Herb of the Week: Rosehips
Alright, it's been a little while since I've done an Herb of the Week. Maybe I should switch to Herb of the Month! That being said, it is truly an amazing time to go out and collect Rosehips. These little ruby gems are an easy entrance to the world of Wild Medicine. The are prolific, easy to identify, easy to collect, and very versatile.
Rose spp.
Description: The red fruits or ovaries of rose flowers, rose hips are easily identified by being one of the few fruits still on the branches in the fall and winter. They are found on rose bushes which are also easily identified by their prominent thorns. There are many different wild and cultivated species. Beware of nightshade berries that may appear similar (but no thorns). Strangely enough many species of cultivated roses do not produce "hips".
Collecting: The fruits can be collected any time after reaching maturity and ripening, however many people recommend waiting until after the first frost. This produces 2 results: 1)It can kill off any little bugs living inside the fruits and 2)It firms up the fruit making them less mushy to handle and work with.
Properties: Edible, mildly medicinal, rich in vitamin C, slightly astringent
Medicinal Uses:
1) Medicinal and Nutritive Tea-Rosehips' big claim to fame is that they are a very rich source of winter Vitamin C. There are many anecdotes of settlers being taught to use rose hips to prevent scurvy (vitamin C deficiency) from Native North Americans. Pouring hot water over fresh or dried rose hips will produce a beautiful, fragrant tart tea. Don't boil them though as this destroys a lot of the Vitamin C content.
2) Medicinal Honey-Another wonderful way to use rose hips that is easy enough for beginners and even kids to do is to make a rose hip honey. There are several ways to do this. The simplest way is to clean your fresh rose hips. Then place them in a jar after removing the vegetative part that connected them hip to the flower and the stem. Pour honey one the rose hips (you can fill a container 1/3 to1/2 full or more) and fill the honey as close to the top as you can. Steep the hips this way for at least 30 days and turn the jar every other day or so. After 30 days, strain the honey. You will have an amazing ruby-red honey flavored with tart complexities of rose hips! This can be taken straight for sore throats and mixed into tea or hot water to help through the cold season.
3) Rose hip decorations-While not exactly medicinal, rose hips can be dried and add a lot of color and scent to natural potpourri mixes and even strung and made into necklaces. There is some argument that this is where the word "rosary" originally came from: a string of dried rose hips that were then used to focus one's thoughts and prayers. This is a really beautiful way to include plants in our lives as more than just food.
4) Rose hip Syrup-Finally, rose hips can be used by themselves or combined with other herbs into an herbal syrup. This process can be quite simple, though many medicinal syrups are quite sophisticated. To make a simple syrup, pour 4 cups of hot water over 4 cups of rose hips. Simmer this for 15 minutes. The water will turn a bright red color. After 15 minute, strain the mixture and then simmer the remaining liquid for another 30 minutes. You are reducing the liquid here to try and be half or less of the original amount. After reducing by half, you can add sugar, honey, or maple syrup to sweeten and thicken. Sugar will actually produce the thickest syrup, the other two will be thinner. This Rose hip syrup can be stored in the refrigerator for 3-6 months. The syrup can be combined with hot water or tea as needed or taken directly for sore throats. Rose hips also combine nicely with blueberries, black berries, raspberries, or other naturally tart berries for a more complex syrup.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Thursday, October 27, 2011
Transition: Fall to Winter
It was cold this week. Not just the coolness of fall and dampness at night and in the morning, but cold. A few mornings this week it felt like there could have been frost. In the traditional seasonal calendar of China, broken into 24 periods, we just entered Frost Falls. The hint of winter is in the air.
How do we nourish ourselves during this time?
Well, what does our natural appetite and body wisdom suggest?
Have you been wanting to sleep more? Have you been wanting to put on an extra layer? Have you not been feeling quite as active? I would suggest that the wisdom of the seasons is reflected in the wisdom of the body, and our body has a lot to tell us right now.
For instance, which would be more nourishing right now: watermelon or baked squash?
Iced mint tea or hot chai?
Cinammon or Lavender?
In the transition from Fall to Winter, we can reflect in our bodies the changes that are happening in the external landscape. As the energy in the plants and trees sinks into our roots, we can sink our own energy by eating more root vegetables. As the animals eat more food and store up extra calories, so too can we eat more rich and deeply nutritious food such as butter, nuts, animal products, and oils. As the outside rests more at night in response to the external cycle of light, so too can we sleep more and wake up slower (Some of us might not have as much choice in this one as we'd like!).
Rather than going for a five-mile run, we might find it more nourishing to go for a walk. Rather than doing ashtanga yoga for 90 minutes, a shorter session of movement followed by a long periods of time in restorative yoga might be more nourishing. Instead of doing the Tai Chi form 2 or 3 times, doing it once very slowly with pauses might be what our bodies need.
Experiment with standing and sitting meditation practices-this time of year is a good time to enter into these kinds of practices.
In Japan, from this time of year all the way until March or April, many people wear a piece of wool, silk or cotton cloth wrapped around the lower back and abdomen from the pelvis to just above the navel. This hard-maki or hara warmer keeps the center of vital energy (qi or prana) near and below the navel supported and strong through the cold months.
Traditional Exercise to Nourish the Kidneys, the Water Element, and Protect the Body in Winter:
Sit or stand in a comfortable position where your hands can reach your lower back. Place the palms of your hands on your low back facing your skin. Gently massage up and down 81 times until your kidneys and lower back feel warm and nourished. This practice promotes longevity, nourishes the kidneys, and protects the body from cold in the winter.
How do we nourish ourselves during this time?
Well, what does our natural appetite and body wisdom suggest?
Have you been wanting to sleep more? Have you been wanting to put on an extra layer? Have you not been feeling quite as active? I would suggest that the wisdom of the seasons is reflected in the wisdom of the body, and our body has a lot to tell us right now.
For instance, which would be more nourishing right now: watermelon or baked squash?
Iced mint tea or hot chai?
Cinammon or Lavender?
In the transition from Fall to Winter, we can reflect in our bodies the changes that are happening in the external landscape. As the energy in the plants and trees sinks into our roots, we can sink our own energy by eating more root vegetables. As the animals eat more food and store up extra calories, so too can we eat more rich and deeply nutritious food such as butter, nuts, animal products, and oils. As the outside rests more at night in response to the external cycle of light, so too can we sleep more and wake up slower (Some of us might not have as much choice in this one as we'd like!).
Rather than going for a five-mile run, we might find it more nourishing to go for a walk. Rather than doing ashtanga yoga for 90 minutes, a shorter session of movement followed by a long periods of time in restorative yoga might be more nourishing. Instead of doing the Tai Chi form 2 or 3 times, doing it once very slowly with pauses might be what our bodies need.
Experiment with standing and sitting meditation practices-this time of year is a good time to enter into these kinds of practices.
In Japan, from this time of year all the way until March or April, many people wear a piece of wool, silk or cotton cloth wrapped around the lower back and abdomen from the pelvis to just above the navel. This hard-maki or hara warmer keeps the center of vital energy (qi or prana) near and below the navel supported and strong through the cold months.
Traditional Exercise to Nourish the Kidneys, the Water Element, and Protect the Body in Winter:
Sit or stand in a comfortable position where your hands can reach your lower back. Place the palms of your hands on your low back facing your skin. Gently massage up and down 81 times until your kidneys and lower back feel warm and nourished. This practice promotes longevity, nourishes the kidneys, and protects the body from cold in the winter.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Herb of the Week: Prickly Pear
Now for something completely different...Prickly Pear.
Recently, my wife, daughter, and I made our annual spring sojourn to Arizona, land of the young springs. There we spent time in the Sonoran Desert, a truly remarkably landscape filled with amazing fauna. There is an abundance of exotic foods and medicines to be found there including Green Ephedra (a.k.a. Mormon Tea), Agave (source of Agave Nectar), Wild Goji bushes (Lycium species), Desert Lavender, Octotillo, Cholla cacti (whose buds are edible), Creosote bushes, and Mesquite trees (medicinal sap and seed pods can be made into a nutritious and yummy flour).
Amidst the return of old friends (meaning all my plant buddies of course!), I reconnected with the one plant from the desert that I actually knew before I got there: Prickly Pear Cactus. While this plant is abundant beyond belief in the Sonoran Desert, it has a surprisingly wide range of distribution. I have found this cactus in Illinois, Pennsylvania, the San Juan Islands of Washington State, and Montana. Other folks have told me they have found it in Michigan and New Jersey as well. In fact, it seems to thrive in any sort of rocky desert micro-climate even at decent elevations. Well, besides being a very adaptable cactus, what other mysteries does the Prickly Pear hold? Read on and find out!
Prickly Pear-Opuntia species
Description: A cactus with distinctive paddle-like lobes covered in 2 kinds of needles: long easy to see sharp ones and small delicate hairs that are incredibly painful and difficult to remove. Red-purple "pear-like" fruit appear on the cacti in the summer time.
Harvesting: Prickly pear can be quite difficult to harvest, even with gloves. A pretty decent method is to knock off a relatively young paddle (they grow out from one another) with a stick. Then using another stick repeatedly flip the paddle on the ground breaking off needles and hair. The same method works with the fruit as well.
Uses:
1) Fresh Poultice-The inside of the paddles (fresh or old) make an amazing skin poultice. Paddles should be harvested as described above and then split in half and applied topically. The fresh poultice treats cuts, scrapes, rashes, bruises, sunburns, and snakebites!
Yes, snakebites. Prickly pear poultices were one of the traditional remedies for snake bites including rattlesnake bites! The poultice was applied directly on the bite. The plant is often abundant in the same areas as rattlesnakes. Of course, seeking modern medical help is probably a really good idea. But snakebites can happen in remote areas far from medical help.
2) Food-Both the paddles and the fruit are edible. The younger paddles can be sliced up and cooked, and in fact are the famous nopales of Mexican cuisine. The sour and somewhat slimy cooked nopales are traditionally good for battling summer time extreme heat and fever. The fruit can be eaten fresh, but is quite seedy it also clear heat and is cooling.
3) Syrup-The fruit can be harvested in quantity and boiled down into a sweet syrup. Harvest the fruit and be sure to clean off as many needles as possible. Then cut up the fruit and cook on a low heat (seeds and all). Then strain the seeds and pulp out saving the beautiful purple-red syrup (no sweetener is needed and is not desirable). This syrup can be added to cool drinks in the summer time to clear summer heat or fever and add nutrients. However, it is more importantly used as an adjunct treatment for Diabetes!
That's right the sweet syrup has been shown to be effective in treating type 2 Diabetes by lowering blood sugar and is used as a treatment in Mexico. If you have Diabetes and wish to try this remedy further research is recommended and be sure to work with your doctor or health care provider.
Keep your eye out for this very useful plant in unlikely areas! Or if you're in the Desert Southwest appreciate it's abundance almost everywhere!
Recently, my wife, daughter, and I made our annual spring sojourn to Arizona, land of the young springs. There we spent time in the Sonoran Desert, a truly remarkably landscape filled with amazing fauna. There is an abundance of exotic foods and medicines to be found there including Green Ephedra (a.k.a. Mormon Tea), Agave (source of Agave Nectar), Wild Goji bushes (Lycium species), Desert Lavender, Octotillo, Cholla cacti (whose buds are edible), Creosote bushes, and Mesquite trees (medicinal sap and seed pods can be made into a nutritious and yummy flour).
Amidst the return of old friends (meaning all my plant buddies of course!), I reconnected with the one plant from the desert that I actually knew before I got there: Prickly Pear Cactus. While this plant is abundant beyond belief in the Sonoran Desert, it has a surprisingly wide range of distribution. I have found this cactus in Illinois, Pennsylvania, the San Juan Islands of Washington State, and Montana. Other folks have told me they have found it in Michigan and New Jersey as well. In fact, it seems to thrive in any sort of rocky desert micro-climate even at decent elevations. Well, besides being a very adaptable cactus, what other mysteries does the Prickly Pear hold? Read on and find out!
Prickly Pear-Opuntia species
Description: A cactus with distinctive paddle-like lobes covered in 2 kinds of needles: long easy to see sharp ones and small delicate hairs that are incredibly painful and difficult to remove. Red-purple "pear-like" fruit appear on the cacti in the summer time.
Harvesting: Prickly pear can be quite difficult to harvest, even with gloves. A pretty decent method is to knock off a relatively young paddle (they grow out from one another) with a stick. Then using another stick repeatedly flip the paddle on the ground breaking off needles and hair. The same method works with the fruit as well.
Uses:
1) Fresh Poultice-The inside of the paddles (fresh or old) make an amazing skin poultice. Paddles should be harvested as described above and then split in half and applied topically. The fresh poultice treats cuts, scrapes, rashes, bruises, sunburns, and snakebites!
Yes, snakebites. Prickly pear poultices were one of the traditional remedies for snake bites including rattlesnake bites! The poultice was applied directly on the bite. The plant is often abundant in the same areas as rattlesnakes. Of course, seeking modern medical help is probably a really good idea. But snakebites can happen in remote areas far from medical help.
2) Food-Both the paddles and the fruit are edible. The younger paddles can be sliced up and cooked, and in fact are the famous nopales of Mexican cuisine. The sour and somewhat slimy cooked nopales are traditionally good for battling summer time extreme heat and fever. The fruit can be eaten fresh, but is quite seedy it also clear heat and is cooling.
3) Syrup-The fruit can be harvested in quantity and boiled down into a sweet syrup. Harvest the fruit and be sure to clean off as many needles as possible. Then cut up the fruit and cook on a low heat (seeds and all). Then strain the seeds and pulp out saving the beautiful purple-red syrup (no sweetener is needed and is not desirable). This syrup can be added to cool drinks in the summer time to clear summer heat or fever and add nutrients. However, it is more importantly used as an adjunct treatment for Diabetes!
That's right the sweet syrup has been shown to be effective in treating type 2 Diabetes by lowering blood sugar and is used as a treatment in Mexico. If you have Diabetes and wish to try this remedy further research is recommended and be sure to work with your doctor or health care provider.
Keep your eye out for this very useful plant in unlikely areas! Or if you're in the Desert Southwest appreciate it's abundance almost everywhere!
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