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RECOGNIZING DOORSTEPS PLANTS AND THEIR HEALING PROPERTIES
There are many useful plants growing practically at our doorsteps or nearby that everyone should be able to recognize and learn of their
nutritional and healing properties.
Plants have a threefold usefulness:
1- They provide foods and nourishment for man, animals, birds, fishes
2- They purify the Air and the Waters
3- Many provide agencies that are conducive to health and healing. Some assist in cleansing bloodstream and body, thus inhibiting diseases.
It has been well said: “All diseases are curable but not all patients”
To live a healthy life we ought to be observe in our diet life style the 5 fundamental nutritional supplies that are essential to our system:
1- Carbohydrates elements: (Sugar, Starch, etc from fruits, sugar cane, roots crop, pasta..). Our source of energy. Transformed into reserves of glycogen at the level of our liver. This glycogen, our reserves in energy is distributed to our organism as needed. Our blood is the most important supplicant.
2- Fats (lipids): Butter, milk, cheese, oils, eggs, cacao, chocolate,...), rich in calories and vitamins A and D., crucial to the assimilation the carbohydrates elements, fixation of the calcium, overall assure our growing .
3- Nitrogenous elements (protein): meats, eggs, lentil peas “lentilles”). Protein excess is more common than Protein deficiency. Likewise “Fats”, Nitrogenous substances because of their complexity in different acids demand much from our organism to be transformed and play their role that is to repair and protect our cells can intoxicate them and therefore contribute to sclerosis and the aging of our tissue. For this reason it is best likewise vegetarians to recourse to vegetal sources of nitrogenous elements that demand little from our system to be digested and transformed.
4- Mineral salts (Oligo-elements): These are very tiny traces of elements that circulate throughout our system and play an intra-cell catalyst role. Their presence is at the roots of the different formations of ferments that assure our assimilation and digestion. Too numerous to mention all but some: Chlorine, lead, potassium, sodium, calcium, tin, zinc, iron, nickel, copper, aluminium, chrome, phosphorus, arsenic, magnesium, iodine, sulfur, fluorine......
5- Vitamins: As we are talking Plants, let's just as example look at the vitamins contained in a few every day vegetables of our diet:
- Lettuce: vitamins: A, B1, B2, C, PP, E, K, - Minerals: Iron, potassium, phosphorus, Calcium, Iodine.
- Carrots: Vitamins: A, C, B1, B2, PP, - Minerals: Calcium, potassium, Magnesium, iodine
- Green Cabbage: Vitamins: C, B1, B2, PP, K, - Minerals: Sulphur, Calcium, iron
- Spinach: Vitamins: C, PP, K, - Minerals: Of all green vegetable it is the most rich in Iron.
- Tomatoes: Vitamins: C, B1, B2, PP, A, K, - Minerals: Different Acids
- Parsley: Vitamins: C, B1, B2, A, - Minerals: Sulphur, Phosphorus, Chlorine, Sodium, Potassium, Magnesium, Calcium, Iron, zinc, Iodine, Manganese
- Bananas: Vitamins: C, B1,B2, PP, E, - Minerals: Potassium, Sodium, Calcium, Chlorine
- Aubergine (Egg-Plants): Vitamins: C (mostly in the skin), B1, B2, - Minerals: Sulphur, Potassium, Calcium
- Limes: Vitamins: C.
- Oranges: C, B1, K,
THE USE OF PLANTS
When one recourse to the use of plants in his diet or for treatment, the first thing he should bear in mind is: “Because a plant has healing properties that do not means that it cannot leads to harmful effect in the body (poisonous plants) and because a plant is poisonous do not means that it do not has healing properties”
Therefore the question is: How to extract from healing plants their active and useful ingredients? For this reason let us learn a little more about the Healing properties of plants.
It is said that the active ingredient of the same plant can variate due to the:
- Season, the soil, the age, its vegetation atmospheric circumstances, the time and some even claim the moon it was harvested on, the means of preservation etc.
For theses reasons it is recommended to gather the medicinal parts when the special juices within the plant are most abundant: - Flowers: In the morning, before are after the flowers open completely.
- Leaves : when fully developed, harvest also in the morning.
- Aromatic herbs: gather when in flower. Stalks: collect after fruiting.
- Barks, roots, trunk, branch bark: Collect either the time of flowering or when the fruits are ripened.
- Rhizomes and roots: Just before flowering
Remember that the quantity of the medicinal plant you use do not hastened or make healing more effective. If taken in disregard of the recommended dose or in excessive quantity, active ingredients can variate from being less effective to ineffective to finally harmful to the body the latter is mostly true for healing plants classified as poisonous.
The use of plants is not recommended for children under 4 years. Plants that are not classified as poisonous may be administered to children in ¼ of adult dose from 4 to 7, and by 1/3 from 7 to 14 and ½ from 14.
- PLANTS ACTIVE AND HEALING INGREDIENTS
The active ingredients found in plants supplies a need that can restore the body to health, they are consisted of the 5 essentials nutritional supplies above mentioned but most important we find: vitamins, mineral salts (Oligo-elements) that usually can be divided in three different classes:1 - Carbohydrates : Carbon, hydrogen and oxygen united in an equal proportion of water. Provides to our system the necessary energy: (Starch, cellulose, gum, different types of sugar, etc,). Carbohydrates are nitrogenous free.
2 – Vegetal acids: Citric acids, tannic acid, gallic acid, oxalic acid etc.
3 – Different nitrogenous and non-nitrogenous components: Glucose elements, organic iron, calcium, colorant substances, essential oils, fats, resin, latex, quinine, codeine, morphine, albumin, fibrin, etc.
- HOW CAN WE EXTRACT THE HEALING INGREDIENTS?
Note that aluminum vessels should never be used. Glass, stainless steel or good quality enamelware is preferable.
Normal dosage per liter of water: 20grams if fresh, 10 grams if dried, and can be taken by 4 to 5 cups a day. The most common preparations:
As teas and tisanes:
a) HOT INFUSION: Place the useful parts of the plants or herbs in a container, pour over boiling water and cover the recipient and leave steep for at least 15 minutes.
b) COLD INFUSION (MACERATION): Steep the useful parts of the plants or herbs in home temperature water for several hours
c) DECOCTION: Usually used in the preparation of tisanes, consist of bringing to boil then simmering for 15-30 minutes (the liquid should reduce by 1/3) the useful parts of the plants for the extraction of its active ingredients. Best when drink the same day but can be kept up to 24 hours.Decoction is the best solution for certain hard parts of plants such as the twigs, roots, barks, rhizomes, berries, seeds only release their properties when they are gently simmered for about 30 minutes in boiling water.
Advantages or Disadvantages between these three different means:
- Hot infusion: Sterilization can be incomplete but all of the plant active ingredients properties are preserved
-Decoction: Sterilization is total and the high temperature water dissolve and appropriate the alkaloids and aromatic substances of the plants but certain of the plants Oligo-elements properties can be modified or decomposed.
-Cold infusion: The tisane can never be bacteriologically sterilized
As Tincture:
Put fresh herbs into a screw-top jar, pour over 30% proof alcohol (Vodka preference because tasteless). Steep in a warm place for one month. Shake the jar well every day. After a month strain and store in a dark bottle.
As Syrup:
Make a tea (hot infusion), steep for 20minutes, strain into a pan add sugar or honey and stir slowly over heat until syrupy.
As Juice:The plant can be chopped, minced, crushed and then squeezed with a cloth to extract the juice.
Normal dosage: 5 drops of juice in a tablespoon of water taken every 3 hours.
Juice must be use as soon as possible after extraction because it oxidizes very quickly and its virtue decline rapidly.
As Salads:
Several varieties of vegetables and herbs may be combined to give an even better result.
In Soups:
Many herbs which grow wild can be used in soups, stews and other dishes
As Baths: (full bath, half bath, foot-bath.... hot, tepid or cold):Plants and herbs can be used externally with beneficial results by making a strong concoction from them and adding it to bath water.
Faster elimination of toxic from the body may be secured and the healing process hastened by a simultaneous recourse to internal and external use of plants and herbs.
Normal dosage per liter of water: 30 to 50, to simmer for 20 to 40 minutes.
As Poultices (Cataplasms):
Fresh plants may be applied directly to or over the affected part of the body, whether it is an inflammation, a wound or a painful area.
Poultices are made by pounding with the use of wooden utensil or macerating the fresh herbs until it is a homogenous mass that may be applied directly to the affected area or applied by means of a clean white cotton cloth.
Cold poultices have a cooling effect on swollen or inflamed areas and produce good results in neuralgia, contusions (bruises), sprains, rheumatism and gout.Hot poultices may be use for painful inflammatory conditions.
As Gargles:
A decoction is prepared. If the throat is sore, it is best to use as hot as possible several times a day.
