Nettles

[helwen]

Been reading up on Stinging Nettles, and found this great page:
http://www.acupuncturebrooklyn.com/alternative-health/nettles

A much-maligned but highly beneficial plant. Balancing/restoring kidney function, reduces benign prostate enlargement, helps with asthma and allergic rhinitis, helps clear congestion and phlegm, helps with arthritis, may possibly help with sugar-levels for diabetics (hasn't been tested on humans yet), good for the liver, helps with gout...

Contains Vitamins A & C and also K, iron, magnesium, potassium, manganese, silica, and calcium.

Comments

hmm

[bytchearse.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read "Soup for the Qan"? I have an English translation of the "recipes" therein. A lot of "balancing the humors via herbs/plants" discussion

[oakmouse]

Nettles are good stuff. Young leaves --- harvested before the cystoliths form --- are delicious, and make a fabulous substitute for spinach in minestrone soup.

Strong nettle tea used as the water portion of a soap recipe also makes a nice soap; gentle on skin and hair, but has antibacterial properties. Especially if you add essential oil of lemon after the soap reaches trace.

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

Nettles also make a great bast fiber, virtually indistinguishable from linen made from flax.

[loosecanon.livejournal.com]

If stung by nettle, look for dock (always found within 50 feet, I am told, and so far, it's been true). Rub the sting with dock stems, they go away.

Now I look for nettle by looking for dock, then circling. It makes some great meals.

Re: hmm

[helwen.livejournal.com]

I haven't - sounds interesting!

[helwen.livejournal.com]

They are -- I need to harvest some more today, as I suspect the season will be ending soon. Although it's my understanding that the mature leaves can also be used, but in dried form instead of fresh (tea, soup). We seem to have an abundance of it this year....

The soap sounds great!

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Yup! According to one site I found, it was used for a lot for fiber before flax gained precedence over it. I haven't made any, but I can only imagine that the flax was finer and that's why it succeeded nettles, because having grown flax I know it's a nuisance to weed and it isn't terribly competitive.

Maybe this year we'll harvest some for fiber and find out.

[helwen.livejournal.com]

Yes indeed! And while burdock receives high praise, the other docks seem to work as well.

Stinging is avoided by grasping the leaf (not stem) firmly, according to a couple of sites, which makes sense since you're not giving it a chance to jostle against your fingers. I've done it, but that said, I prefer to wear gloves.

[oakmouse]

The soap is fabu. *g* Want the recipe?

Mature nettle leaves can be risky to eat, because they sometimes (not always) form what are called cystoliths --- tiny bits of mineral grit that are bad for the kidneys. Basically, if the cooked leaves seem gritty at all when you eat them, they've got cystoliths. However, nettles afflicted with cystoliths can still be used for tea, and can be used to make a broth that will be strained before drinking, because the cystoliths stay in the leaf structure and don't come out into the liquid.