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Vitamin Retailer magazine catches up with Chris Kilham, medicine hunter, author, educator and yogi. The founder of Medicine Hunter Inc., Kilham has conducted medicinal plant research and sustainable botanical sourcing in more than 50 countries. He works with companies to develop and popularize traditional plant-based food and medicinal products into market successes.
Question: You have spent your career traveling the world discovering and uncovering the medicinal benefits of plants. What are you working on now?
Answer: Medicine Hunter travels continue unabated though I am putting in fewer air miles in a year these days. Recent investigations have involved the hops harvest in southern France, the grape harvest for the making of OPC-rich grape seed extract in the Champagne region of France, organic robusta coffee plantations in Vietnam and coca leaf extract in Peru. The latter is especially interesting to me, as coca leaf—with the cocaine removed—is perhaps the most nutritionally rich and protective botanical item I’ve encountered, and is FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) approved and GRAS (generally recognized as safe). In my opinion coca leaf extract is poised to be a big item if the right company takes it on. Most likely I’ll be back in the Peruvian highlands soon to photograph and video coca leaf and coca harvesting. About two months ago I took a week in Joshua Tree (California) to continue my decades-long work photographing the flora and landscape in that amazing national park.
I have been writing features on various botanicals for HerbalGram, the journal of the American Botanical Council, and supplying videos to HerbTV. In addition, I’m providing thousands of images from my field explorations to Kew Royal Botanic Gardens outside of London for their Medicinal Plant Database. I recently published a book The Way Of Coffee (www.amazon.com/dp/1966931166/ref) and a small book on OPC’s (oligomeric proanthocyanidins) The OPC Book, which is available free from the French botanical extraction company Berkem. Over the past couple of years, I helped Berkem to develop their Global Plant Exploration Program, formalizing their work in the field sourcing botanicals for development.
Question: Sustainability in the natural world is now more than a marketing or ethical term for the industry—it is a business necessity. How well is the industry addressing it?
Answer: Sustainability is the absolute only path forward for anybody in the natural products industry who cares. In a sustainable system all parts flourish. When that is not the case, there is no holistic healing. We have a long history of profiting off the backs of the poor, people in rural areas who work for too little with the cultivation and harvesting of botanicals, so we can reap billions. Additionally, there is still use of agricultural toxins on some crops, and the polluting of soil, water, air, wildlife and worker’s health. Furthermore, there is a lot of adulteration of botanicals, which makes the ABC Botanical Adulterants program critically valuable for the health of end users. In my work I focus on better wages, poverty alleviation and improved environmental practices, all of which contribute to a more sustainable chain of trade overall. More companies understand the need to act sustainably, and many drag their feet.
Question: You recently wrote the book The Way of Coffee: How Coffee Transformed the World. Why did you choose that topic?
Answer: Coffee has transformed the world, initiating conversations that have changed civilization. In my decades of investigations into coffee around the tropics I have become profoundly impressed by the impact coffee makes on the world. The Way Of Coffee is a narrative journey following coffee’s rich and sometimes outlandish history, visiting coffee plantations and roasteries from Kona to Vietnam, enjoying coffee houses from Caracas to Damascus, and telling the tale of coffee as it has not been told before. Coffee is the great cultural awakener, a global colossus of commerce and a protective health agent that increases lifespan. After water it’s the most widely consumed fluid on earth.
Question: How do you make the perfect cup of coffee?
Answer: I fresh grind a combination of beans from Ethiopia, Sumatra, Bali and Yemen every morning, for my coffee and for my wife, Zoe’s. It is a pleasing ritual to make a perfect dark cup of drip grind coffee (or two or three) and savor the moment.
Question: What is next for you?
Answer: The road goes on and on. I’ll likely be in Peru again soon, then possibly South Africa and maybe back in Southeast Asia for various projects. Plus, there is always more media and opportunity to spread the word about botanicals and their tremendous healing powers. It’s an extraordinary privilege to do this work. I’m deeply grateful for it all.
