Dr. Alfred Vogel, founder of Bioforce and a renowned Swiss naturopath, was convinced that only by processing freshly harvested medicinal plants would it be possible to make use of all of a plant’s ‘energy’ and effectiveness. For this reason, Bioforce AG makes use wherever possible of fresh plants from the company’s own crops or from examples of the plant growing in the wild. Only if a particular plant does not survive in our climate are we obliged to use dried plants. In order to prepare a fresh plant tincture, the plants are first chopped into small pieces using a special knife and placed in an alcohol-and-water mixture, this is known as a maceration. The ratio of alcohol to water depends on the amount of juice contained in the plant, which can vary depending on plant type, time of day and location. The mixture is left for about fourteen days and stirred from time to time, in order to release as much of the plant’s constituents as possible. Then the tincture is extracted by pressing and the left-over pulp is composted and so naturally recycled. The Mother Tincture This first tincture is known as the ‘mother tincture’ connoted by the symbol Ø. A mother tincture is a finished product in itself, however, various mother tinctures can be mixed using special recipes. Mother tinctures carefully thickened in a vacuum are used to produce tablets. Mother tinctures are also often used in the production of homeopathic preparations.