Friday, March 2, 2012

Closeout Deal of the Day: Ping Wei San 70% Off!










You must use coupon code PINGWEI70 to get your discount!

Regular price $10, sale price $3 per bottle! Buy 3 or more and get free shipping. 100 tablets per bottle. 100% pure Chinese herbs, no filler, no sugar, no coating. Activeherb is a very reliable company with an excellent reputation. They have been doing business in the United States for over fifteen years and are used by many Chinese medicine schools here in California.

Ingredients:

Shan Zha - Fructus Crataegi
Gu Ya - Fructus Setariae Germinatus
Ban Xia - Rhizoma Pinelliae Ternatae
Mai Ya - Fructus Hordei Germinatus
Cang Zhu - Rhizoma Atractylodis Lanceae
Hou Po - Cortex Magnoliae Officinalis
Chen Pi - Pericarpium Citri Reticulatae
Gan Cao - Radix Glycyrrhizae Uralensis
Da Zao - Fructus Jujubae
Sheng Jiang - Rhizoma Zingiberis Officinalis
Yi Yi Ren - Semen Coicis Lachryma-Jobi

This deal is valid only for today, Friday, March 2nd.

Thursday, March 1, 2012

Closeout Deal of the Day: Ge Gen Tang Pian 70% Off!











You must use coupon code GEGEN70 to get your discount!

Regular price $10, sale price $3 per bottle! Buy 3 or more and get free shipping. 100 tablets per bottle. 100% pure Chinese herbs, no filler, no sugar, no coating. Activeherb is a very reliable company with an excellent reputation. They have been doing business in the United States for over fifteen years and are used by many Chinese medicine schools here in California.

Ingredients:

Ge Gen - Radix Puerariae Lobatae
Gui Zhi - Ramulus Cinnamomi Cassiae
Bai Shao - Radix Paeoniae Lactiflorae
Gan Cao - Radix Glycyrrhizae Uralensis
Sheng Jiang - Rhizoma Zingiberis Officinalis Recens
Da Zao - Fructus Jujubae
Qiang Huo - Rhizoma Et Radix Notoperygii
Du Huo - Radix Angelicae Pubescentis
Chuan Xiong - Rhizoma Ligustici Chuanxiong
Chai Hu - Radix Bupleuri Chinensis

This deal is valid only for today, Thursday, March 1st.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Closeout Deal of the Day: Ban Xia Xie Xin Pian 70% Off!



Regular price $10, sale price $3 per bottle! Buy 3 or more and get free shipping. 100 tablets per bottle. 100% pure Chinese herbs, no filler, no sugar, no coating. Activeherb is a very reliable company with an excellent reputation. They have been doing business in the United States for over fifteen years and are used by many Chinese medicine schools here in California.

Click here for ingredients, indications and actions.

This deal is valid only for today, Wednesday, February 29th, to order call 310-691-5226 or fax your order to 310-691-8073.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Closeout Deal of the Day: Zhu Li Da Tan Pian $3 Each!



$3 per bottle, buy 3 or more and get free shipping! 100 tablets per bottle. 100% pure Chinese herbs, no filler, no sugar, no coating. Activeherb is a very reliable company with an excellent reputation. They have been doing business in the United States for over fifteen years and are used by many Chinese medicine schools here in California.

Click here for ingredients, indications and actions.

This deal is valid only for today, Tuesday, February 28th, to order call 310-691-5226.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

New Blog



Hey everybody, I'll no longer be posting over here on blogspot. I made the switch to tumblr, mainly because it's super super easy to use. Come check it out!

-Jonah

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Chinese Herb Prices

You may have noticed that prices for Chinese medicinal herbs have gone through painful cost increases. We feel the pain too, and have done the best we can to make sure herbs are affordable for your patients. But the reality is that the days of cheap Chinese herbs are gone forever. However this increased cost comes with many benefits. The money goes to pay for:
  • Higher standards for correct species identification, correct growing area, herb farms with Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) certification
  • Herbs free of pesticides and preservatives, including sulfur, as well as testing and documentation.
  • Exclusive contracts with growers and herbs grown to specification, which ensures fresher herbs. Other pharmacies may buy herbs from distributors with no exclusive contracts, which means they must buy herbs on the open market. The Chinese herb market is huge, and herbs may change hands many many times and sit in storage for months and years before they make their way to the U.S. Fat Turtle is at the tail end of a very short supply chain, from grower to processor to distributor to us and on to you and your patients.
  • Higher wages and benefits for the workers who labor in the field to grow our herbs, and for the people who wash, slice, dry and package the raw herbs for pharmacy use. Many of us here in the U.S. are aware that our habits of buying and consumption have the potential to be ruinous to the health of our brothers and sisters on the other side of the globe. This awareness has led to the development of fair trade programs for products as diverse as coffee, chocolate, soap and cotton. Although there are not yet any fair trade certifications for Chinese herbs, you can be sure that part of your herb dollar goes to support healthy communities in the environments where they are grown and processed.

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Chinese Herbal Pharmacy Terms of the Day: Chong Fu 冲服 and Rong Hua 溶化

Chong Fu (chōngfú 冲服) is an instruction typically added to written formulas to indicate that the herb in question should not be decocted, but ingested whole along with a swallow of the herbal decoction. Usually the herb is powdered to make this process easier, so the whole instruction might say yán mò chōngfú 研末冲服, which means "grind to powder and take drenched."

"Take drenched" is the translation from the World Health Organization term set, and it works for me even though it doesn't automatically conjure up an image. I like that we're using two words for two characters.

Herbs that are typically taken Chong Fu-style are expensive herbs like Lu Rong 鹿茸, Ge Jie 蛤蚧, Hai Ma 海马 and Dong Chong Xia Cao 冬虫夏草. (When dealing with an unfamiliar pharmacy or one in which you don't have complete confidence, a savvy herb customer should ask to see the herb in question before it is powdered. Of course, that assumes that you are somewhat familiar with how to differentiate authentic herbs and different quality levels - for more on these topics, keep an eye on Eric Brand's blog at the Blue Poppy website.)

A similar but very different instruction is Rong Hua (rónghuà 溶化), which simply translates as "melt" or "dissolve." An herb that is marked "Rong Hua" is added to the hot decoction after the cooking process has finished, but should dissolve completely when stirred in. Examples are the gelatins: Lu Jiao Jiao 鹿角胶, E Jiao 阿胶, Gui Ban Jiao 龟板胶. By contrast a powdered Lu Rong will never dissolve, and therefore must be ingested and chased with decoction for the best medicinal effect.

This is part of our ongoing series on Chinese pharmacy terms. Previously we've covered Hou Xia 后下, and we'll be covering more in the future. I would love to see more Chinese medicine doctors start appending these terms to their prescriptions. It makes your prescription more precise, it helps your herbal pharmacy, and it helps your patients!