Dandelions: King of the Herbs!

For our new section, “Herb of the Week”, I thought it might be nice to tweak our readers just a little in their thinking by starting off with herbs that have a history of being mistaken for a weed. One of the things that continues to both delight and frustrate me on my own herbal education is how so many of the really good things my horses needed for enhanced health have been literally right in front of me the whole time! Over the years I have put a great deal of time into pasture maintenance and now it seems the weeds I used to pull out of the fields in my younger years are the same herbs that I am putting into them now.

Few herbs do as much, or are as underappreciated, as the Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale). Every part of this herb is healing and nutritious. The flowers provide mild pain relief, the leaves are an excellent diuretic, and the roots are a wonderful liver tonifier which also provides support to the gallbladder. This herb is often a first choice to bring an out of balance system back online, as it helps the body assimilate nutrition more effectively and eliminate wastes, which is sometimes all a body needs to right itself.

Dandelions are everywhere and because they have been treated like a weed, i.e. sprayed with noxious chemicals, one needs to be careful about harvesting. Herbs are best if they are fresh and organic, so if you don’t know for certain that your Dandelions are clean, move on to some you do. Also don’t be fooled by imposters. A Dandelion’s leaf has sharp tooth-like appearance (hence the name, which in French means ‘lion’s tooth’) and its leaf is the texture you would expect to find in a salad at a nice restaurant. The false Dandelion, also known as “prickly lettuce”, has rounded leaves, with a furry, prickly feel to them, (something you would definitely send back if it came with a nice meal). It does not possess the healing properties of the Dandelion.

This herb we feed fresh to all our horses. In the spring especially we dig it out of the yard, rinse off the roots and feed it by the fistfuls. In the past we have had working students dig up a big bag of dandelions and then store them in the fridge, so that we can feed Dandelions to Nehalem with every meal. Dandelions were one of the first herbs we tried to get Nehalem to eat that she refused, and like Cleavers (the other herb Nehalem originally boycotted) now she can’t get enough Dandelions, literally we have started collecting seeds. When Dandelions around the home site go to seed we encourage the kids to pick them, making wishes by blowing them all over the yard. We know what we wish for, more Dandelions!

A fun, healthy way to experience Dandelions is in the spring (the leaves are the least bitter this time of year) pick some leaves off of your more robust plants (that have not been exposed to chemicals) and mix them in with your salad at a dinner party. See if your guests can identify the tasty addition to their normal greens.