Dandelion: Digestive Health, Liver Support, and Eclectic History

Dandelion might be the most beneficial plant in your yard, yet so many are trying to kill this abundant, generous plant. Discover why herbalists have turned to dandelion for centuries, from its bitter properties that get digestion moving, to its support for liver function, kidney health, and natural detoxification. You'll hear how the leaf and root each have different beneficial properties, and why fresh dandelion is the best when it comes to getting the most from this "weed”. 

Dig into the history through a century-old Eli Lilly dandelion extract, Culpeper's writings, the Eclectic Physicians, and traditional cultures around the world who have relied on this bright spring plant for generations. Plus, how freeze-drying preserves dandelion's full potency year-round. 

What's in this episode: 

• Why dandelion is a spring tonic for digestion, liver, and kidney support 
• The difference between dandelion leaf and root, and when to use each 
• Culpeper, Eli Lilly, and the Eclectic Physicians on dandelion's traditional uses 
• Dandelion as food: salads, pesto, flower fritters, roasted root coffee, and more 
• Why fresh matters and how freeze-drying preserves what air drying destroys 
• The energetics of dandelion: uplifting leaf energy and grounding root energy 

Full show notes, resources, and transcript: eclecticherb.com/podcast/dandelion-herb-of-the-month 

Get Eclectic Herb's freeze-dried dandelion here at eclecticherb.com  
 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello and welcome to Eclectic Herbal Wisdom, where we share stories from the roots of plant medicine. I'm Mel Mutterspoke, clinical herbalist and herbal educator at Eclectic Herb. And I'm Chris Olstedt, herbalist and owner of Eclectic Herb. We are so glad that you're here. Whether you're brewing up your first cup of metal tea or crafting your own complex herbal remedies, this podcast is for you.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

In each episode, we'll open the pages of Herbal Law from the archives of the incredible Eclectic Library to the living wisdom of today's best herbalists. Together we'll explore how plants have supported people for centuries and how they continue to do so now.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

You'll find stories, science, and soulful conversations with other brilliant herbalists, all sharing real-world insights that you can bring into your daily life and your practice. Because herbal wisdom is timeless and it's meant to be shared. So come grow with us as we rediscover the living legacy of the plants. Hello and welcome back to another episode here on Eclectic Herbal Wisdom. I am absolutely delighted and also excited to talk about our next herb in this episode, which is one that so many of us see all around because it's bright and sunshiny and yellow and lovely. And sadly, so many people still to this day try and kill it off like it's a nasty weed. But really, it's just abundant free medicine out there for everybody. So if you're new to the show, hi, my name's Mel. I'm a clinical herbalist and the head herbal educator here at Eclectic Herb. And I am so excited to talk about dandelion with you and my co-host Chris.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Hi everyone, I'm Chris Allstadt. I'm a naturopath from New Zealand and the owner of Eclectic Herb. And dandelion is one of my favorite plants just because it's so beautiful. When it pops up, it just brings sunshine into the day.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Yes, I love it. I think a lot of us herbalists love it for so many reasons. And absolutely, that beautiful piece is one of them. Like after we've gone through this very long winter, oftentimes people are eating heavier foods, or maybe they've indulged in things that they wouldn't normally indulge in. We're all seeking that like spring sunshine and excitement. And I feel like Dandelion really, really does that for me, the bright, sunshiny disposition of those flowers. It's just great for my spirit in general. And back to like the sluggishness that happens with our heavy winter stuff, like how appropriate when we head into spring, everyone's like, oh, I'm gonna do the cleanse. Whether that's a spring cleanse of your home or of your body, dandelion can be so supportive for these things as it really helps to move things out of the system. And you can use the leaves as both food and medicine. And it's free. It's everywhere, right? That is so much fun about it. But I will say there are still those people that are spraying these weeds with herbicides and pesticides. Probably not the dandelion leaves that you want to put in your body or the ones that are right along the neighborhood dog walk. Also, not the ones you want to be eating in your salads so much. But if you have a local farmer or a yard full of them where you're not spraying those chemicals to kill this precious plant, then you've got tons of food and medicine right outside your door. And I think that is just really lovely. And some other reasons that I think about dandelion as an herbalist while it's so great this time of year, the sun's popping out, which usually means many people want to start showing their skin a little bit more. And sometimes with that, some people have like various chronic skin conditions that might be happening. We can turn to an herb like dandelion to support our liver first, because as herbalists, when we hear skin conditions, we're like, what's going on with the liver? What's going on with the detoxification pathways throughout the body? And dandelion is unbelievably supportive in that way. It's also, this is speaking of like the detoxification process, our kidneys help to detoxify things, right? And one of the ways dandelion can be supportive there, especially the leaf, is that it's what's called a diuretic herb. So it helps the kidneys to release toxins and fluids through the process of urination. That's going to be really, really nice for somebody who's maybe extra puffy, and maybe you've got puffy swollen eyes or puffy face, or you got the cankles going on, you're a pregnant mama, or maybe you are in your premenstrual phase and you get really bloated, right? This is a time when you could turn to something like dandelion leaf, and it'll help you release a lot of that excess water retention. One thing to note on this is there are a lot of diuretic herbs and there's a lot of diuretic prescriptions out there. And a lot of those prescriptions leach out the potassium from the body as well. But the good news with your dandelion leaf is that it is loaded with potassium and will not make you become deficient in the potassium, which is so nice, right? And I know I've talked a lot about the leaf and it's out there everywhere. I do want to say a lot of people get dandelion confused because they're like, bright sunshiny yellow flower low to the ground, growing like a weed. Yay, it's dandelion. But not all of those bright sunshiny yellow flowers are dandelion. And one way I like to think about dandelion is it's also known as dandelion or tooth of the lion. And if you look at the leaves on some of those other yellow flowers versus a dandelion, dandelion's going to be very, very sharply serrated, almost like lion's teeth. So it's a pretty cool thing to look at and to think about when you're out there. Like, is this the yellow Aster family? The yellow Aster flower that I'm looking for. Look at those leaves. It's a pretty good way to show. The other thing to note is like, that's the leaf. The leaf is amazing, but the root is also really, really fantastic as well. And herbalists love to use it for so many reasons. There are ample studies out there that have shown that the fresh root can help to lower elevated IgE levels, which is going to be really helpful when there's the excessive inflammatory response. So think about allergies and things along those lines, whether they're seasonal allergies or reactions to certain food sensitivities. This can also be helpful for those that are dealing with, you know, body aches and pains. Maybe it's just stiff joints, maybe it's gout, maybe it's arthritis, maybe fibromyalgia, lots of different ways we can feel pain within the body. But the fresh dandelion root can help us ease a lot of that pain and inflammation. So again, the fresh is really, really important here. And this time of year, as we're recording this, it's spring, right? We're excited about the sunny flowers. But I find that it's really best to harvest the roots in the fall, especially after that first frost. That's when they're going to be loaded with the most amount of inulin, which is a prebionic fiber that's going to improve your entire digestive process. So lots of winning there. But the bummer deal is that you might not have marked where all your dandelions were in the yard in the fall. So you don't necessarily know where to find those roots. But we've got good news because at Eclectic Herb, we freshly freeze-dry the dandelion roots so that you're getting them at the peak of their potency and you're able to get all of that inulin and all of the goodness from the dandelion root into your body year-round instead of just focusing on trying to go out and dig up dandelion roots in the farm. So I can go on and on and talk about dandelion and the many ways that it can act as food and medicine in your body, but I also want to learn a little bit about it historically. And Chris, I know you are always a treasure trove of information on history and herbal medicine. And I would love to hear some of the ways you know dandelion has been used.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Well, I'm sitting here in my library. Behind me, I have all these books and lots of historical remedies, including uh vintage terraxicum or a vintage uh dandelion. And this one's quite interesting because this is from Eli Lilly, which is a big pharmaceutical company. And it used to be a herb company, and they made terraxicum dandelion extract that they sold as a supplement, which I thought was kind of interesting. This is about a hundred years old. Wow. So probably early 1900s, something like that. Is there still tincture in there? There is. It's pretty solid. Turn it upside down, there's a little bit of liquid, and then there's about this much solid in there. So that's pretty cool. And let's read what it has to say. One C C represents one gram of drug, and they do use that word, they say drug. Use tonic, diuretic, period, and alterative used as a hepatic stimulant.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

There we go. Talking about the liver already, and that's over a hundred years ago. I love that they are a big pharmaceutical company now, but they were using herbs as their primary ingredients from the start.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

One of the price things in my library is from Eli Lilly, and it's a crude drug kit that they used to send out to the pharmacists, and the pharmacists would study all the origins of the drugs that they were prescribing, and it is all herbs. And sure enough, dandelion is in there. So I have some preserved dandelion that's from 19th century, well preserved.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

That is so cool. I love it. Like I think people are waking up to the fact that the herbs were the original medicine of the people. And then, you know, a company just like Eli Lilly was like, well, these are great, but we can turn them into much more profitable pills. Interesting shift that happens there, right?

SPEAKER_01 11:15

And dandelion's been used in multiple cultures all across the world. So there's history of it in Chinese medicine, Persian cultures, Greek cultures, and of course European herbal traditions. The name, the Latin, Torax cum officialis, comes from Persia, and it's basically Arabic in origin. So it used to be used a lot in Middle Eastern traditional medicine, which is pretty cool. The first documented use of it in European languages was around the 10th or 11th century. So not that long. I think because it was such a common plant, people used it first as a food, and then they started to discover the medicinal uses of it.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

That is so cool. I love to think about that. And I think one of the other things that I didn't mention that I love about Dandelion, learning that it was so used that long ago, so far from us here in the United States, yet it is so readily available everywhere, even after so many try to kill it and pull it from their gardens and whatnot. I think it's just a sign to the potency of this plant that's just, hi, I'm here for you. I'm Dandelion. I am food, I am medicine, and please stop trying to kill me because I'm going to keep coming back, anyways.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

It's powerful. And it likes to come in where the earth's been disturbed. And it's got a really long tap root. So it taps down and it brings all the nutrients up from the soil and then brings it out. And the whole plant is edible. So flowers, leaves, root, all of it. And it's full of nourishment. So it used to be one of those spring tonics that would come up. So in the spring, after winter, when you're depleted, you go out and you see all the spring plants coming up. Dandelion's one of those. So it brings nourishment to the body, and that's one of the uses that it was used for for a long time. And if you go to Culpeper, so one of my favorite herbalists is Nicholas Culpepper, and he was an astrologer, a physician, herbalist, and an author. And his books are still in print today. And he said about dandelion that it's ruled by Jupiter. So all the plants that are ruled by Jupiter, they're are abundant and they provide abundance to the people, and they provide nourishment, expansiveness, and growth. So Jupiter plants are very generous, and uh dandelion's very generous with its medicine and its benefits. Let's read what Call Pepper has to say about dandelion. He said that it's a plant that helps open obstructions and it makes things move. And he said, You see here what virtues this common herb hath, and this is the reason the French and Dutch so often eat them in the spring. And now, if you look a little further, you may see plainly, without a pair of spectacles, that foreign physicians are not so selfish as ours are, but more communicative of the virtues to the people. And that's because Culpepper took all of the doctors' books that were written in Latin at the time and thought, the people need this. I'm gonna translate these and give all of our knowledge to the people so they can use it. So he was a pretty interesting person. And he said that he used it for obstructions of the liver and spleen. And we translate that now to mean stagnation. So it helps to get things moving and it reinvigorates the liver and the digestive system.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

I love hearing from his writings, like what a brilliant herbalist and physician he was. He did such incredible work for the practice of herbalism today, and obviously for the several hundred years before today, like so incredibly cool. And now we're still using dandelion for so many different liver issues to really get things moving that have been stuck and sluggish to help release toxins from the body. And really, like when we think about releasing toxins from the body, I know the detox and the cleanse is always such the rage, especially this time of year. But our liver is doing so much work 24-7 every day of the year to do that detoxification process. And that's where something like dandelion actually comes in and helps to support the liver in this process. It also can act as a gentle laxative. So, right, we're eliminating toxins from the body through the process of our bowel movements, right? Uh, never the most pleasant thing to talk about, but something we talk about a lot as herbalists for sure. One of the other things I love about dandelion is its bitter properties. So this really relates to everything that Culpepper had to say because bitter herbs tend to get the uh digestive system moving, tend to get the bile flowing from the liver so that the body can break down fats and proteins and release all of the waste. It's it's really a beautiful, beautiful process. And I think it's so cool that he was so fully aware of that hundreds of years ago.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Yeah, and then historically also we had the eclectic physicians here in the United States. And in fact, a lot of my library is based on their work, and they use dandelion as well. And they pretty commonly used it as a liver tonic, and they also used it to clear skin. So, as you mentioned earlier, Mel, that's how the eclectics used to use it as well. But they used to say it was um for blood impurities, and that's how they describe the cleansing properties, and also for digestive complaints, because it's a bitter herb as well. And we're looking at one of their big books, which is the King's American Dispensatory. Interestingly enough, they said that the specific indication for this, so the eclectics used to practice a little bit differently and said that the herb will tell you what it's to be used for, not for the disease, but just basically about what the body's showing. So they said the specific indication is for loss of appetite, hepatic torpor, which is an old word for a sluggish liver, and constipation. So again, it got things moving. And that was specifically what they used it for. But what was interesting is they said dandelion root, when dried, possesses but little medicinal virtue. When recent, or in other words, fresh, it is a stomachic and a tonic with slightly diuretic and apparent actions. So it's saying back then, during the time of the eclectic positions, that this herb is much better used when fresh. When it's dried out, it loses a lot of its properties.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Yeah, I think that is so incredible that they observed that, right? And I think we can observe that today too, whether you're looking at the dandelion, the leaves when they're fresh versus dried, dramatic difference or the root when they're fresh versus dried. You can literally see the vitality that is just run out of that plant with that air drying process. So I am so proud as an herbalist to offer people that work with me freshly freeze-dried herbs like we offer here at Eclectic, especially knowing that like these are organically grown. We know there's no herbicides or pesticides on them. We know that they're grown right here in the United States in the Pacific Northwest. We're keeping this goodness close to us and at the peak of its potency for our bodies, for our liver, for our skin, for our digestive system, for all of it. It's it's really great.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

How the eclectics got around that. So there wasn't freeze drying back then, and it wasn't easy to get it fresh for everybody. Because I think when you look at the plant, it's got that milky latex fluid in it. So to capture that, they used to make a lot of extracts, like the Eli Lily one that I showed earlier. So they still tried to use it fresh as best they could before freeze drying had been invented. And some of the famous eclectics used to use it for different things. So scudder, he prescribed it for chronic swelling of the liver and inflammation, also any obstruction again, which is the same as call pepper's use, jaundice and constipation. And he liked to use the root for its tonic properties. And he also said that it was a diuretic. We usually think of the leaves as being diuretic, but the roots have a little bit of that as well. Again, the whole plant's useful. And then Finley Allingwood, another famous eclectic, he said that he used it as a mild laxative and to improve the liver's detoxification properties and to help with uric acid excretion, which would help with joints and gout and help with pain for that and help move everything out of the body. So again, the properties of dandelion are to move all the junk out of the body to keep things flowing, to detox and to use both pathways. So diuretic to promote the fluid to move on, and then also the properties within the root, which digestive pathways, in other words. I think we know what I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Yeah, I think so. And I I think I'm just so darn grateful for the eclectics and the work that they did throughout history, where they brought tradition and brought science together to really observe these things, to pay attention to the fresh works best versus the dried and how much that makes such an incredible impact. And yeah, we've spoken about it a bunch throughout this episode, how it's so fantastic for getting things moving, for that detoxification process. And they were talking about using it for things like jaundice and other liver conditions, right? But I also like to think about it today as well for helping the liver to detoxify some of our more harmful things in the body, um, whether that's recreational drugs, pharmaceutical drugs, hormonal attributes, birth control, HRT, if we're trying to release some of those kind of things from the body, dandelion is going to be really helpful in that detoxification process. It's also incredibly gentle.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

One of the things about it is it's very nourishing. So as it causes the body to expel things, it also nourishes the body as it's going. So the eclectics used to use it for weak digestion, poor nutrition, things like that. So it nourishes while it detoxifies. So I like it for being very gentle.

SPEAKER_00 21:35

Yeah, I really love how gentle it is too, and how it's really spread around the world. Like it is used in so many different ways as food and medicine. And I know you've traveled the world a lot as a naturopath and as an herbalist and just as a little girl growing up. And I'm hoping that you can share some of the things you've learned on those journeys.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

This is one that's used quite extensively in Chinese medicine. The uses are similar. So we can find it in Japan. We call it tampopo. And there's in some of the rural traditions, people used to eat the leaves the same as we do here. And mostly it was used as a medicine. In Korea, I did see it pickled as kimchi, which was delicious. It was like the leaves pickled as a kimchi. And throughout Europe, in French, they actually call it pissinlet, which means um wet the bed. It's just for its diuretic properties.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

Yep.

unknown 23:31

I love it.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

It works pretty well as a diuretic. I love it for that. I think it's one of the uses that is most commonly used for in other countries.

SPEAKER_00 23:39

Absolutely. And definitely used a lot today in the world of herbal medicine. Just again, that diuretic property, releasing the fluids from the body, supporting the kidneys, helping with excessive water retention, that bloated puffiness that might happen for some of you, dandelion can be an absolute superhero. And we know that it grows so prolifically around the world and, you know, is technically known as a weed. But what if somebody wanted to be more intentional about growing dandelion because they're now learning, like, oh my gosh, this is something I really need to embrace instead of trying to kill it all the time. How would you suggest that work?

SPEAKER_01 24:21

We did have a funny story. So we tried to grow this at eclectic and we plowed up the land and we tilled it. We made these rows. We planted all the seeds. And then all this false dandelion came up this year, and we thought it was quite funny. But eventually we got it down and we managed to get it to grow. And it really likes soil that's been disturbed. And uh do you remember as a child we had the dandelion clock? I think this is probably in the States as well in New Zealand, but you'd blow up and you'd make a wish, and that's the seed from the dandelion plant. And you can plant the seeds and they come up in the spring, the leaves first, and then the the flowers, and the flowers will follow the sun, which is pretty beautiful. So they open up with the sun and then they close at night, and eventually they go to seed. And what we used to do is we would grow some that's very nourishing to the soil, and then we'd plow them back in, and then they would come up as seed. And now we have it down where we can have rows of dandelion growing up. Which is pretty pretty. You don't see that very often. You see it in the lawn when somebody doesn't want it, and maybe you see a yellow lawn. My friend was a pool. She said, Look at my lawn, I'm getting trouble with my HOA. So the dandelions come up. And I just saw the beauty of the yellow. I think when you grow it, it's nice to harvest the leaves when it starts coming up. And you can do a few different things like a pesto would be a good idea, or a spring tonic with ACV. Throw in a salad, I think it's the best use, and it's best fresh early spring. As it goes on and gets a bit bitter and tough, and then it's harder to eat. You can put the flowers. I've made flower tempura or a dandelion wine. And then if you wait for fall for the roots, then you can roast them and make a dandelion coffee with that. Of course, you can always make extracts and tinctures or a freeze-dried form.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

But then you use it, Mel.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

Um, I definitely love to tincture the leaf while it's fresh myself. The roots, I need to tincture them more often. Usually I just gather them and chop them up and roast them and use them in that way. Another thing that I've always loved to do with my daughter is just make flower fritters. Have always been really, really fun. I think there's a lot of ways you can incorporate the flowers into your foods, maybe not as potent medicinally for a lot of the things that we've been talking about here on the show, but still a lot of fun and a great way to help your kids get more connected to the fact that these plants are here. They are our food, they are our medicine, which is such a beautiful gift. And it's just really nice to see kids being able to see that again when it used to be such a way of life. So yeah, I love it. I also love it in a vinegar. I will do the leaves in a vinegar to preserve a lot of the nutrients there and then maybe add in some nettles or some other fun spring herbs that I love to see coming up. That might be a nice way to go. Yeah, I love dandelion in so many ways. But after doing so much research for this episode and recognizing how important the eclectic saw it to be fresh, and also how modern research today really emphasizes the importance of the fresh root makes me so grateful for the product that we have here at Eclectic Herb. Again, we are committed to sourcing only the finest herbs. In fact, over 95% of our freeze-dried herbs are freshly freeze-dried and harvested here in the United States. Most of them pretty darn locally to us here in the Pacific Northwest. And that right there is a beautiful thing in and of itself.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

One thing I want to speak to about this plant that I think is really cool is it has two different energetic components. So the top is really light and it's uplifting energy and it's like diuretic nourishment and a bitter, and it helps the body release excess fluid and it nourishes while it does that. But it's a very uplifting energy. While the root is a grounding energy that pulls you down and it's heavier, and it's a liver and digestive uh energy, and it stimulates the bile flow and it supports the detox pathways and it helps the body process what it needs to let go of. And then the whole plant has the synergy of both. So upward clearing action and then a deep restorative grounding action, which I think is really cool. But you can also pick what part of the plant you want to use. So you can use the plant to do the direction of the healing. And not all plants have that. So I thought it was cool to kind of point that out.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

That is really, really beautiful. Like thinking about that grounding as an air sign. I'm like, ooh, I could really use those roots. And thinking about that uplifting energy too. Like, that's exactly what it does for my spirit and my soul when I see those dandelions start to pop up in the spring. I'm like, yeah. Sunshine and liveliness. But just thinking about that as in like the TCM kind of ways of energetic healing is really powerful as well. So thank you so much for sharing all of the wisdom you have booked up in all of those pages and bottles within your library, Chris. It is so fun and so fascinating to put all of that together. And thank you, listeners, so much for tuning in to this episode. We are so grateful that you are here, that you are listening. And if you enjoyed this episode, we'd love to hear about it. Please reach out to us at eclectic herb. You can find us on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Pinterest, all of the places. And please share this episode with a friend, especially if that friend is still spraying herbicides on their dandelions. Thanks so much. Thanks everybody. Bye. Thank you so much for tuning into this episode of Eclectic Herbal Wisdom. We are so grateful you spent your time with us. And if you enjoyed this episode, we'd love it if you share it with a friend who might appreciate it as well. And if you have a moment, leaving us a review really helps other plant lovers to find the show.

SPEAKER_01 30:21

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SPEAKER_00 30:34

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SPEAKER_01 30:42

Before you go, a quick reminder. Everything we share on this podcast is for educational purposes only. We are here to inspire and inform that this isn't medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare practitioner before studying any new herbal protocol, especially if you're pregnant, nursing, or taking medications. Thanks again for tuning into the show. Until next time, may the plants guide you.

SPEAKER_00 31:07

Take care.