I am Natasha Kazarina — a Medical Herbalist and Naturopathic Nutritional Therapist — and I did not choose this path. I was raised on it.
Most people come to herbs as adults, through study. I came to them as a child, in Latvia, where medicinal plants and natural healing were simply how my family lived. By eighteen, my friends called me a walking encyclopaedia of health.
My first teacher was my mother. Given a terminal diagnosis when I was seven, she turned to medicinal herbs — and, guided by the wise village women of the Latvian countryside, healed what the hospital could not. She came back from an illness she was never meant to survive. I was her carer and her student both. Years later, when my own health raised questions conventional medicine could not answer, I returned to my roots and healed myself the same way. I have never once regretted coming home to it.
Later I gave that inherited knowledge a formal foundation — an MSc in Herbal Medicine and a Postgraduate Diploma in Naturopathic Nutrition. Today I am proud to belong to the National Institute of Medical Herbalists, the oldest body of professional herbalists in Britain.
This book is for people who are consciously looking into the future. It is for those who want to preserve their health before they are forced to fight for it. It is for parents, daughters, sons, partners, practitioners, cooks, gardeners, patients, researchers, and anyone who senses that the future of medicine must become more preventive, more ecological, and more attentive to the living systems that sustain us.
This is not simply a book about herbs — it is a book about understanding health differently. It shows how medicinal plants, food, the microbiome and modern science are deeply connected, and why traditions that once formed part of everyday life may still have an important place in our wellbeing today. You will come away not only knowing more about herbal medicine, but seeing your tea, your food, your garden and even the plants growing around you with new eyes — and with a clearer understanding of how to bring that knowledge into daily life.