MELVIN DURAI'S AMUZING LIFE
HERBAL SUPPLEMENTS MAY POSE PROBLEMS

     The growing popularity of medicinal herbs, such as echinacea, ginseng and kava, is beginning to worry me. I feel guilty enough for not swallowing a bucketful of vitamins and minerals every day, without having to think about eating strange plants.

     I'm also concerned about the safety of herbal supplements. The herbal industry is largely unregulated, giving government inspectors more time to test other unusual and potentially dangerous products, such as cheese curls. You can now feel absolutely safe eating a bag of cheese curls, knowing that you won't get cancer, you won't go blind, and your skin won't remain permanently yellow.

     Some herbal supplements are made by reputable companies, others by fly-by-night firms that don't care about the quality and potency of their products. I for one would feel much safer eating all my house plants. With a little salad dressing, of course.

     Herbal remedies originated in ancient times and are common in Asia and Europe. Now Americans are snapping them up, hoping to cure all sorts of problems, including baldness, depression and impotence. Even Larry King, that CNN marriage-machine, is a believer. His radio ads credit ginseng for his youthful glow. And you thought it was his money that helped him attract all those women!

     Herbal supplements are popular partly because you can buy them almost anywhere -- pharmacies, grocery stores, flea markets -- without having to spend a year in a doctor's waiting room.

     According to Time magazine, 7.5 million Americans in the past year ingested an extract from a bright yellow flower called St. John's wort.

     That should concern every serious gardener. Don't be surprised if you return home one day and find your neighbor munching all your flowers. To protect yourself from any lawsuits, you may want to erect a sign that reads: "Do not eat the flowers, unless you want to commit suicide. If the flowers don't kill you, the gardener will."

     Thanks to my precious mother, I recently got a taste of an herbal tonic. She brought it from India, a bottle of dark liquid with a picture of a tree on the label.

     This was not just any old tonic. This was a special tonic, capable of curing all my ailments, even those I haven't yet discovered.

     My mother, if you asked her, would have no trouble describing all my ailments, including:

     ---Failing to call her at least once a day, twice on Sundays.

     ---Failing to be married. And thus failing to provide her with more grandchildren.

     ---Watching too much football on television. Twelve hours too much.

     ---Unwilling to eat five servings of vegetables at every meal, including breakfast.

     The herbal tonic had a number of ingredients, including leaves, fruit peels, and the bark of eight trees. But this was obviously no garden-variety tonic. Especially since I had never heard of any of the trees. That botany class in college was a real ripoff.

     The tonic tasted mildly sweet. You could say its bark was worse than its bite.

     My mother wanted me to drink it every day, but I decided that I'd rather stick with Coke. It tastes good and it may just make me look cool.

     I'll have to do without the youthful glow.