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Recipes with Dandelion Leaves: Dandelion Cardamom Tea
Dandelion arrives on the spring scene just when the herb is needed most. Many herbs have this amazing quality - proliferating just when their healthful properties can really make a difference. The inspiring yellow flowers of dandelion celebrate spring's full swing, and the promise of good health in this new cycle.
Maybe dandelion's charm does not strike you - are you pulling them from your garden, or cursing their appearance on your lawn? Then you are missing out on a prized medicinal herb that holds helpfulness in its leaves, roots, and blossoms. The plant is a perfect spring tonic that cleanses the liver and cools the hot nature of Pitta, which is beginning to ascend in springtime.
Spring Liver Tonic
Dandelion is a cholagogue, clearing the liver and gallbladder while removing cholesterol from the blood. It aids in digesting a fatty meal and improves fat metabolism.
The delightful dandelion holds your hand in the transition from winter to spring to summer, helping to eliminate the heaviness of winter's indulgences, making you light for spring, and also preventing the accumulation of summer heat. The so-called weed also helps to process the environmental toxins that burden our modern civilizations.
Reduces Blood Sugar, Replenishes Potassium
This herbal ally's attributes don't stop there. Dandelion root regulates blood sugar levels in diabetics. Dandelion leaf is comparable to the drug furosemide. Unlike the drug, which causes a loss of potassium, dandelion leaf is a natural source of potassium.
Reduces Water Retention
Dandelion is definitely drying; it makes the mouth dry and tingle. It dries the eyes and makes the frontal lobe alert. Its high potassium content makes it a strong diuretic (increases urination), relieving high blood pressure and the water retention that causes spring sluggishness.
Feeling puffed up in the April warmth? Try dandelion leaf tea, or dandelion leaves in your spring salad.
Cleansing Laxative
Dandelion is a mild laxative, but should be combined with ginger or cardamom to counteract its cold quality. Be careful and don't be too zealous with this potent food medicine; for instance, too many raw dandelion leaves makes the stomach cold, curbing the appetite.
When most people think of dandelion, they think of pulling this pesky weed out of their manicured lawn. It's the poster child for weeds. This is especially ironic because colonists brought the dandelion to the Americas as an important medicinal plant. Since then, we've lost the knowledge of our ancestors. The bitter spring greens devoured by our forefathers helped them tremendously, and have the potential to bring us all to better health.
Dandelions originally come from Eurasia, the country of Georgia, where they have been enjoyed by humans for at least 3,000 years. Many homeowners are challenged to treasure the furry yellow flowers, to give up weed killers for a season, and to enjoy the wild plants that are nature's plan for green spaces. The nutritional power of dandelions remind people that growing food instead of lawns brings us back to a personal intimacy with the environment and health. The medicine you need is growing right under your feet, the dandelion's sunny petals remind us.
Interestingly, each single petal of the bright yellow flower is actually a single rayed flower, and each one contains a copious amount of nectar that fills the ovary over halfway full, making it a staple for our vanishing honeybees. It also proves beneficial to bees and other pollinators because it can bloom late into the fall. The presence of Dandelions can mean that bee farmers do not need to offer nectar alternatives to their hives as the weather cools.
Recipes with Dandelion Leaves: Dandelion Greens with Lemon & Mint
Cooking Dandelion Leaves
Be simple and organic: Find a lovely dandelion flower, get on your hands and knees, and eat it right off the stem. Or, take some leaves, chop them, steam lightly with mint for easy digestion, and eat like greens. Use dandelion leaves as you would use greens, in soups, or with eggs, or even pulsed raw into a verdant pesto with olive oil and pumpkin seeds. Immerse the dandelion leaves into hot water for a bitter tea.
Every part of the plant is edible, the flower, the leaves, the seeds, and the roots. However, it's important to separate seeds from the white fluff, also called papas, which can get stuck in your throat.
Once you eat a dandelion, there's no going back. Soon you'll be munching on many of natures delights, including lamb's quarters, nettles, purslane, and chickweed. Make your favorite dressing, bring a big salad bowl, an instructional manual on how to identify and forage for wild greens, and venture into wild land. Your enjoyment will connect you with your ancestors, who may have spent whole winters without fresh greens. Imagine the ecstasy, biting into those fresh leaves that trumpet the arrival of spring!
Buying & Preparation
The best things in life are free, and dandelions are no exception.
Healthfulness is a consumer impulse for some, but it is important to remember that our needs are fulfilled by the nature all around us. Medicine pops up all around us all of the time.
Dandelions grow on the back lawn, and that's the best place to find them. You can enjoy dandelion leaves as a salad green if you pluck the delicate spring foliage from the ground-hugging rosettes early in the season.
Like many weeds, they are prolific and full of hearty plant wisdom. All people are in danger of ignoring what is around us and shrugging off what seems merely common. When it comes to dandelion, it's important to remember the dignity of common weeds, and the miracle of the relationship between humans and plants.
Grocery store dandelions are great, and dandelion leaves from the farmer's market will work just fine, but go ahead and stalk the wild dandelions growing in your back yard. They pack a more vital punch.
Wild food has to contend with elements and compete with other plants while farmed food is coddled, often fed fertilizers, and may be treated with pesticides.
Frank Cook (the late herbalist from Asheville, NC) would say that the difference between grocery store food and wild food is the difference between a dog and a wolf. Find out how you can go wild!
Eating wild foods brings you closer to the land. When you eat a dandelion, you are communing with the natural world, taking in the strength of thriving plants. You become a part of the land.
Eating wild medicinal foods has a potent effect. If you ate 20 dandelion flowers for three days, a part of your brain would be vitalized; perhaps your life would change forever.
Who would have thought that these wild and under appreciated plants like dandelion have the vitality to keep us strong and healthy?
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You'll learn your body type, and whether 'Dandelion Leaves' is a good fit.
Complete the basic quiz in 1 minute, or go deeper with additional quizzes
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Constitutional nutrition is tailored to the individual.
In the kitchen, especially during your family’s formative years,
you shape your family's lifelong health.
Rooted in the insights curated from Ayurveda and Greek medicine,
constitutional medicine teaches you which foods match your body,
so you and your family have true vitality, strength, and balance.
See How it Works.
Medicinal Effects of Dandelion Leaves
Constitutional nutrition systems use biocharacteristics to classify the metabolic nature of food, hebs, lifestyle choices, your body, and disease.
METABOLIC NATURE / BIOCHARACTERISTICS
Metabolic Nature / Biocharacteristics
Ayurveda assesses metabolic imbalances through 20 main biocharacteristics
(vital qualtiies).
Aggravating them weakens your body and causes imbalance.
By knowing which biocharacteristics are habitually imbalanced in your body, you will be able to identify and correct metabolic imbalances before you get sick.
Every biocharacteristic has an opposite which balances it (i.e. hot balances cold).
You restore balance by favoring diet and lifestyle choices that increase the opposite biocharacteristic.
Taste is used to sense the most basic properties and effects of food.
Each taste has a specific medicinal effect on your body.
Cravings for food with certain tastes indicate your body is craving specific medicinal results from food.
Taste is experienced on the tongue and represents your body's reaction to foods.
Sweet taste causes physical satisfaction and attraction whereas bitter taste causes discomfort and aversion.
Kapha should use less sweet taste while Vata and Pitta would benefit from using more sweet taste.
One of the first signs of illness is that your taste and appetite for food changes.
The six tastes are sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, and astringent.
Do you crave foods with any of the tastes below?
Ayurveda is a metabolic theory of medicine that explains individual health, tendencies, and disease patterns through the concept of doshas, which can be understood as your metabolic patterns and tendencies.
Each dosha reflects a distinct metabolic nature and describes strengths & weaknesses in bodily function, and how these affect energy levels, digestion, susceptibility to disease, and many other tendencies.
Your metabolic nature not only affects your physical characteristics, but also influences your mental thought patterns, confidence, and enthusiasm.
Ayurveda balances these metabolic strengths & weaknesses to support your body's vitality and prevent recurrent disease cycles. This support is a critical aid, especially in chronic or incurable disease conditions.
The 3 metabolic body types
(doshas),
are Catabolic (Vata), Metabolic (Pitta), and Anabolic (Kapha).
Through dosha, Ayurveda empowers people to identify metabolic imbalances early, break repetitive patterns of disease, and cultivate habits that support long-term vitality and well-being.
Ultimately, these metabolic patterns also provide a framework for understanding yourself, including body, mind, and spiritual tendencies.
Ayurveda & Greek Medicine were the dominant form of medicine along the Silk Road from England to China and South Asia.
They work by assessing your metabolic type, patterns, and nature.
Greek medicine recognizes 4 metabolic temperaments, Melancholic, Choleric, Sanguine, and Phlegmatic.
Has a hot and dry metabolic nature. Enthusiastic, vibrant and bright. In excess burns up fluids and ojas, irritable. Corresponds to high bilirubin in the blood that irritates and heats up the body and liver.
A Phlegmatic has a cold and wet metabolic nature. The coldness implies a slow metabolism, the moisture that you are well-nourished. Phlegmatics tend towards sluggishness and thickened fluids, including mucus.
A hot and oily nature with a moderate metabolism and a well nourished body makes Sanguine individuals vigorous, vivacious, outgoing and generous, and prone to impulsivity and self indulgence. Bullish and intense when out of balance.
Cold and dry with a slow, variable or erratic metabolism. Colicky, tense. Withdrawn, pensive, anxious, and hesitant. Analytical, intelligent, detail oriented and creative. Prone to ojas depletion, dehydration, an overactive nervous system, and depression.
Medicinal Benefits, Uses & Herbal Actions of Dandelion Leaves
Experiences are Personal
Experiences vary according to the person and constitution. Individual results may vary.
The list of herbal-actions below has not be approved by the FDA and should not be used to treat a medical condition.
Stimulant laxatives induce bowel movements by stimulating peristaltic movement (the contraction of smooth muscle in the intestines). They are effective when used on a short-term basis. On a long-term basis, they can create dependency. Aka irritant laxativ
STRONG ANTIMICROBIAL
An agent that kills microorganisms or inhibits their growth. Antimicrobial is an umbrella term that can be broken down into specific categories of target microorganism, such as anti-bacterials, fungals, and virals.
STRONG ALTERATIVE
Restores the proper function of the body by cleansing the blood and balancing blood chemistry. In Ayurveda terms, they pacify Pitta in rakta. They were traditionally used to revitalize and detoxify after a long winter.
An antioxidant is a molecule that inhibits oxidation. Oxidation is a chemical reaction that can produce free radicals that lead to a chain reaction causing damage or death to cells. Antioxidants terminate these oxidation reactions.
STRONG DIURETIC
Herbs that promote urine formation, thereby flushing the kidneys and urinary tract while eliminating any excess water retention. As diuretics reduce water retention, they are often used to reduce blood pressure.
STRONG CHOLAGOGUE
Cholagogues stimulate the production & release of bile from the liver & gallbladder. This refreshes and cleanses these organs, as well as increases bile in the small intestines.
An herb that strengthens the liver. It is helpful for people with a history of substance abuse, chronic liver issues from hepatitis and hemolytic anemias. Generally, liver tonics are oily, cool, sweet, mildly sour, or contain beta-carotene.
Scrapes fats / cleanses blood vessels by 1) purging bile, 2) strengthening the liver's ability to metabolize fats, 3) by increasing uptake of cholesterol in the liver, and 4) by inhibiting fat cells.
Inositol is an alcohol sugar made naturally in the human body from glucose. It is lipotropic (aiding fat metabilism in the liver). It affects a variety of hormones, neurotransmitters, steroid, growth factors and water.
Dandelion Leaves may temper these symptoms.
The suitability of any food for a condition is highly dependent on the individual and constitution.
Please see your doctor before using this food to treat a medical condition.
We will use this information to better predict food that helps you.
CONTRAINDICATED FOR THESE SYMPTOMS
Dandelion Leaves may be harmful or contraindicated for these symptoms.
Note this is not a complete list of all possible contraindications.
Please see your doctor before using this food to treat a medical condition.
Herb Drug Interaction Risk
Here are some potential herb drug interactions with Dandelion Leaves. Please see your health care provider for more information.
Alterative: Anything that strengthens or cleanses the liver can clear drugs more quickly, requiring a higher dose.
Blood-thinner: Patients on warfarin (coumadin) and other anticoagulants, or who have clotting difficulties, should take special caution to only use blood thinners under the supervision of a medical doctor.
Cholagogue: Anything that strengthens or cleanses the liver can clear drugs more quickly, requiring a higher dose.
Diuretic: Diuretics may clear pharmaceutical drugs more quickly, lowering the effect. Avoid if taking water pills or pharmaceutical diuretics.
Hepatoprotective: Anything that strengthens or cleanses the liver can clear drugs more quickly, requiring a higher dose.
Hypolipidemic: May magnify the effect of cholesterol lowering drugs.
Livotonic: Anything that strengthens or cleanses the liver can clear drugs more quickly, requiring a higher dose.
Lowers-blood-sugar: Avoid if taking diabetes or other blood sugar lowering medication
View other ingredients for Spring
Dandelion Leaves is recommended for Spring. Check out these other Spring foods here.
Constitutional Nutrition: Strengthen Your Health Naturally
When your dietary choices align with your individual nature (constitution), it supports your metabolism, energy, and health naturally.
A personalized diet, fitting to your constitution, leverages your natural strengths while gently supporting your body where it's vulnerable.
Constitutional nutrition is especially beneficial for digestion, a foundational pillar of health influencing your entire well-being.
Balanced digestion fortifies your body's natural defenses against illness and enhances your resilience when illness does arise.
A healthy digestive fire (*agni*) eases discomfort, speeds recovery, and naturally uplifts your mood.
By embracing constitutional nutrition, you will soon experience a profound sense of renewal, vitality, and inner strength.
John Immel, the founder of Joyful Belly, teaches people how to have a
healthy diet and lifestyle through constitutional nutrition (Ayurveda & Greek Medicine).
His approach is clinical, yet exudes an ease which many find enjoyable and insightful.
John also directs the Joyful Belly College of Ayurveda,
offering professional clinical training in Ayurveda for over 15 years.
John's hobbies & specialties include advanced digestive disorders, medieval Catholic philosophy,
& botany. He holds a bachelor's degree in mathematics from Harvard University.
John, his wife Natalie and their 8 kids live in Asheville, NC
“I would exercise caution eating things from your lawn. Our neighbors use ChemLawn and I am sure that the chemical lawn "cocktail" ends up on our law too (runoff)."
“Sad but true modern reality that your lawn may not be safe for your children, your bare feet, or to grow a simple garden. There are also many permaculture remedies for this if you want."
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* These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
The information and products on this website are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any
disease.
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Indications & Uses: What it Improves
Metabolic Effects & Herbal Actions
Contraindications / Aggravates
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