Nature's Healers

Dandelion

Since early childhood, I have always been enchanted by the vibrant glow of dandelion flowers. I was forbidden to eat them due to parental fears about bed-wetting. I was taught that dandelions were noxious weeds and that good gardening involved getting rid of them. This is a big mistake. We need to sidestep our prejudices in order to see that the dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) is one of nature's greatest healers and deserves pride of place in the herb garden.

Healing Properties

The dandelion has been a widely used medicinal herb throughout history. Rich in vitamins and minerals, especially potassium, it is a powerful diuretic, effective hepatic tonic, choleretic and cholagogue. It is also anti-rheumatic, anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, antibacterial, alterative, antipyretic, anti-tumour, and laxative. It is a blood cleanser and tonic, digestive tonic, circulatory, cardiovascular and lymphatic tonic, and liver stimulant and tonic. It has a cleansing, cooling and healing action.

Used internally as a tea or infusion, dandelion is an excellent cleansing tonic for inflamed or congested liver or gall bladder, jaundice, cirrhosis, hepatitis and urinary tract infections.

Dandelion is a remedy for potassium deficiency and debility, and helps premenstrual and menopausal problems. It relieves water retention and bloating, reduces oedema associated with high blood pressure, and clears excess fat from the body.

Dandelion helps rheumatism, gout, chronic pain in muscles and joints, and reduces inflammation and swelling. It is used in treating glandular fever.

A drink made from boiled dandelion flowers and honey sooths coughs and fevers. It is used in treating glandular fever. Dandelion combines well with hops.

As a mineral rich blood cleanser, dandelion maintains healthy skin. It helps all kinds of skin conditions, including varicose ulcers, eczema and acne.

The root is a remedy for digestive disorders such as dyspepsia, constipation, and flatulence.

External uses

As well as using the herb internally, the juice of the dandelion stem used as a rub relieves painful joints. The sap of crushed leaves applied morning and night, will remove corns, calluses, warts and verrucæ (plantar warts). A strong infusion can be added to baths to revitalise the skin.

Culinary Uses

The young leaves are good eaten raw in salads, and go well with watercress and cucumber. The leaves and unopened flower buds are cooked as greens, or added to soups. I eat dandelion leaves in a green salad with spinach, lettuce, rocket, onion and chives as a side dish to main meals. I also mix dandelion with spinach as an addition to pasta dishes, curry and risotto. A substitute for coffee can be made from the chopped, dried roasted roots.

I would like to give the last word on dandelions to Culpeper who writes with frankness and honesty:

"You see here what virtues this common herb hath, and that is the reason the French and Dutch so often eat them in the spring: and now, if you look a little farther, 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 of plants to people." *

* Culpeper's Complete Herbal, and English Physician, 1826, Gleave and Son.

© Martha Magenta 2006.