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Food as Medicine, Medicine as Food

     Oakland gardener and herbalist Kait Singley teaches people how to cultivate edible and medicinal gardens. She wants us all, year-round, to be fed by the beauty and bounty of an organic garden. To this end, she mentors, installs, runs workshops, consults and lives by the Hippocrates quotation: “Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food.”
     The trend, Singley says, is toward more people growing a lot more food. Sometimes it is for financial or ecological reason; it can be out of concern for the carbon footprint, or simply a desire to be more self-reliant.
      While Singley would love for us all to have gardens that are healing sanctuaries, first and foremost she wants people to realize that what she’s doing is “mainstream, accessible and everyday urbanite.” So, she says, “I encourage everyone to grow a little basil in their window if that’s all the space they have.” Or if there’s a garden, they can start with a patch of herbs to use when cooking dinner or for tea.
      Talking health, if Singley has a client with, say, arthritis, “we’ll start by discussing what might help and what to avoid.” She teaches people to grow the appropriate plants for tinctures and salves, and how to make them. She has a great hand-salve recipe, for example, using comfrey, calendula and lavender. She’s big on herbal infusions using oil and vinegar and focuses on integrating ornamental and healing plants. Singley thought of roses as decorative and frivolous until she became aware of their nutrition and healing properties and learned she could collect rose hips and use them to make a range of delectable and healthy edibles: tea, sauce, jelly, jam, pudding and more.
     Singley will run a workshop, The Herbal Kitchen, on June 13 in Oakland. See the Institute of Urban Homesteading (iuhoakland.com) website for details or call her at (510) 449-1055.