Word: herbs
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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With Nobu, New Yorkers' palates and vocabularies expanded. A decade ago, when Tadashi Ono became the executive chef at the renowned La Caravelle, the owners omitted any mention in the menu of ingredients like yuzu, a tart citrus fruit, and shiso, a mint-like herb, because the exotic terms intimidated diners. Today, at Ono's own restaurant, Sono, waiters proudly tout the yuzu cosmopolitan and shiso margarita...
...German government classified it as an MAO inhibitor, on the basis of in-vitro studies, and approved its use as a mild, natural antidepressant. Sales took off both in Germany, where St. John's wort easily outsells prescription drugs like Prozac, and in the U.S., where concoctions of the herb, sold under such labels as Mood Support and Brighten Up, became flagships of the booming alternative- medicine industry. Before last year's warnings that St. John's wort could interfere with other medications--notably AIDS treatments, antibiotics, cardiac drugs and oral contraceptives--yearly sales had reached $310 million. Even today...
...used to have one near-mystical defense against the ever-present pathogen fog: Echinacea. I still recall the first time that I encountered the magical herb. My prefect expounded on the palliative effects of Echinacea, and suggested taking three little green meanies any time we even thought that a little tickle might be forming at the back of our throat. At the time, being of sound mind and body, I scoffed at this quaint notion. Taking herbal supplements sounded more like witchcraft than modern medicine. If this stuff did anything, I reasoned, researchers would have found out about it, analyzed...
...investigating the magical herb, it seems I have likely destroyed its power. The ignorance that created the placebo-powered cold-busting green torpedo has given way to an understanding of sterile, uninspiring data. While it seems that in this case, ignorance may have been healthful bliss, I must believe that the loss of some small area of mystery under the boot of scientific progress, no matter how inconvenient now, can only be rewarded in the future...
...will not second-guess the value of any kind of knowledge. Soon the process of exploration that led to the death of my magical herb might lead to the death of the common cold itself. I await this day eagerly, with the more prosaic remedies of Dristan® and Nyquil® at my side...