Well, for 2nd day in a row I will give you another money saving tip on herbs you probably use alot. Goldenseal is a superior herb that has many great properties. It is anti-inflammitory, antiseptic, and tonifies to name a few. Goldenseal is known to be beneficial to almost every organ. There aren’t many formulas without Goldenseal for infections, hemorrhoids, vaginal infections, cysts, inflammation, ear problems, etc… Now that you may have ran over to one of your herbal supplements laying around and looked at it, you may think I’m a liar as you see Goldenseal no where to be found. This is because Goldenseal is endangered and I have seen pricing up to $80 a pound for this precious herb. Many companies don’t like putting herbs this expensive in formulas as to not get priced out of the market. Afterall, your not supposed to be the herbalist and know what these ingredients all do. Well, for those of you that use individual herbs or whatever let me introduct to you Coptis. Coptis known more commonly to me in its Chinese Name as Huang Lian Is a great substitute for Goldenseal. it even hapens to be yellowish when blended as well! As with many herbs that act similarly, I am not the first person to reviel this info. Coptis is not a penny on the dollar substitution, but It can definantly can be around 3-6 times cheaper! We use coptis in a few of our formulas for a few reasons. Some of our formulas are basically all powder bound together. To use Goldenseal would be really expensive in these cases, such as the Hemorrhoid Bolus we sell. The herbs are powdered and bound with binder herbs and Cocoa Butter. This would make our wonderfully priced bolus go up in price by 30% without much more effectivness. Many of our Chinese formulas have Huang Lian / Coptis in it to cool blood and reduce inflammation, we never substitute western herbs in Chinese Formulas. When exracted however, some of our forumulas do use Goldenseal like our Echinaceal blend tincture. Here is a forumla to choose to keep using all western herbs, and Goldenseal makes for good synergy in this combo.