How Much Sage Should You Take? A Sensible Range

With sage, more isn't more. Here is the working range practitioners and studies tend to agree on, and the signs you have gone past it.

The working range

A strong infusion gargled warm, or light tea.

Stay at food level: a few cups of tea, a spoon of powder, the amounts a cook would use. Concentrated extracts compress several servings into one capsule, so follow the label rather than free-pouring.

What the studies used

The caution list is short but real: however, some species of sage, including common sage (S. Officinalis) , contain a component called thujone that can be toxic if consumed in large amounts; therefore, sage may be unsafe in high doses or if consumed for long periods of time. It may be unsafe to use sage during pregnancy because its component thujone may have harmful effects.

Signs you have overdone it

Sage is cool in nature. Push a warming herb hard and you feel flushed, restless, dry-mouthed; push a cooling herb and digestion turns sluggish. Either way, the fix is the same: stop, let things settle, restart at half the amount.

Worth knowing: Many herbal products intended for oral use are marketed as dietary supplements. The regulatory paths for making and distributing dietary supplements are different than those for drugs.

Consistency beats dose. A modest amount taken regularly usually does more than a heroic amount taken twice.