Our herbs for this week are dandelion & cedar! Both are diuretic, but their similarities pretty much end there.
We are big fans of gardening your weeds, and we took another opportunity here to advocate for it. It’s easy to do, and you don’t have to stress about upkeep. Plus, you get nutritious or medicinal plants ready to hand! Dandelion is a great one for this, and the leaf makes an excellent base for a Salad of Health (listen in for an example recipe). Whether you grow it or not, it’s easy to find growing wild – but don’t be fooled by any of the many not-a-dandelions out there in the field!
The cedar we’re talking about today is “western redcedar” or arborvitae, Thuja plicata. (Other plants called ‘cedar’ include “true cedar” Cedrus species, as well as some species of Juniperus.) Katja has an argument to make that this cedar should be counted as a nervine – but it’s not a sedative one; rather the opposite. We also talk quite a bit about its particular aromatic profile, and how perhaps cedar is to tulsi as pine is to rosemary…
You can learn herbalism online – with us!
All our offerings are self-paced online video courses which come with free access to twice-weekly live Q&A sessions, lifetime access to current & future course material, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more!
If you enjoyed the episode, it helps us a lot if you subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you!
Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas.
You can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!
Our herbs for this week are dandelion & cedar! Both are diuretic, but their similarities pretty much end there.
We are big fans of gardening your weeds, and we took another opportunity here to advocate for it. It’s easy to do, and you don’t have to stress about upkeep. Plus, you get nutritious or medicinal plants ready to hand! Dandelion is a great one for this, and the leaf makes an excellent base for a Salad of Health (listen in for an example recipe). Whether you grow it or not, it’s easy to find growing wild – but don’t be fooled by any of the many not-a-dandelions out there in the field!
The cedar we’re talking about today is “western redcedar” or arborvitae, Thuja plicata. (Other plants called ‘cedar’ include “true cedar” Cedrus species, as well as some species of Juniperus.) Katja has an argument to make that this cedar should be counted as a nervine – but it’s not a sedative one; rather the opposite. We also talk quite a bit about its particular aromatic profile, and how perhaps cedar is to tulsi as pine is to rosemary…
You can learn herbalism online – with us!
All our offerings are self-paced online video courses which come with free access to twice-weekly live Q&A sessions, lifetime access to current & future course material, open discussion threads integrated in each lesson, an active student community, study guides, quizzes & capstone assignments, and more!
If you enjoyed the episode, it helps us a lot if you subscribe, rate, & review our podcast wherever you listen. This helps others find us more easily. Thank you!
Our theme music is “Wings” by Nicolai Heidlas.
You can find all of our online herbalism courses at online.commonwealthherbs.com!
<silence>
Speaker 2:Hi,
Speaker 3:I'm Katya and I'm ready . And we're here at
Speaker 2:Commonwealth Holistic or
Speaker 3:Boston message , and on the internet everywhere. Thanks to the power of the podcast. Woo <laugh> . Hi, everybody. Today we're talking about dandelion and cedar,
Speaker 2:Which is exciting.
Speaker 3:One of the cedars. One
Speaker 2:Of the cedars. There , there
Speaker 3:Are several. Today we will not really talk about Cedrus species.
Speaker 2:We'll talk about tja species.
Speaker 3:Tja. Yeah. Tja species.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:<affirmative> . Uh, before we jump in really quick this time, remember we have online courses for you, <laugh>. You should check 'em out. You can find them@online.commonwealthherbs.com . There's a whole catalog. Something in there. You're gonna want to check it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. I'm actually , um, in the middle of writing the newsletter for this week. And , um, if you're not on our newsletter list, definitely jump on it. You just go to commonwealth service.com and sign up at the bottom of the , of any page. Um, but the thing is that in the newsletter I was writing about, like back to school stuff and how to stay healthy as the seasons change and all that stuff. 'cause it is the end of summer right now. It's like late August. And , um, I'm feeling like late August <laugh> . I'm really feeling like the, the calm before the flurry of fall, you know, the like Yeah . Kind of long language, really warm end of summer feeling when you're just like, you can see fall coming and , and even though we don't go back to school as adults necessarily, that like, that cycle just stays with you. <laugh>, I think , for all your
Speaker 3:Life. Yeah , yeah, yeah. The vibes are around
Speaker 2:You . The vibes are around, and it's just like, no, no, no. Not yet. Not yet. But , um, but, so in this newsletter, I am writing about ways to stay healthy as we make this transition. Um, and that reminds me of the cold and flu course, which you can get@online.commonwealths.com. It was a ramble, but I got there. All right . All right . Um, and , uh, and all the other great stuff. Go check it out. Yeah,
Speaker 3:Do it. Okay. Uh, also, reclaimer here, that's where we remind you that we're not doctors. We are herbalist and holistic health educators.
Speaker 2:The idea is discussed in this podcast do not constitute medical advice. No state or federal authority licenses herbalists in the United States. So these discussions are for educational purposes only.
Speaker 3:We want to remind you that good health doesn't mean the same thing for everyone. Good health doesn't exist as an objective standard. It's influenced by your individual needs, experiences, and goals. So, keep in mind we're not attempting to present a single dogmatic right way that you must adhere to.
Speaker 2:Everybody's body is different. So the things that we're talking about may or may not apply directly to you. But we hope that they'll give you some good information to think about and some ideas to research and experiment with. Further
Speaker 3:Finding your way to better health is both your right and your own personal responsibility. This doesn't mean you're alone on the journey, and it doesn't mean that you are to blame for your current state of health. But it does mean that the final decision, when you're considering any course of action, whether that's discussed on the internet or prescribed by a physician, that's always your choice to make
Speaker 2:<laugh>
Speaker 3:As I pluck cat hairs off of the microphone,
Speaker 2:<laugh>,
Speaker 3:Why do we get compelled to do these things in the middle of a sentence, <laugh> ? I dunno .
Speaker 2:But that's, that's
Speaker 3:Life. That's life around here. Anyway. Yes .
Speaker 2:That's life around here. Life with cats. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> life with cats, life with, you know, cats,
Speaker 3:Lions,
Speaker 2:Dandelions.
Speaker 3:Dandelions. Yeah. The lion's tooth. Well , I , I was thinking about this episode and I was like, what can we say about dandelion that hasn't already been set up so many times? You know, dandelion, it's called dandelion. 'cause the French don Deion means the tooth of the lion. And when you look at the leaf, it's the shape of a lion's tooth. 'cause it's these big triangular lobes. I love to say that one. I'll spend a long time with that on every herb book that I do, <laugh> pro , probably forever.
Speaker 2:If , uh, if you have kids and you're teaching them about herbs, then you can pick dandelion leaves and put them like a smile on your face, and then pretend you're a lion and be like, rah . Yeah , lion. Yeah. That's a good one. That's a good one. <laugh>. Yeah .
Speaker 3:Yeah. And we can talk about dandelion and we can say, yeah, the leaf is really great kidney remedy, and it's got these diuretic effects and it'll drain your excess water and all the different reasons. That's important. And we'll talk about the root is a liver remedy, and we'll talk about the flower being exhilarate and full of yellow and <laugh>
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Right.
Speaker 3:But you've , maybe you've heard that already. I don't know. Maybe you haven't. But I, I was kind of getting stuck with that. And I was also thinking about the other things that everyone wants to say all the time about dandelion. Like, look at those dandelions coming up through the concrete. Hmm . Yeah.
Speaker 2:How can I kill them? Literally, somebody said that to me once, so I was a coworker back when I , um, wasn't an engineer, but I was learning herbalism. And this person was like, you're an herbalist. I bet you'll know. How do I kill dandelions? And I was just like, ah ,
Speaker 3:You harvest them and then you make , don't kill 'em . <laugh> food out of them, and you eat the leaves and salad. I
Speaker 2:Purposely put the seeds in the garden so that we have free salad all the time. Yeah. I'm, I'm not the person to ask how to kill danon .
Speaker 3:Yeah. You know, we've, we've mentioned on the pod before , uh, that one of our favorite ways to garden is to have a garden bed of weeds. To have mug warts and fleabane and burdock and dandelion right there in the garden bed. Because they're gonna grow super easily. They're gonna grow strong and mighty, and they're not gonna require a lot from you.
Speaker 2:You don't , it's, it's great because if you garden weeds, you never have to weeded your garden.
Speaker 3:<laugh>. Let's just call harvesting <laugh>. <laugh> . Let's just call . Hey, go get some salad from <laugh> from the garden for tonight. <laugh> , come back with a pile of dandelion. Yeah. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.
Speaker 2:No , it's good. That's salad. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah . Yeah . I like that. Uh , here's a salad. I like, okay, you take a bunch of dandelion leaves, you chop them all up. Maybe you also have some cio . Maybe you have parsley or cilantro, or maybe you have some other wild stuff. Maybe you've got violet leaf, maybe you have Nice , a little bit of lambs quarters. Not too much, you know, but a little bit you can throw in there.
Speaker 2:You , this time of year, you could put a little IRI on leaf. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> in there. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . Yeah . Or if you, if you were so inclined, a little golden rod leaf. Little bit. Yeah . Just a little bit. Chop it up. Good. Or the golden, no flowers. They would be really pretty. That'd be fun . And not as bitter. Yeah . Yeah .
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. And if you've got the dandelion , uh, flowers , you can throw those into your salad also . Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . That's fine. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , they go right with the leaf. Yeah. Yeah. But you have, you have these leaves. Right. And these are all not just like crunchy water, you know, your iceberg lettuce where it's, it's, you know, supposedly there's some fiber, but there's not, there's
Speaker 2:Very little fiber. There's
Speaker 3:Not a lot going on in lettuce
Speaker 2:<laugh> . Yeah .
Speaker 3:No. But instead we have these things that are a bit more fibrous, but also like bitter, or that's the dandelion mostly. Right. And the others like maybe have some pungency to them, or you can get some wild mustard greens and get some, some spiciness and that kind of stuff going on. Great. So now you have a lot of flavor just from that. But we're not done. 'cause we're gonna take some sardines and we're gonna kind of like stir them all up with a fork so they kind of, you know, become a little pile.
Speaker 2:Listen, if you're out there saying, you lost Merin right now, you lost me. Don't worry. We've got alternatives.
Speaker 3:No, it's gonna get better. Right.
Speaker 2:'cause I am not on board with the sardine either. I'm so, it's okay. It's okay. Just stay with them.
Speaker 3:What ? See, but we're gonna take this because a by themselves, they can be a bit much, they can be a bit like oily. There's
Speaker 2:Nothing you can do to make them better.
Speaker 3:What we're gonna do is we're gonna <laugh> mix them all around in there, and we're gonna put on some, some spice, right? Like some cayenne pepper and some ginger powder, and a little tiny touch of clove. And you can just use the Berber, a spice mix if you've got that on hand, which you should, because it's the only spice mix you really need in the kitchen. Honestly, <laugh> , uh, because it does go on everything, at least as far as my dinner is concerned, <laugh> ,
Speaker 2:It really goes on everything, everything as it's Yeah,
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. But, you know, some fiery spice stuff like that. Okay. Uh , and then some pesto, right. Which has basil and it has some pine nuts and stuff. And why don't we just get some walnuts also and throw them on, and some raisins or some dried cranberries. And I think that's enough. I think that's good. Now you
Speaker 2:Could put like, some kind of seed, like some pumpkin seed or sesame seed or
Speaker 3:Something. I do like pumpkin seeds on there. Yeah , yeah, yeah. Yeah. So now we have like, this is like the healthiest food you're going to eat <laugh> this , this month. It's gonna be awesome. You're gonna feel so good about yourself. Right. But it also has a lot of different flavors going on. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> . And I feel like the, the sardines of them is buffered by the spicy and the various kinds of aromatics. And the touch of bitter from the dandelion, I think goes a long way. Actually. That's true. Towards making them more palatable. Like that.
Speaker 2:That is true. Yeah. Uh, but if you still can't stomach sardines, don't worry. There's also, there's herring, there's <laugh>. You can get , um, canned herring or mackerel or like tuna salad goes on top of this just fine. Like, I'll take tuna and mix in mayonnaise, and I , I really like , uh, mayonnaise made with like, avocado oil so that it becomes like food instead of just a condiment. And then like, chop up some apples or something to go in there. You can still put berber of spice. It's fine. The
Speaker 3:Apples. The apples are good. Yeah. You're right about the, I always forget the apples, but they're
Speaker 2:Good. But , but if you are not, if you're like, these are all fish, this is still disgusting. What are you talking about? Like, even, even chicken could go on top, or basically any kind of, like, you could put steak on top of the salad . I'll put ground
Speaker 3:Beef on there, whatever, man. It's fine . Anything could ,
Speaker 2:Anything could go on. Yeah . Pretty good . Yeah. Um , but it's true. And I really like how you are , um, reframing this entirely as dinner, right? Because when we think about herbalism , uh, so often we are just like, because most of us grew up in the medical environment, like the conventional medical environment where if you get sick, you, you take the thing and then you get better and
Speaker 3:Get sick, take medicine, get better at the end,
Speaker 2:The end, right. Right, right, right. But, but actually, so many of the ways that we get sick, not 100% of the ways, because I mean, there are still like, you know, viruses and bacteria out there that are really strong and you're just gonna get sick regardless. So, okay. Like, I'm not , I'm not gonna say like, you will never be sick in your whole life if you eat dandelion salad, but, so
Speaker 3:No. Right. And then on the other side, there's like, you know, your genes have a transcription there or whatever you like , certain protein things get weird. Yeah .
Speaker 2:Yeah. So like, I , I wanna be careful that I'm not making like some huge blanket statement here, but , uh, human bodies do require certain inputs, and the modern diet does not provide many of those inputs, but they're not actually optional. They really are required. And then, then even worse, a lot of those required inputs both in the form of like vegetable fibers, like fiber is so important to the function of the body, but also all these minerals and nutrients that you get in green leafy things, they're very expensive to purchase. And in some places you don't even have the option to purchase them because the grocery store that you have available and maybe only has iceberg lettuce or maybe , um, the places to buy food that you have available don't have fresh greens even. Um, and so recognizing that you can put together a salad that actually tastes fine , um, and costs you nothing is a, is a really big deal. And that's, that's really part of the reason that I love so much to plant dandelion in a garden. I mean, because it , it , it is thoroughly comical, right? Because most people are trying to get rid of the dandelion, but the seeds are free and they are like almost guaranteed to germinate for you. Like it's the lowest maintenance thing. And all these, all of these wild plants that grow voraciously basically anywhere, and I'm thinking specifically of like dandelion , um, violet, honestly, even mugwort is not bad in a salad. And those three grow like pernicious almost, you know , <laugh> just like grow everywhere. Um, and you can encourage them to grow too. And then, then it's just salad for free. And, and you can grow them in a bucket. You don't even need like a fancy garden space to do it.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Plus then you're like, okay, well I know that these dandelions are safe together . They don't have like some kind of roundup spray on them Yeah. By the neighbors or by the town or whatever mm-hmm . <affirmative> , they don't have dog pee on them. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , you know , whatever, whatever the concerns are with the, the dandelions in the closest field, the ones that come out of your garden. No , no worries. Everything's good. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, you know, while we're putting things into this salad formula, we could toss red coover in there too, because that's another one that grows really voraciously and, and has a mild flavor. There
Speaker 3:Are some blossoms in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah . Yeah . So, okay, great. What will we be supporting with this amazing salad? Uh, you know, first off kidney function. And that's good and that's important. And I think ev that's maybe the first thing that everybody learns about dandelion is like, oh, kidneys. Um, yeah.
Speaker 3:But with No, you go first <laugh> .
Speaker 2:Yeah , yeah , yeah . Well, I was gonna , I was gonna take a little detour into lymphatic function.
Speaker 3:Oh. What , what's coming to mind for me was really just like, it's easy to learn that and to think, okay, dandelion is appropriate when you have a kidney problem. Dandelion is appropriate when you want to flush , uh, a lot of fluid through the system to help to chase away a u t i, maybe in combination with some more direct antimicrobials like Uber or C fine , uh, dandelion might make sense. If you've got inflamed kidney issues, if you have a kidney disorder, you've got , uh, you've got that kind of thing going on. Okay, cool. That makes sense. But don't forget that the kidneys are connected to the rest of the body. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And I'd say like one of the places that we find ourselves thinking about dandelion and it's kidney activity most often is gonna start with somebody coming in and saying, hi, I've got a heart issue. I've got high blood pressure mm-hmm . <affirmative> . And we think, Hmm , what kind of high blood pressure does this person have? Oh, I see a damp pattern. I see a lot of excess fluid on the body. If we drain that out, that'll reduce the amount of fluid in the system that will bring the pressure down. Awesome. Dandelion can help. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . Right? So that's, that's really, really frequent. And if you're just kind of new to learning about, about herbs and plants, try to try to hear these statements or these, these teachings about, about herbs. This one's good for the kidney, that one's good for the heart, this one's good for the lymph. And say, okay, well what's next to that <laugh> ? Right? Right. What's the next system down the line, or the one upstream, and how are these things gonna be interrelated to each other? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah . Um, that, that is actually kind of exactly where I was going because, you know, we hear all the time, Dalian is good for the kidneys, or it's a diuretic and, and like what , like, where's that fluid coming from ? It , it's not just the fluid that you drink with the tea. Like that fluid has to come somewhere. And so when we're thinking about dandelion with regard to water retention, that's causing , um, excess pressure. And that is especially, we can now tie that out to like diet wise too, that's especially frequent in a very high sodium kind of diet or a , a high processed foods kind of diet, which is a reality for so many people, just simply because life is so busy. And those foods don't usually require a lot of preparation, and they're easy to get in lots of places. Oh.
Speaker 3:And they taste good.
Speaker 2:Well, okay. And there's that <laugh> , you
Speaker 3:Can't forget that part. You know , that matters a lot. Right? Yeah. Like, like people's food needs include that it should be enjoyable. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> <laugh> . Absolutely. That's actually important when it comes to sustaining or maintaining any particular eating habit. Right? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay. But so if we say that you can drink dandelion, it helps your kidneys and it'll reduce your water retention, how did it do that? Oh. Because it also helps your lymphatic system. It also stimulates the movement of fluid throughout the whole body and helps to like shepherd it up to the kidneys , um, or I suppose in some cases down to the kidney, depending on where that fluid is located , um, so that you can stop retaining it. Right. Um , and so we, yeah, like you were saying, we think about it as this like, oh, kidneys, kidneys, kidneys. But it's so interconnected with so many other factors. Hmm . And then, because right now , um, you know, everyone is following the new covid strains and watching as the numbers are rising again and wondering if there's gonna be another surge and all that stuff. Like that's what, that's what my news feeds are kind of all about right now. Um , again,
Speaker 3:<laugh> ,
Speaker 2:I , yeah . Again, right. Again, some more Yep . <laugh> . Um, I, I want to make a plug for the relation of dandelion to , uh, keeping yourself healthy as you can in a time of covid , because covid , you know, we think of it as a respiratory disease because that's the way that it comes in, and that's where our first acute symptoms are. But that's not actually where it's doing the most damage in the body. It's doing a tremendous amount of, it's doing damage in lots of places, but one of the places is throughout the cardiovascular system, and another place is actually directly to the immune system. Um, like specific immune responder cells are being damaged by covid . And so Okay. If we have an herb that is going to help keep everything moving in your body, help keep things flushed out, get rid of the trash really quickly, don't let anything pile up, it's gonna take pressure off your heart and the vasculature, because it's literally reducing pressure and it's going to stimulate lymphatic function so that you've got quick turnaround. Uh, plus it comes with lots of minerals that your body needs to keep doing all the work it has to do,
Speaker 3:Including things like being able to dilate or constrict blood vessels as required. Right. Which is part of maintaining healthy blood pressure levels and also maintaining heart rate variability. Right?
Speaker 2:Right . Exactly.
Speaker 3:Like your heart as this muscle that's working all the time is using those very minerals in order to constrict and to release and to keep the time and all of that and, and let those , uh, those kinds of electrical activity play out mm-hmm. <affirmative> , uh, in , in an appropriate way, a responsive way. Right. Um, so, and that also connects over to nervous system health in some way. Right. This isn't a little bit of a reach, but it's
Speaker 2:Not , no, I mean, the mineral part isn't a reach if , in terms of like regulating nervous tension and mm-hmm . <affirmative> , um, nerve signaling. Yeah. Right.
Speaker 3:Yeah. But nobody's gonna talk about dandelion as a unnerving herb. Right, right. But I'll tell you , like, sometimes you have somebody and they're just pretty mineral depleted or nutrient depleted in several dimensions, and they start working with a t that, you know, our default is to call it nettle and friends, but it could as well be called dandelion and friends <laugh> , you know, but like a bunch of nutritive and some , some things to bring in some, some mineral content especially, and some chlorophyll and some, you know , uh, some folate and some other good stuff like that. Um, really foundational nutrients that we can get from green leafy herbs like this. And you see a lot of different things change for them mm-hmm . In the , in the course of a month . Mm-hmm . Or a season, you know , um, uh, and sometimes that does include a feeling of like more mental and emotional steadiness. Yes. Yeah . Yeah .
Speaker 2:Okay. So
Speaker 3:You , you could, you could connect that to like, the grounding influence of the earth elements, <laugh> , you know, you could,
Speaker 2:Yeah, you could.
Speaker 3:That'd be a , that'd be a fair way to to ,
Speaker 2:I mean, because technically it is like, that is just a different way of saying mm-hmm . <affirmative> mineral content. Right, right. Like
Speaker 3:Yeah. I think that'd be a fair invocation of the archetype. Yeah. <laugh> . Yeah . Yeah ,
Speaker 2:Yeah , yeah . Right . Yeah . Yeah . Okay. So I wanna go back to the concept of Covid here, because , um, now we have a podcast episode where Katya says that dandelion is for covid, and Oh , <laugh> ,
Speaker 3:You , you wouldn't say that
Speaker 2:You wouldn't, you wouldn't , would you ,
Speaker 3:Dear listener, you wouldn't go and try to summarize that to someone else. This sway , you know, better. Okay .
Speaker 2:Which text you . Um , but that , but that's the thing, the flip side of that is, yes, it's true. Dandelion has no antiviral activity that I have any awareness of. Um, and listen, plants do lots of things that we haven't studied yet. So I'm not gonna say it has no any kind of activity. I'm just gonna say I'm not aware of any. Um, because who knows, plants can surprise you sometimes, but I really don't think that <laugh> , the dandelion is doing anything to directly fight a virus. Um, however, there's so much more to staying healthy than the direct one-on-one virus. Well, you don't really kill a virus. It's not really alive, but, you know, virus fighting, you ,
Speaker 3:You disassemble it, you uh, you, you edit it until it is no longer a
Speaker 2:Threat to you. <laugh> , <laugh> , deactivate, deactivate <laugh> . Yeah . Um ,
Speaker 3:You get your big red pen and you start striking out all the lines of code you don't want <laugh>
Speaker 2:<laugh> .
Speaker 3:Okay. Uh ,
Speaker 2:Sorry. Uh, yeah, <laugh> . Um, anyway , um, I think that's the best one right there, I think. Yeah. Uh, but so, but, so there's more to staying healthy in a time of viral pressure than just the direct deactivation of the virus itself. There's every other part of your body that still has to function well, and there's a lag time between when that virus gets into you or bacteria or whatever pathogen. Um, and when your body is able to clear it out and during that lag time damage is happening, you can't really, like some amount of damage is gonna happen. That's okay. Bodies can account for that, you know? I mean, up to a point, at a point it has become too much, and now it can't be accounted for. But the thing is that bodies can account for it if we have given them all the tools that they need to do that work. And modern society does not just naturally bestow on us all of those tools. We do have to , um, we do have to strive for that
Speaker 3:To be intentional, you know? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> , uh, about a lot of choices. Right? Yeah. And, and, and all of this of course, like to the extent that we are able, that we have the resources that we have, the , the access to such things, you know ,
Speaker 2:Now we're back to why dandelion is so awesome, <laugh> , right ?
Speaker 3:This
Speaker 2:Is why ,
Speaker 3:This is why gardening some, some weeds and having a nice salad based on that is a good mm-hmm . <affirmative> good way to , to ground these things, you know, very literally,
Speaker 2:I don't usually like to think about wild crafting herbs in terms of it's free. Yeah . Because like, it's not actually, I mean, there is significant impact when we wildcraft herbs and impact that sometimes you don't see for a while . Like, for example, red clover is a biennial plant. So you could find a field of red clover and be like, oh my God, this is amazing. And you could take all of the red clover flowers and be so excited, and next year you could come back and you could see there's so much red clover. Look, I didn't do any damage. I can take so much red clover. This is great. Or maybe you didn't harvest any the second year. Either one of those could be true because maybe you had leftover from the first year still, but the third year there's gonna be like no red clover there because red clover is biennial, and it's, it needed the seeds from that first year to propagate the third year. Um, and so the , like, sometimes we think we can just go and grab things for free, and we think even that we haven't created an impact, but, but then down the line we see, oops, impact, oh, that was me. Um, and so, so I don't normally like to put it in exactly those terms, but I feel like dandelion is kind of an exception here because , um, the seeds are so prolific and so , um, like they're , they have a very reliable germination rate. Um, and so, and also it's kind of impossible to contain them. So you can take some seeds and put them in your garden or your bucket or your wherever. Um , you're gonna drop a few <laugh> , you're gonna , like, there's, they're gonna go in other places and whatever. You don't have to take the whole seeds. There's each dandelion makes a lot of flowers , so you can take a couple and leave a couple to spread the seeds. Um, but it, working through the seeds in this particular plant is really, really effective and doesn't really detract from the populations. So, you know, you move the population a little, some of the way you move into your garden <laugh> , but you're just gonna keep propagating it there. So I, I , I don't like to say like, it's free. It's free. And I know I've said that like 16 times through this episode, but , um, dandelion a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I mean, it'll cost , but
Speaker 2:It's free.
Speaker 3:It'll cost you some time. Right? Yes. Little bit of effort. But, you know, dandelion leaf or flour is among the easier things to harvest out there in the, in the green world,
Speaker 2:The root's a lot harder to harvest <laugh> roots . It's really in there root
Speaker 3:Roots . Yeah. That does take more, it does take more investment. That's true. But , uh, but yeah, you know, and with dandelion, the, the leaf, it's pretty distinctive. You know, if you've seen a dandelion, you probably know what we're talking about. Do watch out for the not a dandelions. 'cause there are some. And if you actually, if you go to our website, commonwealth arts.com , and you just search for dandelion, then an entry will come up where we talked about this. And I think we have photos of three or maybe four , um, four different plants that the flower looks a little similar to the dandelion flower . Yeah. But they're not a dandelion. They might be hawkweed, they might be cat's ears. Um, sometimes
Speaker 2:They might be a lettuce species.
Speaker 3:Lettuce , wild lettuce species. Yep . Sometimes people even ask if , uh, lesser seine is dandelion. And I say, no, because we're in a forest and dandelion doesn't grow in the forest. Not
Speaker 2:So much
Speaker 3:Maybe near a forest, but not like, you know, we are , we are now 20 feet under the trees. Okay. You'll find seine there in the
Speaker 2:Springtime also. Lesser seine has a, has a very different niche , very different . Like you , I think you wouldn't really. Yeah . Yeah. Um,
Speaker 3:And I , but I only, I only bring that one up because I've been asked about it on earth walks in the past, <laugh> . So
Speaker 2:I'm like,
Speaker 3:Alright , alright , somebody's out there. That means there's more than one
Speaker 2:Colt's foot has a flower you can mistake for dandelion, but it comes up before the leaves, so there's no leaves around. And when you see a flower that you're like, is that a dandelion? And you see absolutely no leaves. Yeah . Then you're like, oh , it's gold's
Speaker 3:Foot . Yeah. The hawkweeds, and especially the wild lettuces can throw you because their leaves can look very dandelion leaf like . But the thing with those is, is this is gonna make it easy for you. Right. Dandelion , uh, you get one stem and one flower per organism. So if the stem branches anywhere, then that is not a dandelion , uh, it's a naked stem also on the true dandelion. And so if the stem, you , you know, you've gone above the ground and you find a leaf, ah , nope . That's probably wild lettuce. That's not a dandelion. I mean,
Speaker 2:It could even be chicory that hasn't flowered yet. Once chicory flowers, it's blue, so then you notice it. But yeah , first it looks a lot like dandelion and like, listen, if you make a mistake with any of these, they're fine. They're all edible. And cat's ears won't be very pleasant. 'cause it has a lot of little hairs on it. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . So you would look at that and be like, I don't think I want to eat that. But all the rest of 'em , um, well, and some of the lettuce species also have some spiny bits, and you would be like, ah , that doesn't look delicious. <laugh> . But any of the things that looked like D But neither one of those would hurt you. They're just not appealing. 'cause they have , if
Speaker 3:You go eating , if you go eating lactus , uh, uh, it's not ss spinosa, what is that actually called?
Speaker 2:Seola ola . Yeah,
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. With the , with the big spines under the leaf. I'm not gonna bite into that raw. That would probably be unpleasant. Yeah. <laugh> <laugh> . Yeah. I'm probably not gonna eat it cooked either. <laugh> . Well,
Speaker 2:I mean, if you ate around the shininess, it would be better, but fine. Okay. It wouldn't hurt you.
Speaker 3:This is extreme rabbit behavior.
Speaker 2:<laugh> <laugh> , uh, yes. But anyway, the point is that , um, even if you think you're getting dandelion and you accidentally got the wrong one , um, it won't hurt you. You might find something unappealing, but it will not be damaging. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , Colt's foot does have zaine alkaloids of the more damaging variety. But again, Colt's foot , when you see the flour , there are no leaves. And when you see the leaves, you wouldn't think that's a dandelion, because they're like the size of a horse's hoof. They're like your whole hand. They're really very, very large and roundy. Yeah. Um , very different. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you wouldn't, you wouldn't make that mistake for that one.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Okay. Hard to do plant id through an audio medium, but <laugh>
Speaker 2:<laugh> .
Speaker 3:But there's some pointers for you. Yes. All right . Let's move on. Let's talk about cedar now. Let's talk about cedar . Well, you know, earlier you were, you were saying about, about dandelion and how, you know, you were making an argument for ways that this can be helpful in a time of covid . And , uh, even though it's not directly addressing the respiratory system or the viral load or whatever , um, but I mean, cedarwood,
Speaker 2:Cedarwood directly address Yes.
Speaker 3:Cedarwood, if you take it as a steam, which is really one of our favorite ways to take it. Or as
Speaker 2:A tea, because the s you , we just love cedar in so many because
Speaker 3:The volatiles are gonna move that way. Yeah . Right . So you , you drink your tea , uh, with cedar, you get some kidney stimulation and some respiratory mm-hmm . <affirmative> , you get a bit of both. This isn't actually that unusual with aromatic plants, because in the end, it's really all about the volatiles. Those tiny little like energetic or like rapidly moving molecules coming into your body. And then your body saying, I don't actually wanna leave this bouncing around. I'm gonna get this outta here, and I'm gonna direct some of it to the lungs to be exhaled and some of it to the kidneys to pass out with the urine. And that's cool and all, but they're still active on the way is the cool thing. Right . Right , right , right. So for the lungs, that's still stimulating humal immunity in the mucus linings and in the kidney that's waking up the kidney itself and increasing that filtration rate. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> and also, yeah. Directly combating some bacterial critters, if there's any in there. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> .
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. Definitely having that antiseptic action in the urinary tract. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . Um, and also cedar . You know, I mean, while we're just gonna extol all the virtues here, I am gonna make a big strong argument for cedar as a unnerving. Um, and I am, I don't know
Speaker 3:How many times I've heard this one from you.
Speaker 2:I am, let's hear it. So cedar is , um, like if you're feeling kind of down and you're feeling like it's been gray for several days in a row, or several weeks in a row, and you, you need, it's not like you're in a bad mood. It's not like you're even necessarily grumpy. It's just that everything is gray and monotonous and there's just no spark in anything, you know, that like, it can happen in February, <laugh> , you know, or like any kind of like late November or any, any kind of like cold, rainy time when there's no, like, especially if there isn't any nice snow to make it look lovely outside, you know, when there's fresh snow, then everything, it's like, woo , fresh snow. That's very pretty. But like, if the snow is dirty or if there isn't even any snow, there's just mud and cold rain, you know, like that kind of mood. That's when cedar is so, so helpful because it is a very upward boost of like, emotional energy. Um, it is, it's not like it gives you the jitters. It's not like caffeine. It, it's not like it is necessarily amping you up. It is just raising you up, if that makes any sense. Like ,
Speaker 3:Here's the , here's the thing, everybody, right? Ravine doesn't always mean sedative. It doesn't always mean calming even. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , uh, that, that's an artifact of our culture really. Right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> is that so often we're like, I need something for my nerves. It means I need something to calm me down. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> . Right . But what you're describing here is a time when you need a little bit of stimulation. Yeah. Like the right amount in the right direction, in the right place, right . But yeah, you're trying to get things moving, get things activated,
Speaker 2:Just get a little spark, get a little, like something to grab onto in your day and be like, ah , right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> . Yeah. Cedar is really helpful in that regard. I also really like Pine in this way, and maybe someday we'll do a podcast episode where , um, where we differentiate the ravine aspects of all the evergreen trees, because I have a lot to say and I can like really split the hairs very finely between them . Um, and I think, I think mostly that's because I turn to evergreen's in this way so much. Like this is, this is a thing that is really helpful for me when I get in that like, cold, gray , damp, stagnant kind of emotional place. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and I really, I really can fine tune based on which evergreen I'm choosing. Um,
Speaker 3:You know, with, with cedar and what we're talking about here again, is fujita , that's the main species that we've worked with the most, and primarily with the leaves, is what we're talking about. It is worth saying that with cedar, you can also get your hands on the berries. Right.
Speaker 2:We've had them , they're
Speaker 3:Good. We've had those, sometimes they're
Speaker 2:Kind of like juniper, but they taste like cedar.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Very similar to juniper berry. And then on the other hand, I've also once or twice gathered some juniper leaf and made some tea outta that, which is similar to cedar leaf . But you could tell the difference in, in a, in a darkened room, you know,
Speaker 2:<laugh>, like without looking at the labels, you can Yeah. <laugh> . Yeah.
Speaker 3:But how's, what's the word for the difference between them ? Difference . Difference . Because for me it's, it's like, and surely some of this is just bias from looking at the plant, but like, no. Yeah. The, the juniper leaf has more of a blue to it.
Speaker 2:<laugh>. It really does. It really does.
Speaker 3:And the smell and the flavor. Mm-hmm . Like there's something in there that's a little on the end of the ,
Speaker 2:And cedar has more orange in it. Yeah. Oh , yeah , yeah , yeah. For sure. It , yeah. Yeah .
Speaker 3:So I'm sure that that's very helpful.
Speaker 2:<laugh> . You know, also, actually, I think that when you look at Fuji Plata , um, the leaves, you , they're scaly, they're like little scales that are laid on each other. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> and they're quite orderly and tidy. And I, when I look at juniper, it looks a little shaggy. It's like, cedar is a crow and juniper is a raven. Oh , there we
Speaker 3:Go. <laugh> .
Speaker 2:You know, like they , those two birds look really similar, but ravens have bedhead <laugh>, they just , yeah . They're just shaggy. Yeah. Um, and yeah, so I think of that between cedar and juniper. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I hear that for sure. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> , you can, you can tincture cedar leaf for sure. We have, we have some tincture of that. We have some You made blends with that as well.
Speaker 2:You made a cocktail bitters. That's right. That had cedar. And that was so good. And actually you should make it again, I know that the recipe is in the medicine making course mm-hmm. <affirmative> , uh, just in case you don't remember where you put it, I remember that it is in there. <laugh> <laugh> . Um , so this is maybe me saying, ah , hey , would you please maybe make some of that? 'cause it's really good. Yeah ,
Speaker 3:Yeah , yeah. That was a good batch. Yeah. You know, like you can often make an aromatic bitters, and you can do that with any aromatic plant that you've got. There are some that kind of take the stage more often than others. But , um, but yeah, Cedar, Cedar was a good one. We tried , I tried doing a , like a, a broader evergreen bitters one time, but that it didn't have enough bitter to it. It
Speaker 2:Wasn't so bitter. It's quite ta tasty, but it's not very bitter.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I had more pine than anything in that one. I think it, it might have benefited from adding more cedar. 'cause cedar itself, especially if you have a bit of twig involved, you do get some bitterness from it. You get some bitterness from it.
Speaker 2:Cedar , maybe there's a little bitter, but it's not as sharp as pine. Pine has. Like pine has a flavor that you're like, oh yeah, this is, this is where they make turpentine. Like, you know, when you drink it as tea, it's a very mild, very, very mild. But there is like just a little bit of sharpness to it. I find that pleasant. But it, but it , it's there. It's
Speaker 3:Like pine is to rosemary as cedar is to tulsi.
Speaker 2:Yes . Something like that. Yes. And cedar goes really well with tulsi too. They blend together Really. But there's just a roundness to the flavor of cedar . There's like some tiny little background of bubblegum going on. Um,
Speaker 3:You always say that. And I, it's, I, I've come to know what you mean over time, <laugh> , because you say the same thing about tulsi as well. And I think, I think that one is more un many people can connect on that. They're like, yeah, yeah. Tulsi has this bum and gum thing going on. The cedar one. I know what you mean, but I know you pretty well.
Speaker 2:Just a tiny little bit of bazooka in the background. <laugh> , you know, <laugh> , bazooka , <laugh> . Did they even still have that when you were a kid? Oh
Speaker 3:Yeah, totally. We get a little comic comic
Speaker 2:Yeah. On the rapper . Yeah. Um, and listen, when it , it's not just like nerdy fun to sit around and be like, oh, it has that bubblegum flavor. Like tulsi does that, that's phyto chemistry. Like when we are able to identify similar flavors, what we're really identifying there is actual phytochemicals, actual organic chemicals in the plant that are creating those different flavors. And so when you can, you know, I mean, they have a whole job for this. If, if we're talking about wine , um, you know, and people who do this work of like fine tasting, the wines get paid a lot of money. Hmm . But listen, fine tasting your herbs is the same thing. And it's because you are being receptive to the different chemical profiles of the herb. And so when we see , um, two plants that have a very similar flavor profile, what that means is that they are sharing a bunch of chemicals. And those chemicals are going to have the same type of action in the body. I mean, the chemical is the chemical we could strip out. And, and they do this when they try to make , um, pharmaceuticals out of plants, they do isolate certain chemicals and strip them out. Um, I don't think that's a very great way to work with plants. 'cause it's better to have all of this stuff , um, present like in the full complex, the whole plant. Yeah. But , um, but, but at any rate, when we are able to identify those similar flavors, we're also able to identify similar actions or to rely on similar actions. And in fact, when we think about cedar and tulsi, we get that like , emotional uplifting action from both of 'em . Yeah . It's the bubble gum flavor. It's
Speaker 3:The bubble gum flavor. Yeah .
Speaker 2:You just need to identify , uh, <laugh> . What , what makes the bubble gum flavor?
Speaker 3:Well, I'll tell you what it isn't. It's not the Thone
Speaker 2:<laugh> .
Speaker 3:All right . So we're not gonna , I'm , I'm not gonna go into the whole story here, but just briefly. Right. I wanted to mention this because it does come up as like a safety warning when people talk about cedar and , and , and about Fuji. Um, so Fu Joan is a constituent in this plant, especially in the volatile content or in the essential oil. Um, drinking cedar tea, taking cedar tincture is not gonna provide you with a dangerous level of thone content. Uh, you would get alcohol poisoning before you got thone poisoning from drinking cedar tincture. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> . Okay . I wanna make that clear. Even though it
Speaker 2:Would be more concentrated in the tincture.
Speaker 3:Right. More concentrated than the tea . Absolutely. Yeah. Uh, but on the other hand, Fuji essential oil, which is usually the way that it's sold, like rather than as cedar essential oil Fuji , um, that does contain like 99% fu Joan . Like, it's, it's one of these situations where that's like the primary volatile the plant makes. And so if you go making an essential oil, it's not exactly an isolate of just that chemical, but it's pretty close. Right? And so the essential oil of sja is something that you should actually be very careful with. Um, and even for topical application, you know, all of the different essential oils have varying like, safe levels that you can apply them at. And , um, these are like, if you're gonna be putting it on often , if you're gonna be putting it on for long times, you know mm-hmm . <affirmative> , and people want to give you like a single reference for that and be like, oh, well, if you're working with essential oils in your topical herbal remedies, you can stay safe by making sure that they're only at 2% dilution or 1% dilution. And if you follow this rule, you'll be safe. And that would be nice, but it's nothing is that simple, right? <laugh> , because there's some, some that you can put in there at like 5% or 10% even that's rare, but it happens. And then there's others like Fuji where the safe level for this is like 0.25%, so you could very easily exceed that, you know? Mm-hmm . If you're sort of like , ah , I don't know, four drops per ounce , whatever, I'll, I'll throw it in there, it'll be fine. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So , um, this is one to be extra careful with. Um, you know, if you don't have specific training in like essential oil safety, it might be better to just keep this for diffusion into the room. You know, get some of that nice smell, get some of that nerve uplifting effect. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , you know, that a lot of that is carried through here. Um, but don't go putting this on the body willy-nilly and absolutely never ingest this essential oil very bad.
Speaker 2:Please never ingest any essential oil, but this one in particular Yeah. Yeah . <laugh>
Speaker 3:Even more than if you're gonna ignore us when it comes to, I don't know, lavender or something. Uh , I wish you wouldn't, but fine <laugh> , you know, but with this one , um, don't lose any of your internal organs. You probably need them. Yeah.
Speaker 2:You grew those for a reason, <laugh> . Yeah. Yeah , yeah ,
Speaker 3:Yeah. Okay. Um, if you wanna hear more about that , uh, we have recently released , uh, a course , uh,
Speaker 2:Re-released.
Speaker 3:That's what I, that's, that's what I was saying there .
Speaker 2:Re Yeah . <laugh>. Yeah .
Speaker 3:Re yeah . Very long. Re uh, yes. A course on Herb Safety and Herb Drug Interactions. And we have a unit in there on essential oil safety. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. So you can get , uh, get all of the detail in that, find that along with all of our other courses@online.commonwealthherbs.com. Ha ha .
Speaker 2:Herb Drug interactions and Herb Safety . That's the one. Yes. It's really good. Check it out, <laugh> . It's like the thing everybody needs. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> . Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Well, why don't we wrap up then actually, and say like, all of our courses, that one includes
Speaker 2:<laugh>, <laugh> .
Speaker 3:Can you, if you've been listening along, like can you do the whole spiel with us? Can you talk about how they're based on video lessons and it's just like being in the room with us. Can you talk about how they come with MP threes so you can download them and take them with you, like a podcast or how there are quick guides and P D f uh, readings to deepen your knowledge, how you can open a discussion thread in the middle of any lesson and type your questions in right there, and then jump right back in , uh, how you get to join our community, which has been really active lately. Yeah. Lots of cool stuff going on in there. Yeah . This is essentially , um, social media, but just for herbs and just for Herby people
Speaker 2:And just for our school , like, right . Like it's private. It's not open to the entire world. I mean, it's open to you, but , um, but , uh, it's like you have to, you have to make an account to get there. You have
Speaker 3:To , you have to find the place and do the secret knock, which is, you know, to put in your, your email address and
Speaker 2:Register your email address and password. That's actually the only secret knock <laugh>. Yeah .
Speaker 3:Yeah. But it's, it's great. You know, we have a , we have a really good chat and you can, you can ask folks anything. We'll weigh in with our thoughts mm-hmm . <affirmative> , but there's , uh, a lot of people in there with experiences different from our own, and Yeah . This is why we wanted to build such a thing. Mm-hmm . <affirmative> , you know , for, for our students to benefit and for us too, you know, I , I learn things in there all the time.
Speaker 2:Plus it's so fun to watch students sending things to each other. Like somebody will be like, oh , I had a really good golden rod here . I've got a ton of extra golden rods. So dmm me if you want, and I'll send you some or whatever. Like, I love watching everybody sending stuff to everybody.
Speaker 3:Yeah. We've got a whole, we've got a whole swap , uh, uh, thread section, section going on in there. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> . Yeah . Yeah, yeah , yeah. We've got weekly q and a sessions. You get lifetime access to the material when you get these courses <laugh> . So whether it's the herb safety one, or the cold and flu one, or any, or any of them , any of the, the many , uh, courses that we've put together for you , uh, we hope you'll check those out. Again, that's online dot commonwealth herbs.com,
Speaker 2:Support the podcast and get herbal education all in one fell swoop. That's
Speaker 3:What's
Speaker 2:Up. Um, you know, if you can actually just recite all that with us and you're like, yeah, I can, yeah. The video lessons, the npa all the things, then say it to your friends. Mm .
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Just go out and tell friends about it. We , Hey, did you know about this cool a school? They've got video lessons and MP threes and PDFs and Yeah. <laugh>.
Speaker 3:Oh. And, you know, right. We are a podcast after all, so we should probably say like, you can, you can subscribe, you can rate, you can review our podcast wherever . Oh, we haven't said that in a long time. Yeah, no, it actually helps. Yeah, it does, it does make a difference. Yeah. So , um, if you have a moment, we would appreciate that. All right . That's it for this week. We'll be back soon with some more holistic herbalism podcasts for you. Until then, take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. Drink some tea , drink some tea , and eat your weeds. Whoa , that's a good one . Yeah , it's a classic <laugh> . Bye everybody . Bye-bye .