Lookalikes, Snake Milk, Mattress Test and Netflix Subtitles. In this section, we interview people who have a non-standard answer to the standard question: What are you actually doing? This time Neil Odior, an ethnobotanist.
- From: Neil Odior
- what or what: ethnic
- Secret Herbs with Superpowers: Nettle plant
Nellie Odior is a medical anthropologist and ethnobotanist. She lived in South America for many years. “There I learned how people consciously use nature in all aspects of their lives. From medicine to clothing, from food to ritual.” Now this knowledge is passed on to the Dutch.
The ethnobotanist is amazed at how little people in the Netherlands know about their natural environment. “Often they don’t even realize that coffee comes from a plant or that a pencil is made from a tree. Without plants, we literally die as human beings. Plants are our food and our medicine—because a lot of our regular medicine is still made from plants. Beats—building materials, musical instruments and alarm clocks.” “
So Odior says he fears the development of the climate problem and fears humanity will realize too late that “money is not edible”. “My motive in my work is to give people in Holland a taste of a nature-related lifestyle and thus also instill love and respect for that nature.”
The effect of plants on the brain
When Odeor told her neighbors a few years ago that she wanted to “do something with plants,” she wasn’t always taken seriously. “People never expected me to be able to make it my full-time career.” But since 2016, Odeur runs her own company Scent & Spice, with which she organizes courses and workshops. successfully. The business is going well and Odeur doesn’t have to do any other side work.
“For example, a ‘Brain Buffet’ is planned for next summer. A multi-day event where we take a trip through the nervous system and learn how plants affect different areas of the brain.” An ethnobotanist acquires basic workshop knowledge from neuroscience, phytotherapy and mindfulness, among others.
“I want to make people realize that happiness is within themselves, literally in their brain and nervous system.”
According to Odeor, the “most common” herbs can be of great benefit to humans. Like nettle, it is richer in vitamins and minerals than many cultivated vegetables and also has medicinal and cosmetic applications. “For example, nettle – perhaps oddly enough – helps fight itching and rheumatic diseases.”
Using her botanical and herbal knowledge, the ethnobotanist has been able to help her clients and students with allergies, skin problems, and fatigue. “I want to make people realize that happiness is within themselves, literally in their brain and nervous system,” Odior says.
“And these plants have a huge impact on that, among other things. We can only be healthy if the whole system is healthy, so we also have to take good care of the entire natural world around us.”
