A Healthy Toast to Wellness
Here’s to the end of the longest year on record, clocking in at approximately 1000 months (we think). Making resolutions for 2021 feels a little bit like jinxing the whole thing, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make healthier decisions and stick to them. Whether it’s keeping up a home workout routine, limiting screen time, or finding new ways to stay connected, anything we can do to stay healthy—mind and body—in the coming year is worthwhile. And while those decisions are entirely personal, we’ve got at least a few recommendations to boost your immune system and morale.
Full Kettle Farms
Full Kettle Farm is a one acre herb farm in Sunderland, Massachusetts that grows a diversity of vibrant herbs for their exclusive line of delicious herbal teas. The herbs are grown and harvested by hand at peak vitality, then dried on site in their wood framed herb drying room. If sleep eludes you like it does so many, the Sleep More More blend might be your ticket to dreamland, with soothing ingredients like catnip, valerian, and lavender. Though it’s no vaccine, their Murder of Colds blend has the chops to nip plenty of cold and flu symptoms in the bud. (You should still get tested, though.) The Heart Tonic blend of tulsi, rosehips, hibiscus and more lives up to its heartwarming name; the next time you’re feeling blue, try a cup for a rosier outlook.
Lancaster Farmacy
Lancaster Farmacy was founded in 2009 by Elisabeth Weaver and Casey Spacht, who saw the need for reclaiming health care and making it accessible at the local level. Their background of grassroots activism, community organizing, cooperative models, farming, herbalism, and rewilding gave them the tools needed to grow natural medicine. Most of Lancaster Farmacy’s blends are certified organic, ranging from health-boosting Nourishment and Cold Care to the more flavor-focused Chaga Chai and Lifting Lemon. With ingredients like oatstraw, yarrow, and burdock along with lemon verbena, raspberry leaf and cardamom, it’ll be hard to find a Lancaster Farmacy blend you don't like!
Foster Farm Botanicals
Foster Farm was founded in 1823, when the Foster family put down roots in Calais, Vermont. Even now, the farm remains family owned and operated by Peter Backman, one of the two current owners and a member of the Foster family. His wife, Annie Christopher, is the other owner, and the namesake of the brand the couple created together in the 1980s, Annie’s Naturals. Today, Foster Farm Botanicals grows, harvests, and processes almost 50 kinds of botanicals across 250 acres of land. We’re lucky enough to stock four of them: Tulsi, nettle leaf (don’t worry! The drying process takes out the sting), echinacea, and Ashwagandha. Each dried botanical has its own unique set of beneficial properties—adaptogenic, anti-inflammatory, and even just straight up delicious.
Wilson Herb Farm
Another Vermont farm for the list, Wilson Herb Farm grows certified organic herbs for both culinary and medicinal use in Greensboro, Vermont. Herbs aren’t all they sell, either, making tonics, salves, and elixirs on their small farm. Any ingredient they can’t grow themselves for these products is either ethically wild harvested from their acreage, or sourced from other farms that share their standards. That’s how their Medicinal Cacao Elixir comes together, blending organic raw cacao with cordyceps, ashwagandha, reishi, astragalus, and just a touch of coconut sugar to sweeten the deal. Raw cacao can reduce blood pressure, risk of diabetes, and risk of heart disease, among other benefits; studies have shown cordyceps can improve circulation and respiratory function, taken over time. A daily cup of this tasty elixir is as much a health boost as it is a treat!
