Dr. Douglas Schar, a self-described plant freak, is an herbalist, botanist, doctor, and health journalist. He specializes in plants, herbs and foods that make the body strong and healthy. Doug’s area of study, Valeology, looks at health and success in the human body rather than sickness and disease. Valeology searches for insight into the body’s intrinsic mechanisms of health and aims to identify substances that support, stimulate, cause or increase health. These substances are called valerogens.

Doug has two homes that are also farms and research facilities. This is where he grows and experiments with all kinds of health stimulating plants. One is in South Florida the other is in Virginia, just outside of Washington DC. I photographed him at work in both places.

“When I was living in New York in 1983, people began dying of AIDS. I mean to say, you would have lunch with them, and over the weekend they would get a cold and die. Doctors started treating folks with AZT and other toxic drugs. I thought it was crazy to treat sick people with poison.”

What attracted you to the field of Valeology?

My interest in the study of health (valeology) and medicines that cause health (valerogens), started with a visceral repulsion to medicines that made sick people sicker.

When I was living in New York in 1983, people began dying of AIDS. I mean to say, you would have lunch with them, and over the weekend they would get a cold and die. Doctors started treating folks with AZT and other toxic drugs. I thought it was crazy to treat sick people with poison. It made no sense. It violated the laws of nature. The very idea made me feel ill and sad.

I became convinced that nature had to offer something that would strengthen the body and make it better able to resist HIV. It was a simple thought that resulted in a complicated life. I ended up spending my life looking for medicines and food that made the body stronger, healthier, and better able to resist HIV or any other disease a person might suffer.

Thus, my attraction to valeology, the study of health, was an attraction to logic. Well people, if given remedies of health will stay well. Sick people, if given medicies of health, will get well. As a naturalist, the idea of studying health and finding medicines of health, seemed the only thing to do.

What is the goal of your work?

Learn nature’s secrets and pass those secrets on to people who can use them to live a better life. (But, they are not really secrets. I mean nature isn’t keeping them secret. It might be more accurate to say observe nature, observe the secrets of health nature has to offer, and pass those observations on to people smart enough to listen.)

Live pineapple vinegar fermentation.

“Pineapple is a classic, well regarded digestive aid. It contains enzymes that break down food and make it easier to digest.”

What is your philosophy on growing plants? How do you choose what to grow?

My philosophy is only grow plants that grow. I plant a plant, and if it grows, I plant more. If it dies, I don’t replace it. People have always thought I was a good gardener. That I had this green thumb and could make anything grow. Not true. I just don’t fight with nature. If a plant does not like where Im living, and shows its displeasure with my environment by dying, I just say OK. My gardens have always been fantastic because I fill them with plants that want to live where Im living. Plants that thrive. Plants that do their thing with little intervention on my part. I trim things, because when you plant things that grow like wild fire, you have to spend your time trimming things back, but thats about it.

I do not argue with nature. If a plant can’t make it in my environment, I let it go, and look for something that does. Take spring flowers. Where I live, you plant one daffodil bulb and the next year you have 5 daffodil bulbs. Plant a tulip, and the next year its died out. I don’t fool with tulips because its more fun to watch plants multiply that it is to watch them disappear.

I grow what grows and skip what does not.

Why are you making vinegars?

When I was doing my PhD research I discovered a really interesting body of knowledge regarding diet. The short form is that human being were meant to eat a diverse diet, very diverse. Part of this diversity includes all kinds of healthy bacteria. Foods teaming with healthy bacteria include blue cheese, yoghurt, kimche, and saurkraut. Live vinegar, that is to say, vinegar that has not been pasteurized, is teaming with healthy bacteria. Its hard to find live vinegar so I started making my own. Its an ancient process and I thought, how hard could it be? As it turns out, its not hard at all. All you have to do is let nature takes its course on anything that contains sugar and water.

What started as a simple project has become more complicated. All live vinegar contains healthy bacteria. But, it also contains the health attributes of the substance it is made from. So, black rice, a super weird super food from Japan, when fermented, produces an ink black vinegar that contains the health attributes of both the live vinegar bacteria and the black rice. Im now up to 15 different vinegars, each with its own health attributes. Apple cider vinegar to keep a cold away, pineapple vinegar for digestive problems, black rice vinegar for more physical strength……..it always starts with a simple idea, and nature being nature, becomes a trip down a rabbit hole that has no end.

Doug also enjoys the aesthetic side of the garden. He uses sea shells to decorate (left), and he also grows ornamental species like frangipani (right).

The former tennis court at Doug’s Florida home is another venue for growing plants

You have a massive collection of Fig Trees. Where did the trees come from and why do you grow them?

Fig trees fit into my idea of a good gardening time. They live, they grown, and they crap out delicious fruit. I don’t have to fertilize them, spray them, really do anything, and I am rewarded with bucket after bucket of one of the most delicious fruits mother earth has to offer.

I ate figs in Europe and fell in love with them. I came back to Washington, DC, my home, and asked the gardening experts if I could grow figs in DC. They said, no, its too cold. One day I was driving down a back alley in downtown DC, and to my surprise, I saw a 20 foot fig tree covered with figs. Dont believe experts. A lot of time they are just moving their lips senselessly.

“I started driving the back allies of DC, Baltimore, and Philly with my clippers. When I saw a fig tree, I took a clipping. Over time, I collected over fifty varieties.”

Anyhow, after I found my first fig tree, I started looking into it. Turns out that when the Italian and Greek
immigrants moved here from Europe, they brought a cutting of their favorite fig tree with them. They planted them in the backyard of the row houses they lived in. Long after they left these neighborhoods, their cherished fig trees continue to live, with no attention, and produce figs. So, I started driving the back allies of DC, Baltimore, and Philly with my clippers. When I saw a fig tree, I took a clipping. Over time, I collected over fifty varieties.

And, these are survivors. They made it to America in a suitcase on some hideous boat journey, they grew in soil and sun they had never seen before, they survived the great depression, the second world war, their abandonment by their upwardly mobile immigrant importers, then there were the riots in the late 60’s that left houses they lived behind burnt to a crisp, they survived gentrification…….and despite the circumstances happening in house, be it happiness or the passage of crack pipes, they just keep on crapping out bowl after bowl of lovely fruit.

I love the fruit but I also love the romantic side of the fig story. Scared people leaving villages in Europe for a better life in America, carefully packing a peice of their favorite fruit tree, a little twig a fig tree, keeping it alive during the passage, sneaking it into the country, nursing it to maturity in a new land……. keeping these fig trees alive is keeping a fascinating peice of American history alive.

“Onions in general are fantastic anti-microbial foods. Whenever the flu season hits, I make sure I eat a lot of onions. They cotain chemicals that reduce microbial populations, in a salad or in you.”

What experiments are you doing with your parrots?

Memory is a problem today. There are just too many things to remember. A ridiculous number of things to remember. I, a complete nobody, has 45 usernames and pass codes to remember. Stupid but its our life. So, I became interested in memory and what nature had to offer to increase memory.

M work always starts with old books. So, I went through all my old medical books, from every spot on the planet, and collected all the herbal remedies said to treat dementia, the big league of memory loss. Turns out, traditional medicine has been covering memory loss for, I dont know, 6000 years. Anyhow, I wanted to try out these long used memory herbs to see which were the best.

Parrots are unique in that they have memory chips in their little bird brains. Thats why they remember words. So, I decided parrot would be good test subjects for my memory herb experiment. I found these super tiny parrots, pacific parrotlets that were ideal. Small bird, small poop, and memories that could be tested easily. Does the bird learn to talk faster on the herb or not, does the bird remember more on the herb or not, does a non talker, and there are parrots that refuse to talk, become a talker on the herb, etc.

” European grapes dont like to live in most parts of America, because they are EUROPEAN. That would be especially true of where I live. I am growing north american grapes, wild grapes, because they like to live where I live. They can be everybit as tasty as European grapes, though a little more grapey, but at least they dont need to be sprayed.”

“I do not argue with nature. If a plant cannot make it in my environment, I let it go, and look for something
that does.”

What are you working on next?

Burmese cats. I love burmese cats because they are a dog minus the walk. I have had several. They walk with me, ride in the car with me, sit in the hot tub with me, go for bike rides, shower with me, hug me when I sleep at night, and…… they crap in a box when Im not looking. Dog minus the walk. Or maybe boyfriend minus the fights.

Anyhow, its a super cool race of cats and it turns out they are about to go extinct. It seems the Burmese breeders in America have inbreed them to the point the breed is now cranking out hopelessly sick kittens and adults with chronic health problems. And, the breeders are just not doing anything about the problem. Other than continuing to breed mother to son. Well, we all know there is nothing natural about that and there is no way that program is going to end well.

Me to the rescue. I am going to Thailand to pick up some unrelated Burmese cats, and when they are back in America, I am going to breed them to the inbred American Burmese cats. Burmese cats lack genetic diversity so I am going to Thailand to get some genetic diversity. All in the aim of saving the best race of cats to ever walk the earth.

So, my next project is to open a cattery and do something to save the Burmese breed. Im going to call the cattery “Hot Pussy House of Cats” and I going to give all the cats stripper names.

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