Ed Alstat: A Beautiful Life Among the Plants

Some lives are measured by milestones — degrees earned, companies founded, accomplishments neatly listed. Others are measured by what they tend, protect, and quietly bring into the world over time. Ed Alstat’s life belonged to the latter. His was a life lived among the plants, not in theory or as a passing interest, but in daily relationship. Herbs were never products to him. They were teachers, companions, and living allies. He listened to them closely, studied their actions and chemistry, debated their best forms of preparation, and always returned to them with humility and respect.

This way of working required patience and presence. Ed understood that plants reveal themselves slowly, through seasons and repetition, and that meaningful herbal practice is built not on shortcuts but on attention. His work was shaped by observation, experience, and a deep trust in the intelligence of nature itself. It was this quiet devotion — rather than any single innovation — that defined his approach to herbal medicine.

Long before Eclectic Herb existed as a name on a bottle or freeze-drying became a recognized technique in the world of herbal medicine, Ed’s story was already unfolding in the deep, warm soil of the land he loved. Summers on his grandparents’ farm in Southern Illinois planted the first seeds of his connection with the natural world. There, amid wildflowers and long rows of crops, a young Ed learned something that would shape his entire life: plants are not raw materials to be tamed, but living beings with wisdom and purpose.

That early, earthy education stayed with him even as he moved from fields into classrooms. Though he trained as a pharmacist and later as a naturopathic physician, Ed never left behind that intuitive bond with the plant world he knew so well. While pharmacy taught him chemistry, evidence, and the rigors of clinical thinking, it was the soil and green growth of those summer days that taught him to listen to the profound, quiet language of plants.

In the midst of study and clinical work, Ed nurtured his love of plants and his entrepreneurial spirit by starting a fresh flower business, growing the flowers at his home and selling them. Simultaneously, he found creative expression in finishing antique furniture, and this blend of artistry, history, and botanical connection shaped every choice he made as an herbalist, grower, and healer.

It was these connections that later became the heartbeat of Eclectic Herb — a company founded not simply to sell herbal products, but to preserve and honor the living essence of plants themselves. 

If you asked Ed what his favorite plant was, he’d start talking about nettles. Not the soft wildflowers of a meadow, but the feisty, stinging Urtica dioica — the plant that greets the unwary with a prick, yet hides beneath its defenses a treasure trove of healing potential. Ed didn’t just see nettles as useful — he saw them as teachers: bold, misunderstood, and brimming with strength.

In the early years of exploring freeze-drying — the gentle preservation method he pioneered to capture herbs at their peak vitality — Ed was struck by just how much nature had to offer when treated with respect. Freeze-drying wasn’t common in botanical medicine; most herbs were air-dried and lost so much of what made them alive. Ed believed that if you could preserve a plant as close to fresh as possible, you could preserve its true spirit and power.

Then came one of those magical moments where life and plants intersected in the most unexpected way. In 1989, an employee — intending to take a familiar herb for immune support — accidentally took capsules freeze-dried nettles instead. Something remarkable happened, his long-suffering seasonal allergies simply melted away. This wasn’t just a curious anecdote, it was a message from the plant world itself.

Ed didn’t let it go. With his blend of scientific curiosity and intuitive herbal wisdom, he set out to understand what was happening. He collaborated with colleagues and initiated one of the first clinical explorations into the use of freeze-dried nettles for allergy support, confirming what that serendipitous day had suggested: when preserved with minimal processing, nettles retain compounds other methods lose — compounds that help support the body’s response to seasonal shifts and histamine reactions.

This discovery was Ed’s gift to the world. It came from years of listening to plants, respecting their rhythms, and wanting to share what he learned in a way that could help many. Nettles, the plant that greets you with a bite in the field, offered a gentle answer to the very real discomfort of seasonal allergies — and Ed gave that insight freely, rooted in a lifetime of tending, wandering, observing, and honoring the wisdom that comes only from true love of plants.

If nettles were the playful teachers of Ed’s herbal world, lomatium was the rugged elder — a plant that stood firm against wind and stone, with a presence as bold as its history. Lomatium — sometimes called biscuitroot or desert parsley — is a genus of hardy perennial herbs native to western North America, with a long tradition of use by Native American peoples for respiratory health and immune support.

Ed first encountered this fascinating herb in the classroom of his beloved teacher, Dr. John Bastyr, at naturopathic college. Instead of simply reading about it, the class was passed a fresh root — heavy, aromatic, and almost alive with its earthy, resinous scent. In that moment, Ed felt an immediate pull — this wasn’t just another plant to study; it was a being with a story to tell.

Lomatium had a reputation long before modern herbalists wrote about it: generations of Native communities relied on its roots during times of persistent colds, fevers, and respiratory stress, including during past flu pandemics. But that power came with a challenge — lomatium’s natural resins, responsible for its intense aroma and therapeutic action, could also provoke discomfort, especially skin irritation or rash in some people.

Many would have walked away at that barrier — but Ed saw a friendship waiting to be forged. He approached lomatium with the same reverence he showed all plants: patiently, respectfully, and with a desire to understand its voice rather than force it into conformity. Drawing on his grounding in pharmacy, his naturopathic insight, and years of hands-on herbal experience, he began exploring how to honor the plant’s strengths while minimizing what made it difficult for some to use.

The breakthrough came through refinement and hard work: Ed worked to create a lomatium isolate, separating out the resinous compounds that could irritate, while preserving the essence of the plant’s supportive constituents. In doing so, he offered a version of lomatium that many more people could benefit from — a bridge between tradition and accessibility, between plant integrity and human experience.

This showed Ed’s remarkable ability to listen to the plant itself. Rather than stripping away complexity for convenience, he asked, “How can we honor what this plant wants to give, in a way people can receive it fully?” The resulting isolate maintained lomatium’s spirit — its historical connection to immune and respiratory support — while reducing the barriers that once kept some from its potential.

In the quiet, shaded understories of eastern North American forests grows a plant that many long ago called “the golden healer” — goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis) — its knotted, yellow root glowing like buried sunshine in the rich soil. Native peoples treasured this herb for generations, using its root for digestive support, skin and eye concerns, and as a tonic of resilience long before herbal medicine was penned in textbooks. Goldenseal’s story is one of deep woodland wisdom, human connection, and the sometimes fragile balance between use and stewardship.

As goldenseal’s popularity increased, it put it at risk. By the early 20th century, this slow-growing woodland herb had become increasingly scarce in the wild due to overharvesting and habitat loss. In some regions, it became listed as threatened or vulnerable as populations dwindled under the strain of demand for its roots. Harvested too quickly and rarely replanted, goldenseal’s survival in its native forests became uncertain.

Rather than abandon this treasured ally or rely solely on wild harvests, Ed took a different path — one rooted in responsibility and care. On the Eclectic Herb certified organic farm — a sanctuary nurtured with intention and respect for the land — he began cultivating goldenseal with the same patience and curiosity he brought to every herb. Growing this plant isn’t quick work; goldenseal takes years to mature, spreading slowly through its rhizomes and requiring the cool shade and rich soil of a forest-like setting. But Ed understood that to preserve a plant’s life is itself a kind of healing.

In tending goldenseal on the farm, he honored both the plant’s history in Indigenous medicine and its place in the ecosystem. This was restorative stewardship: making space for a plant that had given so much to so many, and inviting it to flourish again beyond its endangered wild homes. Every rooted shoot that took hold in those shaded rows reflected Ed’s belief that plants are partners, not resources to be depleted.

Some people come into the world already knowing, deep in their bones, exactly what they are here to do. They don’t search for their purpose — they live it. Ed was one of those rare souls. From the moment he first pressed his hands into the soil, his path was clear: to listen to plants, to protect their wisdom, and to share their gifts with care and integrity. He didn’t try to bend nature to human will; instead, he devoted his life to understanding its rhythms and honoring its intelligence. Through nettles and lomatium, through goldenseal and countless other green allies, Ed gave the world more than remedies — he offered a way of relating to the living earth with humility, curiosity, and love. His work continues to grow, root, and flower in the lives it touches, a quiet reminder that when someone follows their true calling, the legacy they leave behind is not something that fades — it becomes something that lives on, season after season, in the world itself.