FMI - For Mama's Information

The Healing Power of Nettles: A week, an herb and a panacea

With spring comes the abundant harvest of the year's first seasonal, local produce. Among the bounty that we have access to here in Victoria are stinging nettles.

Nettle spread like mint (i.e. a lot) and, as their name implies, they are prickly and sting, so you want to wear gloves when you pick them.

Why would you want to eat something that has spikes and spines on it? The sting disappears with cooking or drying, and the health benefits are pretty amazing from this little herb. According to Don Ollsin, a local herbalist who started Self-Heal Herbs and now teaches at colleges and universities, the plant was used by Native North Americans to make cord and fish nets and in Britain it has been used to make fine linen.

As a food source, Ollsin tells us that it improves general nutrition as it is high in chlorophyll, iron, magnesium, calcium, phosphate, vitamin D, silica, sodium, potassium and suphur. It relieves the symptoms of hay fever and other allergies, and I have even heard of people curing life-long hay fever allergies by drinking nettle tea daily for a year.

Nettle purifies the blood and cleanses the lymph, reduced uric acid, promotes milk in nursing mothers, improves digestion through its secretin, a substance that stimulates pancreatic secretion which stimulates the digestive glands of the stomach, intestines, liver and gall bladder, and if you use the fresh plant to sting an area usually bothered by rheumatism or arthritis, it can bring instant relief.

For one idea on how to add this fresh herb to your dinner while it is in season, try Sarah's Nettle Soup. You'll have to hurry out to gather your nettles, though, as they will soon be flowering and will no longer be tender and tasty. You can still use the dry leaves in soups and dishes and can buy them in bulk at Self-Heal Herbs on Blanshard Street.

Be aware of how much you eat or drink, though. Milarepa is a Buddhist saint who spent years in isolation in a cave to pursue meditation and spiritual practice for enlightenment. He fasted on nettle broth, as this was the only food available to him in his isolation, and his skin turned green! I have noticed that when I drink the tea daily, my stools turn green. Yes, this is pretty personal information, but if you notice something similar, you will know why.

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