herbs are plants with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, medicinal purposes, or for fragrances; excluding vegetables and other plants consumed for macronutrients. Herb can be that leave that grows at the back of your house that you pluck to add to your jollof rice, Pepper soup,etc to improve its taste or give it a lovely Aroma. Example of plants that are added to food includes Garlic, Ginger, Tumeric, Scent leaves etc, they are all regarded as herbs. beyond that, some plant have been known to posses the ability to cause a change in human physiology, bind to the receptor site to cause a change within or outside the body, the changes can either be for positive(healing) or Negative(to make sick/deform or cause death) purpose, for whichever purpose a plant is taking or used for, that makes it an herb.
individually, a plant can cause a change within the body, Spice food, bring out flavor, change color etc or for some other purposes it might need to be combined. Now, the Main Focus now are herbs that are used for healing. People who existed in the ancient period didnt have access to any tecnical or complex medical intervention but it was told in the history that they still lived healthily, gave birth to healthy babies, treated some medical conditions even though they could not earness the full potential of what they are using due to lack of explanation for it or the fact that the efficacy was attributed to incantations and some spiritual forces.
Apart from healing, eating and flavouring, some herbs(seed) are used for judgement, such as calabar beans which is given to people then, so as to vindicate them of wrong doings or convict them to death after drinking water in which the seed has been infused ( if the accused person dies after drinking from the calabar bean extract then the person is guilty but if the person is not affected then he or she is not guilty), If you are thinking what am thinking even then there is still bribery and curruption simply because the toxicity of the beans depends on whether cold or hot water is used in infusing it (whoever they want to pronounce guilty or innocent will either be given the cold or hot water infused calaber bean to drink).....to be continued #herbs#herbsnrootsafrica#nature#life