Natural cures for better health

Only the young tender stems and leaves should be picked since the greens are at their best during this stage. Chickweed can be eaten raw in salads and sandwiches. Chopped it can be added to chicken and egg salads. A pinch of chickweed on a cold soup or salmon mousse makes an attractive garnish. First steamed it can also be used as a filling for omelettes or a stuffing for fish or fowl.

Chickweed Pesto

1 cup fresh chickweed
1 cup fresh basil
2 cloves garlic
½ cup olive oil
optional:
100g hard cheese
100g pine nuts

Put all the ingredients into your blender or food processor add more oil if necessary.

Mild Curried Chickweed

45ml olive oil
10ml mustard seed
4 cups chickweed
15ml tamari
5ml cumin seeds
5ml turmeric
15ml lemon juice

Heat the oil in a cast iron pan. Add seeds, stir and cook for two minutes. Stir in the turmeric
and cook another minute. Turn off the heat. Add chopped chickweed, lemon juice and tamari.
Stir well and serve immediately. Great with Basmati rice and yoghurt soup on a warm spring
evening.

Chickweed Salad

4 teaspoons fresh lemon juice
4 teaspoons walnut oil
Salt and freshly ground pepper
6 cups chickweed leaves and tender stems (about 6 ounces)

Pour the lemon juice into a large bowl. Gradually whisk in the oil. Season with salt and pepper. Add the chickweed, toss until evenly dressed and serve at once.

Chickweed Egg Salad

4 hard-boiled eggs
2/3 cup Chickweed greens, chopped
1 tsp horseradish
1 Tbsp fresh chives
½ cup mayonnaise

Chop eggs coarsely. Add Chickweed greens, chives, and horseradish. Mix gently. Add mayonnaise and mix just enough to coat ingredients.

The plant is weak and straggly and yet it has a number of medicinal properties. Made into a poultice it was one used to help heal wounds, skin irritations and inflammation. The Latin name fot the plant, Stellaria, means “little star” while media refers to “middle”, there being other chickweeds and related species. Chickweed belongs to Caryophyllaceae family and is an annual plant. Often refferred as Common Chickweeds, Star Chickweed, Mouse-ear Chickweed.

Chickweed is an excellent source of vitamins A, D, B complex, C and iron, calcium, potassium, phosphorus, zinc, manganese, sodium, copper, and silica.

Chickweed comes in capsule, liquid extract, tincture, tea, ointment, oils and dried herb forms. In alternative medicine, it’s used primarily as a topical cream or ointment. Different products are available in pharmacies and online stores.

Chop chickweed and add them, raw, to salads, or cook them like spinach. Mouse-ear chickweed is hairy, so you have to cook it. Cooked, chickweed tastes like spinach. Include any of the species in soups and stews, but cook no more than 5 minutes to prevent overcooking. Unlike most other edibles, he stems, as well as the leaves and flowers, taste good.

Chickweed herb medicinal uses: Applied externally, finely chopped chickweed soothes irritated skin, especially when mixed with marsh mallow (Althaea officinale) root. It is good for cuts, minor burns, eczema, and rashes. Bandage it on the affected area by itself or mixed with clay, which adds a drying and drawing effect. Change the dressing often.

To make chickweed tea, pour 1 cup of boiling water over chickweed. Cover and let steep, off the heat, for 15 to 20 minutes. Strain out the herb and drink the tea hot. Drinking a quart of chickweed tea daily is fine, but even two cups a day can help shed unwanted stored fat.

A mild diuretic, promoting the flow of urine, this beverage is also supposed to cleanse and soothe the kidneys and urinary tract and help relieve cystitis. Unlike the more powerful pharmaceutical diuretics, it won’t deplete the body of minerals. It is also reputedly good for rheumatism.

Chickweed in tea form is also excellent for use as an acne wash, and it can even be added to a bath to help with sores, rashes, boils and burns.

Chickweed should not be used internally by pregnant or nursing women.

Damiana is well-known in alternative medicine for it’s alleged aphrodisiac benefits. Derived from Central and South America, it is believed to treat a variety of ailments, most notably mild cases of constipation and to boost libido. The dried leaves used to make tea can be purchased at natural health stores or ordered online.


For impatient tea lovers there are also regular tea bag versions available.

Personally I always prefer leaf tea to tea bags, although it takes more time and energy. Therefore a little remider for thouse who choose damiana leaf tea:

- cover 1-2 teaspoons of dried damiana leaves with boiling water

- allow the damiana tea to steep for 15-20 minutes

- add honey, sugar or/and lemon slice if desired and enjoy!

Damiana (Turnera diffusa) is a herb native to South America, Caribbean, Central America and Mexico. It belongs to the family Turneraceae.

Damiana is a relatively small shrub that produces aromatic flowers. It blossoms in early to late summer and is followed by fruits that taste similar to figs. Damiana has an odor somewhat like chamomile due to the oil present in the plant. The leaves have traditionally been made into a tea which was used by native people of Central and South America for its aphrodisiac effects. It has been recorded that the Indians drank Damiana tea mixed with sugar for its ability to enhance lovemaking.

Damiana tea is widespread and quite popular nowadays as well (for its said aphrodisiac reasons )

History of Damiana

This drug was introduced (to the New World) in 1874 and first appeared in the form of fluid extract. Three distinct varieties or species of plants under the name of Damiana, are occasionally found upon the market, and are derived from as many different sources. The true Damiana is derived from Mexico.

The genus Turnera is a small family of chiefly tropical American plants allied to the Passifloreae. The flowers are small, yellow and in the species that produces damiana, subsessile near the end of the short branches. The calyx is tubular, hairy externally, colored like the petals, and 5-toothed at the apex. The petals are 5, yellow and inserted on the tube of the calyx. The fruit, specimens of which are often found with damiana leaves are dry, globular, and about the size of a large hemp seed.

Mexican damiana (Turnera aphrodisiaca) as found in market, consists of broken leaves mixed with fragments of the branches and sometimes with seedpods. The leaves are less than an inch long, obovate, wedge-shape, and taper at the base to a short. A variety of damiana, closely resembling the preceding, is derived from California.

Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage — This drug has been almost eulogized for its positive aphrodisiac effects, acting energetically upon the genito-urinary organs of both sexes, removing impotence in the one, and frigidity in the other, whether due to abuses or age. Many physicians who have tried it, deny its possession of such virtues, but the friends of the drug attribute their failures to the use of the spurious articles. It will very likely be found to possess laxative, tonic, and diuretic properties only; and the aphrodisiac effects following its use, no more prove that these belong to it, than the same effects, that not unfrequently appear after the employment of many other agents prove that such agents possess similar excitant virtues. Upon the system at large, it exerts a tonic influence, and is useful in some cases of chronic cystic and renal catarrh. It relieves irritation of the urinary mucous membranes, improves digestion, and overcomes constipation in some instances. In respiratory disorders, it may be employed to relieve irritation and cough, and, by its tonic properties, to cheek hypersecretion from the broncho-pulmonic membranes. The dose of the fluid extract is from 1/2 fluid drachm to 1/2 fluid ounce; specific damiana, 5 to 60 drops.

Specific Indications and Uses — To relieve irritation of the genito-urinary mucous surfaces. (Sexual weakness and debility, with nervousness and depression).