We specialize in the highest quality 5 year root with a clean certificate of analysis. Hi Everybody! I'm Mike Burmeister and my great-great-grandfather Johann Burmeister came to America and founded the town of Hamburg WI, which co-incidentally is where the Fromm brothers settled. The Fromm brothers are in American history books as the first to successfully cultivate American ginseng (Panax quinque
folius). My Great Grandfather Julius Burmeister was working with them when the Fromms made that important discovery. For over 200 years previous, people had been trying unsuccessfully only to have their crop die before harvest; there are a lot of tricks to growing ginseng. And those secrets stayed in Marathon County for about 50 years, elsewhere in the country you would be lucky to find a pound of this amazing medicinal plant wild under a tree in the Northwoods. They traded ginseng it's own weight for Chinese gold; the Chinese knew ginseng literally keeps stress from killing you and increases lifespan which, of course, is worth more than money. Julius began cultivating Panax quinquefolius in Wisconsin in 1909, one of the very first and, I believe, the oldest ginseng-growing families still in business. Today, we collectively harvest tons of what many consider to be the best ginseng in the world. My career in ginseng (if you don't count picking weeds in the garden since I was knee-high) started as a class project at UW-Madison business school some 25 years ago. I was born into a 4th-generation ginseng-growing family, so I saw that in order to save the family farm, we needed to develop finished products from our crop instead of selling it in barrels as low-priced, raw commodity directly to the Chinese market. My grandfather, Henry Burmeister, and I built my first machine for mechanically separating tea; a memory I will always treasure. I sent my new tea ingredient everywhere I could, and by the time I left college I was the lucky American ginseng ingredient supplier for Celestial Seasonings. Together we developed some of the quality control protocols that are still being used as benchmark quality control standards throughout the rest of the natural products industry today. Many major brands of natural products use our WI-grown ginseng for raw ingredient for that reason. Since then I've developed a farm-direct brand of American ginseng products including capsules, tea, select roots, root powder, extract, soaps and the first American ginseng instant tea in the US. Our ginseng ingredient is cultivated for a minimum of 5 years. This long-lived perennial root grows growth rings like a tree, becoming more potent with age; more mature plants are simply higher quality. Also, Burmeister Farms practice what is known as integrated pest management. That means that we do not use chemicals of any kind until something comes along that cannot be controlled by organic methods. Then, and only then, do we turn to biodegradable chemicals to save the plants from disease. We do not use pesticides or herbicides, only organic and biodegradable fungicides and very sparingly. This is not to say we are certified organic, we are not. That would only cost extra and not guarantee the kind of quality that comes with chemical testing of the crop. Our ginseng is 3rd-party independent lab HPLC tested and is guaranteed to contain very low to no residues down to below chemical detection limits. I am confident that our ginseng is the cleanest cultivated ginseng you will find. In a time when farmers are using more and more chemicals to boost yield and consumers are demanding health products to be organic, we wish the rest of the agriculture industry would follow suit and embrace organic cultivation practices. Burmeister Ginseng is dedicated to hiring veterans and proud to be a green-friendly, bee-friendly operation. We are also corporate sponsor of "United Plant Savers" the charity tasked with saving indigenous medicinal plants. I have seen a marked increase in ginseng consumption in the US since we and other ginseng growers donated to the Mayo Clinic so they could publish their groundbreaking study on American ginseng and fatigue in 2012. Arguably the best medical research facility in the world; Mayo researchers do not often study herbs, concentrating mostly on pharma, of course. Mayo researchers reported a statistically significant decrease in fatigue (20% less fatigue) among their study patients undergoing heavy fatigue and chronic inflammation from cancer treatment who took 2 grams (2000mg) of WI-grown American ginseng capsules per day. Most importantly, Mayo figured out how ginseng does what it does. Reported in their chemical study, American ginseng root has been shown, "...to reduce cytokines related to inflammation and help to regulate cortisol levels." (https://newsnetwork.mayoclinic.org/discussion/ginseng-fights-fatigue-in-cancer-patients-mayo-clinic-led-study-finds/) This needs to be clinically proven. There are numerous important positive implications of reducing cytokine stress hormones regarding longevity, chronic pain, reducing inflammation and damage from chronic stress, damage from flu viruses and autoimmune disorders. The cell damage from cytokines and related rogue leukocytes (white blood cells) have been shown to be DIRECTLY related to aging and ALL autoimmune diseases. Reducing proflammatory cytokines is a "Holy Moly!", fountain-of-youth, incredibly good thing and a new classification of anti-inflammatory. Ask any doctor worth their salt, this is common knowledge. Cytokines are signalling messenger chemicals for the immune system to attack; the body needs them only when sick or injured. When the body's own immune system becomes confused by stress and attacks itself, these cytokines are always involved causing age-related, stress-related oxidative cell damage which is the main biochemical pathway by which we all age and die. Cytokines break healthy cells and tunnel through flesh to where they 'think' the immune system needs to attack, then leukocytes follow those tunnels and when they get to where they're going they wreck stuff; sometimes that stuff is injured cells from an injury or foreign invaders but sometimes they attack perfectly healthy cells in some part of the body which is the very definition of autoimmune disorder. All this cell damage can be prophylactically prevented by simply reducing cytokines in the first place. That way the body doesn't have to repair all those damaged cells; and each time that happens the telomeres get shorter and the cells are not-so-much as they used to be...and welcome to aging.
'Regulating cortisol' is also an awesome thing and has to do with modulating the body's response to stress--reducing the feeling of being 'stressed out'--which could potentially help with dozens of stress related problems like metabolism, weight loss, blood sugar balance, athletic performance, mood, sexual function, brain function, PTSD/anxiety/depression and addiction. This is where the feeling of 'ginseng energy' comes from; instead of a stimulant action American ginseng tricks you stress hormones so you don't get stressed out, fatigued, you kind of forget to get tired, a very pleasant feeling that sticks with you all day. You might feel a slight chill or hair standing on end sensation as all your stress hormones get knocked down and then very alert and centered. This is the 'Yin Chi' or cool energy of American ginseng. All of this needs to be clinically studied and proven conclusively of course, but if you try American ginseng the feeling is undeniable. American ginseng is nature's strongest adaptogen, contains no caffeine and is safe to take every day. American ginseng does not have the strong stimulant effect of Chinese/Korean ginseng species (Panax CA Meyer) so it is the safe choice for people with high blood pressure because American ginseng contains much less Rg1 than Asian ginseng. People taking prescription blood-thinners should talk to their doctor before taking ginseng as it does tend to thin the blood a bit. Like coffee and chocolate and tea, ginseng is a very good tasting woodsy, earthy bitter especially when balanced with a little sweet. In China, considered one of the most important herbs you could eat, ginseng is added to most soups and many herbal beverages and is the gift of choice to give beloved elders on Chinese New Year. Meanwhile in the US...about 8,000 years later, in 1983 American ginseng officially became a GRAS (Generally Recognized As Safe) food (NOT a drug) according to the US FDA. We're getting there...
I love my job. It is incredibly gratifying when people call and write to tell me how my products have improved their lives. When you grow something so beneficial to people it kind of sells itself. Please take a look at Burmeister Ginseng products in our official online store, burmeisterginseng.com Best of health!...From my family to yours. Thank you. Best regards,
Mike Burmeister
Burmeister Ginseng
