HERBS

GINSENG IN THE SPOTLIGHT

Ohio’s green gold is threatened even as it grows more popular than ever

Story by Wynne Everett

For generations, American ginseng was a fairly well-kept secret of Appalachia. Locals in rural portions of Ohio knew where to find the desirable botanical in the woods, tended to it and took pride in guarding their knowledge before passing it on to children and grandchildren. Ginseng had a mystique and a special, respected place in culture.

But then came the internet age, attention of the wider world and skyrocketing prices overseas for America’s ginseng.

Suddenly ginseng has become “green gold,” easy money and the subject of overhyped television shows. Prices shot up in recent years from $350 a pound to more than $1,000 a pound for dried ginseng, mostly exported to Asia. As a result, Ohio’s ginseng caretakers have seen dramatic and threatening changes.

“When people hear those numbers, of course they want to do a TV show about it or look for easy money,” said Chip Carroll, a long-time ginseng grower, dealer and evangelist in Meigs County. “It’s been a bit heartbreaking.”

Ginseng, which happily grows wild in the forests of southeast, central and portions of northeast Ohio, is highly desired in China where it is used in herbal medicine to promote stamina, among other uses.

The plant, which can live to be up to 100 years old, is incredibly slow growing, which makes it particularly vulnerable to various pressures, including habitat loss, climate change and poaching. Its precarious nature means that ginseng cultivation is highly regulated by state, federal and international law.

The season for digging ginseng in Ohio runs from Sept. 1 through Dec. 31 each year. Diggers do not need a license, but they do need written permission from landowners to collect the valuable plant. And they must follow detailed rules, including only digging mature plants, recording where they harvest their roots and immediately replanting the dug plant’s seeds in the same place.

Ginseng dealers, who can buy the roots with a permit, must submit detailed records and obtain ginseng certification documents before they can export the dried roots.

Unfortunately, ginseng’s value and the toll of the opioid epidemic on Appalachia have combined to fuel an increase in poaching as people who are desperate for cash see illegal harvesting as a way to get quick cash.

That’s why Carroll and other long-time ginseng community members are working on a variety of initiatives to conserve slow-growing ginseng and preserve its special place in the culture and economy of Appalachia.

A strategy for conservation

Carroll is a Youngstown native who discovered ginseng as a Hocking College student in the late 1990s. He has worked

for years as a steward, teaching would-be ginseng farmers and diggers sustainable practices.

Andrea Miller, the sustainable forestry manager with Rural Action, also is part of the movement dedicated to encouraging more sustainable care and cultivation of ginseng. Her agency encourages landowners to consider “forest farming” of ginseng and other botanicals such as goldenseal as an alternative to cutting timber from their wooded property. Increasing the number of people growing their own ginseng could help take pressure off wild populations while also offering a passive-income source for property owners. The practice also helps build a community of engaged and knowledgeable ginseng caretakers.

Carroll also advocates for developing better opportunities for ginseng dealers to sell their product domestically. While about 99% of America’s precious ginseng harvest is exported every year, the ginseng Americans find here in products such as teas is ironically of low quality, he said. Developing a better domestic market would protect against any potential collapse in the Asian import market and also help American consumers, he argues.

Ginseng’s boost

With so much American ginseng being exported, many Americans haven’t had any firsthand experience using it. But as in China, American herbalists have found ginseng is beneficial for helping the body manage stress and for boosting energy, said Athens-based herbalist Erika Galentin of Sovereignty Herbs.

End even though it might be tempting to generously hand out a root known to improve energy, Galentin says a little ginseng goes a long way.

“Who wouldn’t want ginseng? Who doesn’t want more energy? But we can’t just go all take American ginseng for a boost,” she said.

Instead, Galentin said she uses ginseng—which she says tastes slightly sweet and woodsy, like ginger without the heat—in combination with other strategies, such as diet and exercise, and herbs meant to more holistically improve good health.

Galentin said use of ginseng is somewhat controversial because some herbalists question the ethics of buying a threatened plant that is often poached. “There are a lot of herbalists out there who believe we should not be using it at all because of its precarious position,” she said.

Galentin said she buys her ginseng from a local root dealer she knows and trusts. Like Carroll and Miller, she is devoted to using ginseng in a way that promotes responsible use and better public understanding of its cultural value as well as its monetary value.

“I really believe human beings and ginseng are meant to interact, but responsibly,” she said.

The path to sustainability

Miller learned about ginseng from her grandmother, who tended it in the woods. But she now worries about the plant’s future. “The more housing developments go up, the more habitat we’re losing,” she says. “We’re losing the plants in the wild with habitat loss, climate change and poaching. We’re losing the plant.”

The key to saving ginseng in its natural habitat—she, Carroll and Galentin all say—is to rebuild the special emotional and cultural connection between the plant and the people who live where it grows wild.

“I think of ginseng as a national treasure of our country, culture, environment and economy,” Carroll said.

Wynne Everett is a Columbus native who grew up eating fruits and vegetables from her grandparents’ farm and beef bought on the hoof at the county fair. She’s now a vegetarian and a veteran journalist whose career has taken her to Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Toledo. She has a passion for food stories and can be reached at wynneeverett@gmail.com.

Young bakers learn about business—and caring

From bagels to babka, these Columbus kids are pursuing their passion

Story and Photography by Rebecca Tien

In 2020, as one lockdown bled into the next, many people who were homebound with little to do began to look for hobbies to while away the endless hours. Some picked up knitting or the ukulele, and others turned to the kitchen for inspiration. Baking, in fact, became such a popular pastime that in March of 2020 the King Arthur Flour Co. saw a 2,000% increase in flour sales, according to Adweek.

Adults and kids alike were bitten by the baking bug. Instagram feeds abounded with sourdough and cinnamon rolls, and flour became harder to come by than toilet paper. For three Clintonville kids, baking was not only a pleasurable hobby, it launched two full-fledged businesses with a spirit of giving back at the core.

Thirteen-year-old Kaian (Kai) Moses has known for some time that he wanted to start a baking business, and the early days of the pandemic gave him the time he needed to do so. Many of his friends were making cakes and cupcakes and he wanted to find his own niche. “I woke up one morning and decided I wanted to make bagels,” he says. After some experimentation and YouTube research he landed on a recipe. “I tried it and it came out amazing!” gushes his 10-year-old sister Anika.

Together he and his sister came up with a business name, The Bread Box, and a logo drawn by Kai. A family friend helped them to design business cards and a social media presence. By October 2020, they were distributing professionally packaged Intro boxes to help spread the word. “We would give boxes to friends and family who would share with their friends and from there we’d start to get orders,” says Anika. “By January, we had gone through 130 pounds of flour!” They have since expanded their menu to include a broader array of goods, including gluten-free lemon bread and chocolate chip cookies.

Although the Moses siblings refer to The Bread Box as a business, it is more aptly described as a community service. Rather than sell their items, they ask for people to make a donation if they can. Sometimes the donations are cash, sometimes flour, sometimes nothing at all.

“The reason we decided to do donation-based is that we knew that a lot of people like baked goods, but not everyone has the money to give us for a set price. With donation-based, hopefully they don’t feel like they have to give us something in return,” explains Anika.

Kai and Anika Moses Their product

“For every order we receive, we use the donation to pay it forward,” says Kai. All donations are used to buy more ingredients, which they then turn into food donations. They’ve donated baked goods to neighborhood organizations including the Clintonville Resource Center, Clinton Elementary School for Teacher Appreciation Day, and most recently the critical care staff at Riverside Hospital.

COVID has made some things more difficult. All items need to be individually packaged. It is not unusual for Kai and Anika to be up early on a school morning, packaging up goods to be delivered for a winter senior breakfast or necessity bags at the CRC. “It’s a whole operation,” says Kai. “Anika is stapling a business card to the bag and I’m putting a sticker on it.”

The Moses siblings are not the only Clintonville kids with the vision to start a business while simultaneously doing good. Elijah Roher-Smith, 11, has always loved to experiment in the kitchen and had aspirations to start his own business prior to the pandemic. The original plan was to run the business with friends, but then COVID hit and gatherings became impossible. The business, Kids in the Kitchen, became a natural way to spend time and get involved in something. When asked about his original motivation, Elijah grins widely and says simply, “I was bored, and it was fun.”

As he talks, he busies himself doing what he loves most: carefully measuring out flour into a waiting bowl, the mixer whirring noisily over his words. Elijah’s menu is seasonal and often inspired by what’s growing in the large garden in his backyard. His zucchini bread in August shifts over to pumpkin bread come fall and he updates his customers on the current availability through his website and social media, precipitating floods of orders. Offerings in heavy rotation include vanilla and lemon-blueberry pound cakes, babka and brownies— which he’s made so many times he has memorized the recipe by heart.

Akin to the Moses’ philosophy, it is important to Elijah that a portion of the proceeds from every item he sends out of the kitchen get donated to local charities including Children’s Hunger Alliance and the Charlie Brown Bird Rescue in Columbus. Food insecurity and environ-

Elijah Roher-Smith His product

mental conservation are both issues that are close to his heart.

“When we lived in LA there were a lot of homeless people we would encounter and Elijah was always asking, ‘How can we help them?’” recalls Elijah’s dad, Ryan Smith. “He would insist that when we went to the grocery store and there were homeless people outside that we buy them a bag of oranges, or peanut butter and jelly. He would take the train with me sometimes to work and he always made sure we brought fruit to give to the homeless people we passed by.”

And why the Charlie Brown Bird Rescue? “I like animals,” Elijah says. “I don’t want to see them go extinct.”

For Elijah, as for Kai and Anika, it really is that simple. Caring matters and it’s important for them to give back wherever they can.

You can find The Bread Box on Facebook at Thebreadbox614 and on Instagram at @thebreadbox614. Learn more about Kids in the Kitchen at kidsinthekitchenohio.wixsite.com/kidsinthekitchen.

Rebecca Tien enjoys finding a way to weave together her love of storytelling through images and words. An award-winning photographer, she is drawn to capture the small, beautiful, messy, universal moments that make people feel connected. She has written for various publications including The New York Times, Edible Columbus and 614 Magazine. You can find her on Instagram at @rebeccatienphotography.

On behalf of all of us at Franklin County Farm Bureau, we want to thank all of our loyal readers over the past year. Your passion for local food and agriculture makes this publication possible! We hope you all enjoy this holiday season and can spend a day in the kitchen trying out this award-winning buckeye recipe by Brooke Fleshman, of Fantastic Futures 4-H Club and Farm Bureau member in Franklin County!

Ingredients 1 pound peanut butter 1/2 pound butter 1/2 tablespoon vanilla 1 pound powdered sugar Dipping chocolate, (Ghirardelli preferred) Instructions Mix the first 4 ingredients in a strong mixer until smooth and pulls away from the edge of the bowl. Add 1 or 2 tablespoons powdered sugar if needed.

Scoop into 1 tablespoon balls, quickly roll and place on parchment paper lined rimmed cookie sheets.

Freeze until hard or nearly hard.

Melt chocolates according to package. Using a toothpick, dip each ball into chocolate. Once chocolate is hard and peanut butter mixture is soft, fill holes by gently tapping.

Can be kept at room temperature or refrigerated for longer storage.

Makes 60-80 buckeyes.