3 Ways to Use Spring Dandlelions
Here’s a great video from “Off Grid with Doug & Stacy” https://www.youtube.com/user/growinginfaithfarm/about
It’s about 3 ways to use Dandelions. One, of course, is how to make Dandelion Tea! Enjoy!
“It’s That Time of Year!”
Springtime recently arrived where I live, with an abundance of dandelions to enjoy. That’s the operative word, “enjoy”! Fresh or dried (and for the roots, roasted), you can’t make dandelion tea the wrong way. Find out your preference. Roasting gives the roots a “coffee” flavor, and a great season to harvest them is autumn, if that’s what you have where you are now. Most of the time I use the roots, leaves, and flower blossoms for tea fresh, just add simmering hot water to the cleaned plant. Of course, fresh has its own taste; find what works best for you. Sometimes it’s worth it to go to the extra steps to achieve a certain taste; other times, “quick and easy” works just fine. Use the plant however you wish, “it’s all good”: raw or roasted, finely chopped or… sometimes I use hot water to extract some of the goodness on the whole entire plant (not chopped), and then eat the cooked plant afterwards. Lots of sauces dress up the dish if you don’t want it plain. Yesterday, for instance, Hollandaise sauce made a great topping. I would love to hear your favorites! I have dried leaves on a window screen and also have used a dehydrator. For many thousands of years before dehydrators, people have loved eating dandelions! And they each can share their favorite recipes! One fun thing you might like is to ask people and see what they say! I did that yesterday and heard about “wilted dandelion salad” with mushrooms. Included in the feedback will perhaps be stories from childhood or previous generations. You might discover a treasure trove! And I would love you to write and share!
Ruth
Dandelion Tea Recipe
When life gives you lemons make lemonade. If you lawn gives you dandelions, make dandelion tea! [common dandelion Taraxacum officinale]
PREPARATION
Once you pick the dandelion greens, wash them thoroughly to remove dirt particles.
When clean, store them in a plastic bag which has holes punched for circulation, keeping them cold and humid. Use them as soon as possible, since greens are quite perishable.
Select young, tender leaves for the tastiest dandelion tea.
Individual portion
Pour:
1 cup boiling water
Over:
1 teaspoon dried dandelion leaves
For a pot of tea
Pour:
1 cup boiling water for each person
Over:
1 teaspoon dried dandelion leaves for each person
Throw in:
1 teaspoon dried dandelion leaves “for the pot”
Cover and let steep 3 minutes. Stir and let steep another minute.
Serve with your choice of:
(lemon)
(orange)
(mint)
(honey)
Or, buy some Dandelion Tea Bags now
Notes:
Use a non-metal pot, if possible.
Never boil tea.
Dandelion Tea – for the Birds!
Early European settlers so valued the versatile dandelion plant as a food source and a medicinal herb that they introduced dandelions to the Americas. Wonderfully nutritious — more beta carotene than carrots, more iron than spinach, an abundance of vitamins, as well as magnesium and zinc — dandelion leaves contain 15 percent protein. One cup of dandelion greens contains 112% of our daily recommendation of vitamin A, 32% of vitamin C, and 535% of vitamin K, a magnificent 218 mg potassium, 103 mg calcium, and 1.7 mg iron. The whole dandelion plant has nourishing, healing properties for us – and for birds! The dried herb is used in manufacturing bird food, as it is good for their health and digestion. Water is also good and healthy. Dandelion and water, hmmm…
Dandelion Tea – A Recipe for the Birds!
Heat two cups of water in a pot on the stove. Drop in a tea bag; dip it up and down a few times to get it good and wet. Cover the saucepan 10 minutes or so to steep and cool. Uncover the saucepan, dip the tea bag up and down a few more times, and then squeeze the water out of the tea bag. Let it cool. Make sure the temperature of the tea is not higher than 100 degrees Fahrenheit; ten degrees Fahrenheit hotter will burn their crop. Simply pour it in a water bowl after it cools down, and offer it in addition to plain water.
Or, harvest dandelions from ground not treated chemical fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides for the past few years. The whole plant can be picked or pulled; wash well to remove any dirt. Boil a quart of water on the stove. Reduce heat; add two tablespoons of cleaned and chopped fresh dandelion roots to the water; cover and let simmer a minute. Remove the pot from the burner. Add two tablespoons of freshly picked and chopped dandelion leaves and – hopefully – flowers; let steep forty minutes. Strain and “serve”.
You can drink 2 cups of this herbal dandelion tea a day – especially if using the flowers. Dandelion flowers are good for your heart. Dandelion flower tea can help relieve pain from headaches, menstrual cramps, backaches, stomachaches, and depression.
Note: some seed companies sell “Italian Dandelion” seeds that are really chicory, a plant with milder leaves similar in appearance to dandelion; however, this does not offer the benefits that real dandelions give.
Calcium: Ounce for Ounce, More than Milk
A healing herb, dandelion contains a rich abundance of calcium, which constitutes fifty percent—or more—of the mineral elements in a human body. Concentrated in bones and teeth, this macronutrient is essential in blood and muscles. A one hundred fifty-pound person has approximately three pounds of this mineral. Calcium works together with Vitamin D to make dense, strong bones. High in calcium, ounce for ounce more than milk, and with a wealth of other nutrients, dandelion makes a long-time favorite choice for tea.
Dandelion is also loaded with calcium in the form of healthy mineral salts, which quickly alkalinize acidic blood. The rich combinations of calcium potassium salts in dandelion chemically “strip” harmful bacilli from moist mucosal tissue in the lungs; compounds in dandelion leaves (xanthophyll and lutein) help disinfect the lungs, making it much harder for toxic bacilli bacteria to remain there. The enormous vitamin A and calcium content in dandelion acts as an effective antibiotic and minimizes any viral activity by boosting immune defenses. Immune cells in a healthy person become active upon detection of intruders, like foreign microbes, and a rush of calcium ions activate the immune cells.
Dandelion has all the nutritive salts (bicarbonate, calcium, chloride, magnesium, potassium, phosphate, and sodium electrolytes); these help purify the blood and destroy excess acid. These natural ionic compounds are important to sustain life because mineral salts comprise part of every fluid and structure in the human body.
To make your own tea, read How to Pick Dandelions for Dandelion Tea; use six dandelion leaves per teacup. Tear the leaves into strips and drop them into the bottom of the cup, fill with boiling water, and let stand for 5-10 minutes. Strain if desired, and sweeten, if you wish, by stirring in a teaspoon of honey or sugar.
Unsweetened cooled dandelion tea makes an effective skin wash, applied to minor scars and inflammations.
Drinking dandelion tea can give the body a “natural high” or incredible sensation of energy, giving a “grounded” type of energy without unwanted side effects like from caffeine, calcium that helps keep your energy levels high!
Dandelion Refrigerator Tea
Alternative to sun tea.
4-6 dandelion tea bags (or loose tea, or clean fresh plants)
1 quart water
Combine; refrigerate at least six hours or overnight. Squeeze the tea bags and place in the compost. (Sweeten the tea to taste.) Serve the tea iced.
If using fresh plants, see How to Pick Dandelions for Dandelion Tea.
Dandelion Chai – Spiced Dandelion Root Tea
Dandelions are a dark leafy green with wonderful roots, a very rich source of vitamins and minerals. This herbal chai also makes a delicious hot or iced latte! Follow the enticing fragrant bouquet with your nose – feel potent health benefits right to your toes.
Simmer 8 to 10 minutes over medium heat:
2 c. water
3 Tblsp. roasted dandelion root, or 3 dandelion roasted root tea bags
pinch cinnamon (or, a cinnamon stick)
ginger root (ground, or, even better, chopped, with skin)
and add your choice of:
• (anise seed)
• (bay leaf)
• (black peppercorns)
• ([green] cardamom seeds, crush slightly)
• (cloves)
• (orange peel, dried)
• (raspberry leaf, dried)
• (fennel seeds)
• (peppercorns)
• (star anise)
• (vanilla bean)
• (licorice root)
Strain the tea using a fine filter. To this add:
honey, a spoonful
(soy) milk, to taste
Heat again on a low flame, and do not boil.
Enjoy iced, or as a hot beverage.
Go all out for Spiced Dandelion Tea! Starting with a quart of water, simmer all but the dandelion, honey, and milk for 45 minutes, uncovered, add the dandelion, and then simmer another 15 minutes. Strain, sweeten, add milk, and serve.
Sun Tea – Dandelion “Raw Food” Drink
Dandelion Sun Tea is a popular way to brew tea, a drinkable form of enjoying fabulously famous healthy raw foods. You get the great benefits that dandelion tea offers for cleansing your system, without heating your kitchen! A nifty method to harness the energy of the sun and make a zero-calorie beverage:
Dandelion Sun Tea
(Sunlight is not necessary… you can make this tea in the refrigerator, too!)
4-6 dandelion tea bags (or loose tea, or clean fresh plants)
1 quart water
Select a 2-quart glass container scrubbed in warm, soapy water. [As an extra precaution against bacteria found in tap water that can turn up in sun tea, dip the container into a weak solution of 1½ teaspoons (or up to 1 tablespoon) bleach to a gallon of water.] Add the water and the dandelion tea bags (or, loose tea); cover. Put in a place where sunlight will shine on the container 3 hours—4 maximum—moving the container if necessary to keep it in the sun. When the tea reaches the strength and flavor you like, it is ready (as it is not steaming hot, you may like it iced). Refrigerate leftovers, with or without removing the tea bags — as you like. Drink within a day.
You may find the taste of sun tea more mellow than tea steeped in water brought to a boil: boiling affects water acidity, and slow seeping coaxes out a slightly different flavor. You might garnish with a sprig of fresh mint, maybe sweeten.
It is possible gentle warmth may brew more than sun tea: warm tap water can facilitate a marvelous medium for microbes (Alcaligenes viscolactis). Discard cloudy, thick, or syrupy sun-brewed tea; bacteria tendrils form ropy strands.
Add a cinnamon stick, whole cloves, and perhaps pepper, if you please, at the start; dandelion properties also provide awesome anti-bacterial power, including inhibiting bacteria growth. With Dandelion Chai – Spiced Dandelion Root Tea you get your wonderful health benefits and a welcome chai spice flavor.
If using fresh plants, see How to Pick Dandelions for Dandelion Tea.
How to Pick Dandelions for Dandelion Tea
- PRACTICE CONSERVATION To every rule there is an exception. Many folks consider dandelions the exception.
- POSITIVE IDENTIFICATION Play it safe. If you can’t make a positive identification on the plants yourself, go to someone knowledgeable who can, or don’t eat them.
- AVOID CONTAMINATED AREAS Don’t ingest plants contaminated with toxic build-up from roadsides or sprayed areas.
- FORAGE WITH PERMISSION With dandelions, the owner usually gives not only permission but also encouragement.
- HARVEST GUIDE Leaves to make dandelion tea: Best picked Late winter – early spring.
- A FACT ABOUT GREENS The greener the leaf, the higher the food value.
- PREPARATION Once you pick the dandelion greens, wash them thoroughly to remove dirt particles. When clean, store them in a plastic bag which has holes punched for circulation, keeping them cold and humid. Use them as soon as possible, since greens are quite perishable. Select young, tender leaves for the tastiest dandelion tea.
Kidney Stone Relief
By Chris Kindler
The factors responsible for stones are yet to be explored but one would refer to kidney stones as crystallizations dropping out of urine and obstruct of crystallizations may be like sands or a big marble. Very handfuls of them are smooth and others are not smooth making it difficult to pass.
Problems like pressure and stoppage in the kidney zone cause the typical pain for kidney stones. Stone’s location can be kidney or it splits and passes down the ureters. This is undoubtedly painful.
Struvite, calcium oxalate, cystine, and uric acid are four types of kidney stone and medical person can demarcate the different factors of stone development by twenty-four hour urine samples. Knowing this factor lets your physician apply particular therapy to lessen attacks of kidney stones. Calcium oxalate kidney stone is the usual one and extra calcium in the urine ties with further waste products for forming urinary calculi.
Kidney stones in varied size (like sand grain or a dime) have to get through a tube akin to the size of spaghetti from kidney to urinary tract and this tube is known as ureter. Passing the kidney stone according to doctor’s advice is truly painful. But, certain ways are there to complete this process almost effortlessly averting any further kidney stones.
The different things that give kidney stone relief:
Dandelion or Goldenrod
Being natural diuretic, dandelion raises urine output to help blood circulation through the kidneys. Importantly, dandelion is enriched with potassium like banana and it doesn’t reduce potassium like diuretics. Add two teaspoons of dried dandelion to a cup of steaming water to prepare dandelion tea and previous to drinking, steep it for fifteen minutes.
Goldenrod herb can cure inflammation created at the time of kidney stone passing. This herb aids you in passing kidney stones in tea form. The process of making goldenrod tea is like dandelion tea. As a difference, add two teaspoons of dried goldenrod here. Everything else remains same.
Gravel Root
It makes kidney stones softer giving rest to ureter. This accomplishes the passing process giving less pain. Moreover, it aids avoid further kidney stones and 30 drops of gravel root tincture thrice everyday are suggested by The Doctors Book of Herbal Home Remedies.
Marshmallow Root or Corn Silk
A layer of mucous membranes in our urinary tracts generally guards t urinary tract but this line of mucous is damaged when the kidney stone passes. Consuming marshmallow or corn silk tea is of paramount significance in recovering the damage of the urinary tract.
Two ounces of root to each quart of water to let the blending boil for almost 10 minutes prepares marshmallow root tea. Whereas, blending 1 ounce of corn silk with one pint of hot water prepares corn silk tea once you just let the blending be chill and gel for five minutes. The Doctors Book of Herbal Home Remedies recommends consuming 3 cups of such types everyday before every meal.
Such remedies aid in kidney stone’s passing (otherwise painful process) and complete the process effortlessly with minimum pain, giving you optimum kidney stone relief.
