I’m really excited for the plant that you’re going to share today because this is the first time we’ve had this plant on here. It’s a plant that I love deeply so I’d love to hear why you chose dan shen for today.

Toby Daly:

My single herb teachers always said the same thing to me over and over again, “Don’t have your favorite herb. You have to treat everything equally and you can’t have your favorite herb.” Rosalee, I don’t know about you, but for me that’s impossible. There are certain herbs that you just have so much resonance with, and for me, it’s dan shen. I have so much resonance with this. It’s an amazing herb. It does a lot of things. It’s beautiful. It’s powerful and almost free of side effects. It’s one of my favorite herbs despite my teachers’ highly recommending not to have your favorite herb. Dan shen just got early in as one of my favorite herbs. Now, literally, over 20 years as a clinician, and yet it’s still one of my favorite herbs. I’m drinking it right now.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Lovely. Could you share with us some of the names of dan shen? 

Toby Daly:

In what way? Like Latin?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah, Latin and anything else you might want to share.

Toby Daly:

I was going to have you help me with that. In Chinese medicine, we always use the Chinese name, so we call it “dan shen” and then every once in a while we call it Salvia root, but we don’t really do that. Rosalee, I heard about—do you know how to pronounce Latin names?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

With confidence.

Toby Daly:

Okay, that seems better than my answer though, but it should be you pronounce them how your teacher pronounce them. That was really good. If you don’t mind pronouncing it for me, it’d be better with confidence.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Oh, my gosh. I was kind of going to rely on you, Toby, because I do pronounce it with confidence but I do not know that it’s correct, but I call it Salvia miltiorrhiza.

Toby Daly:

Okay, that’s so much better than I was actually trying to practice a little bit. That’s much better than any of my practicing. That’s great, yes. Anyways, I can’t say the Latin name but I love it anyways.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

There.

Toby Daly:

Okay. I think one of the reasons I love it too is it’s the perfect herb for the modern patient. I think you’re really familiar with Chinese medicine, dong quai, Angelica sinensis. It’s been so popular for a millennia. That’s a blood nourisher. It does move a little bit of blood, especially different portions of that root. The head of the dong quai really nourishes well and the tail, the lowest part of the herb, that helps move everything--move blood. Especially, sometimes we’ll break it up. We’ll use just the head if we just want to nourish or we’ll just use the tail if we just want to move it--move blood in the body.

From my experience, my clinical experience, most people over nourished. They don’t need that much nourishment. I think back in the old days, especially in China, there’s so much famine, so many problems and things like that. Everyone was always a little undernourished. In our modern culture, I think everyone’s over nourished for the most part and then under circulated. People just don’t move properly. The nice thing about dan shen, it has the same quality as dong quai but in reverse. It’s a much better blood mover and it does nourish the blood a little bit. A special good quality for—it’s slightly cold, the dan shen, and it has a special quality for—in Chinese medicine we say “calms the spirit.” That strong irritability that you see everywhere in the world right now, dan shen is the perfect antidote for that because it will calm the spirit and cool and soothe that irritability.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I want to talk about your recipe that you shared with us in just a bit, but before we do that, I wonder if you could expand a little bit more on moving the blood and why someone would want to do that.

Toby Daly:

That’s such a good question about that. For Chinese medicine, we have idea that if everything is moving in the body, it’s impossible to have any kind of pain. If there’s any pain in the body, we use the Chinese term “chi.” This means a functional aspect of the body or blood or the structural part of the body. If either one of those is not moving properly, we have pain. If both of those are moving, it’s impossible to experience pain in our body. This is so valuable. People have chronic pain and irritability and things like that. Dan shen is so helpful for that because it can help with the pain, calm the spirit and everything like that. For Chinese medicine, at the crux of the system is supplementing enough things in the body, and then second part is making sure everything moves properly in the body. This is a really important aspect for movement. It could be fluids. It could be chi. It could be blood. It’s important to keep all these things moving.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wonderful. I’d love to talk about the plant itself because it’s a very striking plant--its beautiful sage flowers, but what we typically use are the roots in medicine. How would you describe how those roots look?

Toby Daly:

I get some locally grown dan shen. This is always really exciting for us when we get that package and harvest it in the fall. I brought some today, but it has really lost a lot of its brilliance by now. It’s a deep crimson. It’s this beautiful deep crimson. It’s dark but it has a glow to it too. It’s just so gorgeous. Everyone comes and gathers around that. We’re just so excited when we get the dan shen in.

Any patients that are coming by are really drawn to it and come over and look at it and hold it. It’s a really beautiful color. The Chinese name for dan shen – “dan” means “cinnabar,” this really red—this deep red color. “Shen” is a little bit unusual too. Usually, for Chinese language for roots, we call them “ben” or “gen.” These two things are usually for roots. Every once in a while, really special roots that have really elevated quality is also root but it’s a special root we call “shen.” The other one that comes to mind is ren shen. This is ginseng. Any of these special roots get this designation of shen, so dan shen is a cinnabar special root.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Lovely. I’m wondering if you’ll speak to dan shen and its—what do I want to say? Its special affinity for the heart and cardiovascular system.

Toby Daly:

Thanks so much for saying that too. Every herb has its certain affinity and a resonance with an organ system. This one has a resonance with the pericardium and the heart and so it’s going to really influence that. For modern use, especially in China, thousands of studies about this now, about the cardiac benefits of dan shen. Also, it’s interesting for Chinese medicine when we say “xin,” 心> we say the heart that includes the mind. Interestingly enough, dan shen has really good affinity for strokes too. Special caveat for that, it has to be some type of occlusion where you need to move that. If there’s any kind of break in the vessel, obviously that’s not good because you don’t want to move blood out of the vessel.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s a good distinction there.

Toby Daly:

Yeah.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I love that connection with the head as well in terms of calming the spirit as you were talking about before too.

Toby Daly:

For Chinese medicine, everything begins in the organ systems and then it floats up to the brain. We have a really derogatory term we use for the brain from the Daoist. They call it the “mud ball palace” because everyone wants to give it all the credit, but actually, everything comes from the organs.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

And that recipe you shared with us is a calm spirit tincture which combines two herbs, which I’d love for you to talk more about that as well.

Toby Daly:

Sure. Dan shen is the leader. It’s a 4 to 1 ratio. He Huan Hua is the other one. Do you want to help me with the Latin on that one?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s Albizia and many people know it as mimosa flowers.

Toby Daly:

Or silk tree flower.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Silk tree flower, yes. 

Toby Daly:

For Chinese medicine, emotionwise, the heart is one of our predominant aspects for the organ system. The heart is the one that rules the other 11 organs, so it’s so important, and emotionwise having to do with love and just in charge of everything else.

The really important other aspect for us emotionwise, for Chinese medicine, is the liver. The liver, if we can keep everything smoothly moving through it then everything is really easy. Even when we have strong emotions, but they smoothly, like silk, the emotions can move through our bodies like silk, then even if you have strong emotions, it doesn’t harass you in any way. It silkily moves through your body.

The He Huan Hua helps with that. This is such a nice combination – the affinity with the heart and the liver. These two major emotional systems in the body keep them cool and moving. It’s really helpful.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Lovely. For folks who want to download their recipe card for the calm spirit tincture, it’s a beautifully illustrated card by Tatiana, and you can get that by clicking the link above this transcript.

Toby Daly:

Thanks Tatiana!

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah, thanks Tatiana. What else would you like to share about dan shen?

Toby Daly:

It’s such a great herb. It’s really stable. Rosalee, you probably know about that Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing is the first materia medica that we still have from China. Do you know about that one?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Is that Yellow Emperor’s?

Toby Daly:

No. The Yellow Emperor’s is all the theoretical aspects, yeah, there are some herbs in there. This is the—the translation other times is Divine Husbandman's materia medica.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

It’s been over a decade since I’ve been in TCM school so that was a little bit rusty for me.

Toby Daly:

Okay, that’s fair. Anyways, this materia medica that we still have is so beautiful. Early on, it was organized into three categories. The Chinese medicine just love natural things. They get 365 herbs to represent 365 days of the year. They put them into three categories – upper, like fantastic herbs, middle and then low quality lower herbs. We’re really fortunate dan shen itself is in upper category.

It’s interesting to see the orientation for Chinese medicine so early on. The upper class herbs don’t do anything. They don’t treat any disease. It’s purely for—to enhance your longevity, so that’s a little bit interesting. Middle class herbs to help with any kind of constitutional deficiencies that we have. He Huan Hua is in that middle category. The lower quality—this is so interesting for Chinese medicine—125, 120 at the lower, these lower 120, they feel like these really low quality ones, these are the ones that actually treat disease. So if you have any kind of disease, you have to use these because these are herbs that can help with what we really want--longevity. Sure if you have some disease or something, you can use that. Dan shen being the highest, Category 1, this one is fine to take for long-term--dan shen. That’s good to say that one right away. It’s designed to be taken long-term for preventative, for longevity enhancing.

The other thing I really want to say is it does have some qualities for that longevity and it invigorates blood, so we really cannot if it’s already a bleeding problem, without adding other herbs to it, we really can’t use dan shen if there’s any type of bleeding problem. Like I was saying before, if there’s stroke that’s due to a breakage in the blood vessels, dan shen’s completely contraindicated. Conversely, if it’s from an occlusion then dan shen is really called for and like I said, study after study in China has confirmed that using it for stroke due to occlusion. Same thing with heart attack, atrial fibrillation – all these kind of things. Brain and heart studies over and over again. They even take the crude herb and inject it directly via IV and that’s working amazing.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s amazing what they’re doing with herbs in that regard.

Toby Daly:

Even in the United States they recognize this. This is especially interesting about dan shen. Dan shen, plus two other herbs, sanchi, we call “notoginseng” and “bing pian” which is “borneol.” This combination, dan shen being the lead herb, it just passed its Stage 3 clinical trials. The crude herb formulation—this had never happened in the history of the United States—they approved it and so now, it’s going to Stage 4 clinical trials. The crude herbs--they tried for so long to take just the active ingredients of all these three. It’s too—especially once it’s  combined, right?—it’s too much to take, so they just left that aside. The safety profile is amazing on this because, like I said, dan shen is such a good herb as a lead herb and powerfully helpful. The clinical trials in the US even were doing for stroke, from occlusion and any type of chest pain, palpitations, chest pain. Everything. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thanks for sharing that. I always love it when the science of it can be done in such a way confirming traditional use. Like you said, so seldomly are they using whole plants and instead are using isolated extracts, so that’s really wonderful to see that.

I have a question for you and if you can’t answer this it’s fine. I’m curious hearing all this talk about dan shen and the heart, it makes me think of hawthorn berries. I know hawthorn berries are used a little bit differently in the different systems, but in Western herbalism that’s like our premier heart herb that is very nourishing. We can take it for a long time. I’m curious if you have knowledge about hawthorn berries, and if so, kind of a comparison between dan shen and hawthorn berries and how they might be similar and different.

Toby Daly:

I’m glad you asked me a question I knew the answer to so that’s good. I use shan zha. Hawthorn berry in Chinese medicine, we call shan zha. I use that every day in the clinic. It’s a great herb but we use it a little bit differently. I think, historically, for Chinese medicine this might help inform your fellow herbalists here about how to use it. In China, we use it especially if people eat tons and tons of meat to help them break down all the byproducts for that. That makes sense with us, especially Americans, we eat too much meat. Shan zha might be able to really help them and then help heart health with that. Vegetarians and things like that, I think shan zha is going to be a little bit less helpful for. Heavy meat eaters that happen to be your patients, I think shan zha is especially indicated, according to Chinese medicine.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

In Chinese medicine, the hawthorn berries is considered as much as a blood mover. I don’t know that we talk about that really in Western herbalism. It’s more considered nourishing.

Toby Daly: 

For Chinese herbal medicine, again, I just have a sense about it because I’m just an herbalist now. I’m not a student anymore. That’s just how you—but we use it for breaking down phlegm, dampness. Food stagnation is the term we use in Chinese medicine where everything is just stuck from eating so much rich stuff. It’s great for breaking all that through.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wonderful. Thanks for that, satisfying my own curiosity there.

Toby Daly:

So that would be a great combination, right? Dan shen and shan zha. Say you have someone with chest pain and a history of eating a lot of meat and things like that, that would be fantastic. Has to be some kind of heat signs too. Dan shen is slightly cold too, so fantastic for most Americans that are all overheated. You have to be a little bit careful if they’re cold too.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Toby, we heard your story about how you got started in all of this and then from that, as I read in your bio, you did lot more studies. Now, you’re—my understanding is mainly a practitioner. You work with people one-on-one. You’ve also recently published a book, which is very exciting, An Introduction to Chinese Medicine: A Patient’s Guide to Acupuncture, Herbal Medicine, Nutrition & More. I’d love to hear more about the book, why you decided to write a book because that’s no small endeavor and who the book is really for.

Toby Daly:

Thanks so much for asking me about that. Rosalee, do you remember when you wrote your first book and you did several years working on it and it was just an idea, and then finally, you got it in your hands?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah, that’s pretty exciting. 

Toby Daly:

So this is last Saturday for me. It is so that the thrill hasn’t worn off at all because it’s so exciting to get just an idea in your hands. It was so exciting.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Congratulations.

Toby Daly:

Thanks so much. Other authors know how much work goes into that. I really enjoy your book too. It’s so beautiful too. Alchemy of Herbs, right? It’s so fantastic. I especially appreciate that. Sometimes when we read Western herb books, I get a little disappointed because it’ll be, “These herbs are for headache. These herbs are for stomach pain.” For Chinese medicine, we never talk like that so I was so pleased with your energetics of the herbs, especially the wet-dry, hot-cold dynamic. That’s exactly how we do with Chinese medicine with the yin-yang, so I was really pleased about your book.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I began studying herbal medicine through Chinese medicine, so that is not something I really draw upon today as much, but it definitely informs who I am as an herbalist every single day.

Toby Daly:

It really showed in your book. I was so happy about that. Maybe just give you a quick aside about my teacher, Dr. Wu. When I was just a student, I was so enthusiastic about herbs. In the morning, I would go to Chinese Medical School and then for four years, I had interned at her really busy clinic, 60 patients a day. Originally, she was seeing a lot of HIV, AIDS before the antiretrovirals, and then later on a lot of fertility and things. Anyways, really busy practitioner. 

We just come in her intern, do anything--walk her dog, painted her clinic. Anything, just to see how she operate in clinic.

Every once in a while she lets us ask questions. In the morning, I learned “wu wei zi,” Schisandra berry. I was really impressed with it. It’s the five-flavor herb. I thought it was so cool so I bucked up the courage to say to Dr. Wu, “Dr. Wu, is wu wei zi a good herb?” She was furious. She got in my face. This was 25 years ago. I still remember this. She got in my face and said, “For who? When?” and then turned on her heel and walked away. This just rocked my whole paradigm of Chinese medicine. Of course, we can never say something good or bad. We always have to say, “For who? What’s the constitution? What’s going on with them right now? When? What’s the season or the climatic factors that’s going on?” We can never answer “Is this a good herb or bad herb?”

I was so happy that your herbal book too you’re always saying for who or when. We always have to consider that kind of thing. There’s no good or bad herbs, only appropriate or inappropriate herbs for that person at that time.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s a powerful story to go through. Very intense like that. It is my pet peeve of everybody how much turmeric is-

Toby Daly:

Yes.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

As if turmeric is good for everybody all the time. Yes, it is an amazing herb but it is not good for everybody all the time.

Toby Daly:

That’s something else I love from your book too. You call it the “one solution syndrome.” Is that right? That is so fantastic. I have a similar idea to that, but not succinctly like it, how you placed it I was so pleased on that one. If you don’t mind, can I borrow that concept?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Absolutely, absolutely. Toby, I asked you about your book and all you’ve done is say sweet things about my book, which I appreciate.

Toby Daly:

I really enjoyed your book.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thank you. One, you’re a busy practitioner. What got it in your head to write the book? I’m also curious who the book is for and the reason why I’m asking that is because someone might think, “I don’t know anything about Chinese medicine.” Just who did you write this book for? Who do you think is going to pick up this book and say, “I love this book!”

Toby Daly:

You’re so sweet, Rosalee. Thanks for getting me back on track. What happened is—almost two years ago—I was volunteering at a meditation retreat. It’s 10-day silent meditation retreat, so a whole bunch of volunteers come in and help while everyone is in silence while preparing food and doing a whole bunch of things. It’s a whole bunch of people who don’t know each other. They come together and they work 12-hour a day, 14-hour a day just doing everything. 

The first day we get there, everyone is introducing themselves, what they do. I’ve been on retreats before. It always seem to be like a theme of volunteers, so at the time it was a whole bunch of MDs, MD-PhD, Ayurvedic practitioner, naturopath and me. It’s so great. We had so much great conversation. This one happened to be all biotech people. It was all really high level biotech people. They were working on computer simulating proteins and what would happen. A lot I don’t really understand. It’s all biotech people all introducing each other going around and then it comes to me and then, “What do you do?” “I practice Chinese medicine.” Rosalee, immediately, all the arms go up in front of their chest and they give me a little bit of side shoulder. “Hmm. Chinese medicine.”

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Kind of like you when you were in your twenties.

Toby Daly:

That’s exactly how I started just thinking, “What Chinese medicine? What is that?” I just immediately dismissed it not knowing anything about it. It’s the height of ignorance. You don’t know anything about it but immediately dismiss it. I was guilty of that myself. Not just dismissing it. I was a little bit hostile toward it. Just so much ignorance.

Over the course of these ten days, we had a lot of conversations where we were preparing meals and doing all the shebang. At the end of the ten days, everyone was like, “Hey, if I ever had any problem, I’m going to go get Chinese medicine.” I’ve had those exact conversations thousands of times and then something about that conversation with those people just clicked in my mind. I thought I better write this down. Basically, everything I talked about for those ten days, I’d better just write that down.

For the first few months of writing the book, I thought I’ll just write a little bit. I don’t think this is going to be a book. I’ll just write a little bit. I kept writing and kept writing and then showed it to some people early on. They were really encouraging, and so eventually, it came together. Excuse me.

It’s for anybody in biotech that wants to understand Chinese medicine. Not like, “Oh, Chinese medicine is so great,” but “This is what Chinese medicine is. These are its modalities. This is its historical references. This is how it works and here’s the modern research.” For me, I make almost no clinical decisions based on modern research because that’s n of a thousand people at the most. For Chinese historical record, we have n of hundreds of millions. For me, I always weigh that so much heavier than historical references. A lot of people love to talk about that, “The last research says this, dan shen”— Dan shen I’m so impressed with. Even the US FDA is so impressed with dan shen so that’s cool to talk about that kind of thing, so if you’re in biotech and you’re curious about Chinese medicine, this is the book for you.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I love the premise of that. It makes me think of my own healing story. I was diagnosed with a very rare autoimmune disease. I was at a Swedish hospital in Seattle. Had a whole team of specialists and they were just like, “This is incurable. You will die in 20 years with a steadily declining quality of life before then. There’s nothing we can do for you except give you very high doses of steroids, which has side effects and will decrease over time. Here’s a brochure.” They gave me a brochure and sent me on my way, which is similar to yours.

The next thing I did was—I was in Seattle. I didn’t have a lot of money. I just started going to all the Bastyr student clinics and went to five element acupuncturist, went to a Chinese herbalist and started drinking all those not-super-yummy decoctions and I got better. It just blew my mind. It really wasn’t that I turned to there first, because I really wasn’t the Western medicine mindset but Western medicine was so definitive that they couldn’t do anything to help me that it made it easy to say, “Okay, what else?” I just was not going to step aside and accept that as my fate.

I think that could be true for a lot of people whether it’s any type of herbalism. Chinese medicine there’s so much wisdom there that is so relevant in today’s world. I think it is easy to dismiss when we don’t understand it and your book seems to be really helping people to understand this different—it’s in a completely different paradigm. It’s not just taking herbs instead of drugs. It’s thinking about health and dis-ease and constitution and just this totally different ways than most of us, I imagine, who’s listening to the show, how we’ve been raised to think about these things.

Toby Daly:

I think from the Western side, they look at the head, they say computer, the heart a pump--just really mechanistic. I always tell my patients I’m a gardener. Like you’re talking about in your book. You’re trying to get some irrigation here or too much irrigation, trying to drain that off or too hot or too cold, too ascending, too descending. Basically, I’m just tending everyone’s garden so it functions well. Like you used the word “paradigm.” It’s a totally different paradigm from the very beginning. Yin-yang garden metaphor or cell disease theory. It starts off foundationally totally different and so then they end up really different places.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Wonderful. Thanks so much for all that you shared, Toby. Before we go, I’d love to ask you one more question. Actually, before that, I’m just going to back up here. I want to talk about your funny YouTube video. Just to give everyone some context here, Toby reaches out and says hi, introduces himself, asked about the podcast. He’s writing this book and he shares his YouTube channel, which has a handful of videos on there and so I go to check it out. You just have the funniest video of what it’s like to be an acupuncturist at the grocery store. I highly recommend. We’ll put a link to it in the show notes for people to go check that out, but maybe you could just recreate a little bit of that just so people can see what I’m laughing about so it’s not just me.

Toby Daly:

I’m in a small town so every time I go to the grocery store, I’d see at least four people that are patients or know about me or something. They’re just always coming up to me and asking about how is their aunt’s leukorrhea doing. They’re just always coming up to me to talk about things or let me know about how well they’re doing or some concerns they have about acupuncture that are unfounded that I have to debunk in Aisle 7. You were telling me just before we start rolling, you had a lot of the same experiences.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yes. I’m not a practitioner anymore, so I don’t have those personal questions. My most—but that didn’t happen often because I also live in a small town. My most memorable is I was with my husband and we’re on some anniversary date at a nice restaurant. I knew the server, a client of mine. I don’t know. People are just—it blows my mind that she did this to this day. She updated me on her vaginal infection with my husband sitting there at this restaurant. No shame about that at all. It was just kind of like, “Okay, this is what’s happening right now. I’m just going to roll with this.”

That was my most notable, but that has happened so many times. I would often tell people in my practice, “You don’t have to know me on the street. I’m often with my husband. We don’t have to pretend like we know each other outside of the office. You’re 100% everything’s private. I don’t share it with anybody.” But people often don’t mind discussing it on the street or at the restaurant or the grocery aisles. I also had that experience, yes.

Toby Daly:

I’m thinking too that that patient probably had such a deep connection with you, and then you helped her so much so then she didn’t think socially at all. She just thought, “Oh, Rosalee. I’ve got to let her know!” That’s maybe a compliment to you as a clinician just to be able to have that deep rapport with that patient.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I actually didn’t mind. It was more just funny to me. Okay, that’s what we’re doing right now. Happy anniversary!

Toby Daly:

So romantic.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Definitely, it’s great. I loved it. I’m guessing you filmed that at your local grocery store too because that’s like-

Toby Daly: 

Yes.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s great.

Toby Daly:

I know the owner so I got the okay.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Nice, nice. So definitely check that out. Now, that we’ve covered that very important topic, I would love to ask you the question I’m asking everybody in Season 8, which is – What has been your most important herbal mistake?

Toby Daly:

The answer to this came up to me immediately when you asked me the question. It was such a bad mistake that I wrote a whole Journal of Chinese medicine article about it. It was pretty bad. Just in case your listeners might be interested in it, I’ll see if the Journal of Chinese Medicine will okay a PDF for your show notes page. It’s a really embarrassing story for me. I got a lot of feedback. Everyone really appreciated it because it was a pretty bad mistake.

Anyways, you remember from your Chinese medicine study days that we always diagnose with patterns. I had this patient represented with a certain pattern and it was like textbook. For this pattern, she had it. We expect fatigue, she had it. She had a swollen pale tongue with tooth marks. She had it. Digestive discomfort, a lot of bloating, gas, diarrhea. Maybe a couple of other things exactly this pattern.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I want to guess. Spleen qi deficiency?

Toby Daly:

Exactly!

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Alright. I’m glad I remembered!

Toby Daly:

It’s just exactly textbook. This almost never happens, right? I think this is part of the trap for me. The spleen qi deficiency pattern exactly textbook and treated all those. Even brain fog, stuffy head feeling. You know exactly the spleen qi deficiency. Resolved a lot of those things beautifully. She was so happy, just a huge fan of Chinese medicine. Sent a whole bunch of family members. They got better. Everything great. Her menstrual cycle a little bit late—a little bit long. Still bleeding after nine days and so she comes to me and says, “I wonder if you can help me with this.”

I have so much confidence in that. Here’s the latest example of spleen qi deficiency for her. Part of that pattern is spleen qi deficiency. One of the things it does to you if spleen qi is too deficient, it can’t hold the blood in the vessels. I think this is so straightforward. This is going to be really easy. So I treat her and the bleeding continues.

To make the long clinical story short—and you can read about this if you want to—for the next six weeks, that same pattern keeps happening. I treat her and the bleeding doesn’t stop. In fact, I gave her a formula that the bleeding increases for two days so I had to take her off that and then put her on another one. She’s getting paler and paler and weaker and weaker, but she has so much confidence in Chinese medicine. I had to say, “Maybe see what the Western medicine can do.” She’s reluctant—I’m surprised as a Chinese medicine clinician how often I have to tell people to go to Western medicine, but that’s part of my job too. “Let’s see what’s happening.”

She goes to see the doctor. The doctor immediately diagnosed. Okay, great. “We’ll give you some oral progestin.” No problem. Bleeding stops, but as you know with the Western medicine, sometimes horrific side effects. She gets splitting headaches all day long. She’s nauseous and vomiting. She’s a CPA of a really big corporation with a couple hundred employees, so she can’t be vomiting and having headache and be a CPA. She says to the doctor. He says, “If you want to stop the bleeding, we have to be on that.” She said she stopped taking the progestin and immediately, the bleeding comes back. So what did she do, Rosalee?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I don’t know. I’m on the edge of my seat though.

Toby Daly:

She comes to me again, Rosalee, and says, “Why don’t you fix this?” Remember I had given her six different formulas, all of them completely ineffective. Actually, one formula I gave her bleeding increased for two days. It’s not like it had no effect on her. I made her worse for two days also, but she’s still so confident—again, those other things we resolved so quickly and easily. She’s so excited, digestive system and brain functioning good. No more loose stools. Almost lifelong diarrhea or loose stools, all resolved. Normal bowel movement, everything so great. She comes back to me again to fix this. Rosalee, what do I do?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Start from scratch.

Toby Daly:

I took her to my teacher.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Okay.

Toby Daly:

Even better than starting from scratch. I realized I’ve got nothing. I’ve got the arsenal of Chinese medicine, but I don’t know how to use it, a little bit early practitioner. Again, we have our database, 85,000 formulas. I had tried six or seven, maybe eight at that point. So eight for zero I’ve gone, but I don’t want to try all 85,000 so I take her to my teacher, Lifang Liang. She’s retired now in San Francisco. She was my Chinese medicine gynecology teacher, just a really accomplished clinician, 40-50 years experience. Just really a good clinician.

I take my patient. She greets us really warmly, takes us in and does the examination and everything like that. Then Dr. Liang, she turns to me and says, “Did you read my book?” She’s got a great TCM gynecology book. I said, “Yes, Dr. Liang, I read your book. Actually, I used the formula from your book in desperation and it made the bleeding worse for two days, so I stopped it after that.” She looked at me like only someone who’s been in clinic for 40-50 years could, wrote out a prescription for that formula, gave it to my patient. We went, filled in her pharmacy and she started taking that. Two days heavy bleeding, third day slowed down, fourth day stopped. That is after we’re looking at two months—maybe even three months. It’s all detailed in that article, but maybe two or three months of bleeding and resolved. She did a pack of that for maybe two or three weeks and then one other one month cycle. Dr. Liang also recommended like a regulate-the-cycle formula and the bleeding resolved, never to come again.

That was my major mistake that immediately popped in my head when you sent me the questions you’re going to ask me is “major mistake you had made.” Yes, just clinging to the pattern even though clearly over and over again it was unambiguous, the effect that I was getting in the clinic, that I was on the wrong track but still I couldn’t pull out of that pattern. It was so textbook. I couldn’t break that spell.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

So your teacher did prescribe the same formula but your patient wasn’t on it long enough? Is that what happened?

Toby Daly:

Yes. Usually, this is contraindicated, especially if it’s coming from spleen qi deficiency, but my teacher, Dr. Liang, she felt like this is an excess condition. Excess conditions we want to move, so she gave her blood movers. I think dan shen might have been in there. Again, it’s in the article. Dan shen might have been in there, but maybe not. I can’t remember for sure, but it’s definitely in that class--the same class as dan shen. Usually, that’s 100% contraindicated. Like I was saying before, bleeding problems you can’t do that, but for her case, she really did have homeostasis, blood stasis and so we had to move that blood stasis for her to be able to close everything and it stopped bleeding. I tried that exact formula and I thought I was on the wrong track because that bleeding increased for two days. With Dr. Liang’s experience, she’s seen tens of thousands of patients so she knew that sometimes it’s bleeding for a couple of days, but then it’s resolved. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

The amount of experience and confidence you would need to see that through.

Toby Daly:

I had 0% of that and Dr. Liang had a 100%. She was fine. I’ll never forget that look in her eye when she wrote that exact formula again. I was like, “Wow. Dr. Liang. Alright.”

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I love another takeaway from that too is just how much benefit we all get from going to other people, like I often talk about having the health team for patients but also for ourselves in having those mentors and knowing that we don’t have to do it all on our own, especially when we’re zero for eight. So thank you for sharing that story with humility and the fact that you embraced it, wrote an article about it and sharing it here too, that says a lot about a person.

Toby Daly:

Thanks for saying that.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thank you so much. This has been a wonderful conversation and I appreciate you bringing Chinese medicine to the Herbs with Rosalee Podcast show.

Toby Daly:

A real pleasure for me. Thanks so much, Rosalee.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Absolutely and congrats, once again, on your book.

Toby Daly:

Thank you.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thanks for being here. Don’t forget to download your beautifully illustrated recipe card above this transcript. And sign up for my weekly newsletter, which is the best way to stay in touch with me, at the bottom of this page. You can also visit Toby directly at flourishmedicine.com. If you’d like more herbal episodes to come your way, then one of the best ways to support this podcast is by subscribing on YouTube or your favorite podcast app. 

I deeply believe that this world needs more herbalists and plant-centered folks and I’m so glad that you’re here as part of this herbal community.

Also, a big round of thanks to the people all over the world who make this podcast happen week to week.

Nicole Paull is the Project Manager who oversees the whole operation from guest outreach, to writing show notes, to actually uploading each episode and so many other things I don’t even know. She really holds this whole thing together.

Francesca is our fabulous video and audio editor. She not only makes listening more pleasant. She also adds beauty to the YouTube videos with plant images and video overlays. Tatiana Rusakova is the botanical illustrator who creates gorgeous plant and recipe illustrations for us. I love them. I know that you do too. Kristy edits the recipe cards and then Jenny creates them as well as the thumbnail images for YouTube. Michele is the tech wizard behind the scenes and Karin is our Student Services Coordinator and Customer Support. For those of you who like to read along, Jennifer is who creates the transcripts each week. Xavier, my handsome French husband, is the cameraman and website IT guy.

One of the best ways to retain and fully understand something you’ve just learned is to share it in your own words. With that in mind, I invite you to share your takeaways with me and the entire Herbs with Rosalee Community. You can leave comments on my YouTube Channel, at the bottom of this page, or simply hit “Reply” to my Wednesday email. I read every comment that comes in and I’m excited to hear your herbal thoughts whether it’s about dan shen, Chinese medicine or Tori Amos concerts. 

Okay, you’ve lasted to the very end of the show which means you get your gold star and this herbal tidbit:

Dan shen is one of my favorite herbs to grow in a garden and perhaps one of the herbs that I have been growing the longest. This is a sage plant and has these brilliant, large purple sage flowers that attract all sorts of pollinators including bees, butterflies and hummingbirds. The flowers last a really long time too, so they’re just absolutely gorgeous in the garden. Then those beautiful red roots—well, those are loved by gophers so I have to keep replacing the plants every couple of years, but I’m assured that the gophers around me have excellent heart health because of it. But, even still, I couldn’t imagine my garden without dan shen so I keep growing them over and over.