Learning by Doing: Nettles

 

This post was moved from an old blog of mine, and dated 9/4/2011.

My friend Melanie mentioned a while back on her blog Susun Weed and her online herbal courses. I remembered hearing about Susun Weed even farther back from another friend, and I'd checked out her courses and put them on my wish list... then forgot about them. Well, Melanie's post about Susun on her blog reminded me, and since we had the means this summer, I signed up for Susun Weed's ABCs of Herbalism course.

One of the things Susun believes we should all do and the first assignment from the course that I decided to tackle, is to drink at least 3 quarts of nettle infusion a week. You can find a lot of great info by Susun about nettles.  For the infusion, take 1 oz of the dry nettle herb and pour a quart of boiling water over it, and let it steep 4 hrs or overnight. Strain and drink. I let mine steep over night, as it's convenient that way. After I strain it, I split it into two servings and put one in the fridge for the next day and put the other over ice for that day. I do add a little agave syrup or honey as it is difficult to drink otherwise. ;) Susun says to use miso instead of honey but I don't like miso either!

Back to the nettles. See my glass above? that is my infusion. I was surprised at how dark it was! The flavor is strong and not very pleasant but I'm sure I will get used to it in a few weeks. This morning was day 4 of drinking it. The assignment is to drink it for a month and then record changes in hair, joints, skin, health etc.

I think I already have something to report. I suffer from "tennis elbow" in my right arm. Saw the chiro about it a month or so ago but it only helped a little and didn't stick for long. It was really bad last week, with shooting pains that caused my arm to go completely weak and unusable, and nearly brought me to tears a few times. Can't even lift a gallon pitcher with it. Well I haven't had shooting pains for 4 days, and yesterday I kind of thought perhaps there wasn't that much pain in it at all. Today it feels like it's definitely better. 4 days! and this pain that I've lived with for nearly 8 months is going away?

I will drink nettles for the rest of my life if it cures my tennis elbow.

Susun has a free online course for "Nourishing Infusions". Click here to check it out.

Editing to add:  I purchased my first pound of dry nettle leaf herb from MountainRoseHerbs.com at a very reasonable price! Then I discovered that my food coop stocked Frontier Herb nettles at a slightly lower cost so I ordered another pound from them. My glass of nettle infusion above is the Mountain Rose nettles! Shop around, prices on herbs fluctuate just like any other food based on crop success. I buy organic herb of course, since I don't want to worry about poisoning myself. :) 

Edited again to add:  The nettles from Frontier Herb did not taste as good as the Mountain Rose Nettles. Neither taste great, like hay actually. But the Mountain Rose nettles were stronger and with a less hayish taste. Good to know.