JACKSON, MS—Outside of a Farish Street shop, a couple of folks chat about the pros and cons of cleanses. One sums up her point of view, “Cleanses are better, but they don’t last long.” Such is the talk at Herbal Blessings, a community health store that sells herbal tea blends, bitters, tonics, and lemonades, among other things.
Inside of the shop, a group of four employees moves back and forth behind the countertop. They retrieve jars from a vast library of herbs that Herbal Blessings stocks for its clientele and community. One worker shakes out a certain weight of a leaf onto a scale, while another grinds a measure of a particular root. Jars move in and out of their assigned cubbies, lending various medicinal properties to dry mixes.
The workers are preparing herbal tea recipes designed to address health conditions by Eric Collins Sr., the owner and founder of the health store. One blend is a soporific, another an aphrodisiac, another helps with digestion. It is a bustling establishment of holistic health with a consistent and loyal clientele. Its healthy message shines brightly along the length of Farish Street.
A Center for Disease Control report states that 64.5% of Mississippians drank at least one sugar sweetened beverage a day between 2010 and 2015. Nearly 13% of adults in the state are diagnosed with diabetes and 39.1% of adults self-reported as obese. For a variety of complicated reasons, Mississippi regularly ranks last in many health outcomes.
For Jackson, specifically, the health situation is concerning. Over 80% of the city is African-American. A 2021 report by the Commonwealth Fund concluded that, “Mississippi’s health system scores in the 8th percentile for Black residents, but much higher for white residents, in the 38th percentile. Compared to 38 states with large Black populations, Mississippi’s health system ranks 37th overall.”
The systemic health issues in the state, and the systemic inequalities in the treatment of those issues, make for a dire problem. There is a clear need for health solutions in the Jackson community, and Herbal Blessings brings new ideas to the table while also supporting the African-American community.
Moreover, Farish Street, where Herbal Blessings has set up shop, has hit hard times in the past couple decades. From the 1950s to the 70s, the street was a prosperous African-American business district, but it fell into disrepair and abandonment. Now, as Collins aims to address individual health issues through Herbal Blessings, he also sees the health of the Farish Street community as a priority. His new initiative of First Fridays, where over 60 vendors sell their wares along the street, aspires to revive the African-American owned economy of the area.
Really, Herbal Blessings is all about health–both community and individual.
For Collins, the health mission is personal. He remembers his own health concerns, “I had high blood pressure, I was prediabetic, and I was a bit overweight. That really started my journey of doing research into what I was eating. With illnesses running through the family, I wanted to break that curse. I went plant-based. I started taking herbs over 10 years ago. Learning about what they can do. I wanted to help people. I wanted to be able to provide some of the resources and the information to make it make sense.”
He started with flavored popcorn (and a spicy favorite called Kickin’) and quickly added lemonade to his repertoire. His first recipes had organic cane sugar, spring water, and lavender. He started adding more flavors from there.
“Over the years, I got away from cane sugar as I started learning more about sugar. Cane sugar isn’t really that much better than regular white sugar,” Collins explains, “So I started using agave and monk fruit. It really became a hit. I gave that product itself to my son, and that’s how we got EJ’S LemonAYDE.”
EJ’S LemonAYDE comes in a variety of flavors like hibiscus, elderberry, and Moroccan mint. For a clientele that often drinks a daily soda, the natural sugar alternative is a healthier alternative that otherwise wouldn’t exist in Jackson. Collins sees sugar as one of the biggest problems in health outcomes. He wants to move away from sugar addiction and the problems that come with it.
“We see it everyday. ‘I need my sugar. I need my Coke.’” He says, “I have to listen and say, ‘Do you realize you are saying that you need this sugar, you need this candy?’ They say, ‘I didn’t think about it like that.’ The lemonades are pretty tasty, and very refreshing. I like to see the look on their face when they open a bottle and taste it.” Raising awareness and increasing the availability for healthier alternatives is a great start in the daunting battle against sweets.
Often, Collins and his staff are shepherds in the process of acting more conscientious about health. They attribute medicinal qualities to many of their herbal tea blends, but they really want to help customers eliminate the bad things from their diets. “The things we put in our bodies–we need to start reading labels. We love to re-educate people to get them to understand that what you put in your body is what you are going to get out.”
And Herbal Blessings’ tea blends, tonics, and bitters are part of the medicinal repertoire. Collins emphasizes that he isn’t against mainstream American medicine. “What I am against is people depending on medications,” he clarifies, “Even if you’re on medication, what you got to do is ask yourself, ‘What can I do to get off this medication?’ Most people believe that medications are for life, and we believe that to not be true.” Herbal Blessings is designed to help people get back to a more natural state of health using a variety of beverages and herbs.
Proponents of modern Western medicine may see the holistic, herbal approach as insufficient, but Collins’s lived experience proves that the current system in Mississippi is insufficient. Jacksonians could use more awareness about what they are consuming. If a daily cup of herbal tea forms long-term, healthy habits, then Herbal Blessings has accomplished something admirable.
As an entrepreneur, Collins fits well as a role model in his community. His businesses alone employ at least 15 Jacksonians. His community contributions outshine this statistic though. He provides a friendly and busy storefront on a relatively empty Farish Street and supports other local businesses with his First Friday initiative. He is an outspoken voice for progress, development, and health.
Collins sees individual health as connected to community health. “When it comes to the things that we put in our body, we know that unhealthy foods make for an unhealthy brain and unhealthy decisions.” He explains, ”So we wanted to look at it and say, ‘Okay, if I’m putting healthier options in my body that can nourish my brain, then it will nourish my thinking. If we aren’t consuming foods we know are bad for our thinking, maybe some of the crime would go down, maybe some of the drug use would go down, maybe some of the things we suffer with in the community would go down.’” Once again, taking the step to be more aware of inputs and outputs is a positive message.
He challenges Jackson to take on 21 day challenges, the kind individuals do to kick a bad habit or build a good one. “I believe in creating challenges and setting your intentions before you embark on a challenge. Then you can look at the outcome and feel 100% better. Jackson needs challenges.”
At Herbal Blessings, the individual body merges with the body of the community. Through education, and the intentional consumption of healthier lemonades, purifying tonics, and preventative herbal teas, both bodies could improve. Yes, Herbal Blessings is a business, but it is a business in an area that has long been vacant. It is a symptom of a recovery. Collins, alongside his family and community, know that alternative solutions are needed to heal long standing issues in their city. Alternative medicine and conscientious consumption are a great place to start.
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