With Earth Day coming up, I scrolled through the archives looking for past stories about nature, and I found a lot of them. In this blog, I\u2019ve explained how Fireflies channel Lucifer; why Woollie Bears cross the road; the ABC\u2019s of CCD; how we\u2019re wasting all our fresh water busily making\u2026water; and why the 17-year Cicadas are losing their backsides and becoming a biblical plague of mindless sex-zombie insect eunuchs flying about in a fervid orgy of impotent transvestite dry-humping horniness in slavish contagious service to their drug-pushing fungal mind-master overlord.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But not all stories are so dramatic, and this one starts quite simply, in your own yard, and begins with a quote by another writer, some hack named Emerson who said,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In that spirit, it\u2019s time we admit it: we cannot kill the Lion\u2019s Tooth. Every spring we carpet-bomb it with pendimethaline (the toxic ingredient in Scott\u2019s Halts), hose it down with 2,4-D (Weed-B-Gon), and even go on search-and-destroy missions armed with glyphosphate (Roundup). But after we\u2019ve spread these nasty chemicals all over the landscape and polluted the groundwater, the Lion\u2019s Tooth, the \u201cDent de Lion,\u201d just laughs at us. It keeps spreading through the grass, popping up in the garden, and poking out of every crack and crevice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Isn\u2019t there a better way to deal with the pesky dandelion? Well, part of the answer lies in the plant\u2019s official name, Taraxacum officinale, which originates from Greek, meaning \u201cthe remedy for curing disorders.\u201d Dandelion is one of the top six herbs in a traditional Chinese medicine cabinet, and has been used to treat stomach problems and appendicitis for centuries. Native Americans used it in dozens of treatments. Europeans have long used it to treat liver problems. Today, herbalists use it most commonly as an appetite stimulant and a diuretic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Dandelion\u2019s reputation as a healthful supplement is so strong that it recently spawned an Internet hoax that a clinical trial had proven it \u2018kills 98% of cancer cells in 48 hours.\u2019 The rumors grew so viral that the story eventually earned a Fact Check at USA Today, which debunked the claim.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Efficacy aside, one thing that is certainly true is that dandelion is an extremely healthful food. The USDA ranks dandelions as the 4th most nutritious green vegetable. They are loaded with vitamins A and C and have more iron than spinach. They are rich in fiber, potassium, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, thiamine, riboflavin and trace minerals. Young leaves and unopened flower buds can be added to salads. Older leaves become bitter but are still fine when cooked into soups. The roots can be chopped and roasted to make an herbal tea very similar to coffee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe it\u2019s time to celebrate this plant instead of vilifying it. And if a party is in order, the humble dandelion can help there, too. Just go out this weekend and collect a whole bunch of flowers. Throw it all into a gallon of water, add a little orange and lemon juice, plus a little ginger. Add some brewer\u2019s yeast, and put it in a cool dry place. In a few months, you\u2019ll have a dry white wine that tastes great, stays fresh, and improves for a year or more. (Extensive field tests HAVE proven it has excellent mood-altering powers.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So here\u2019s to the Lion\u2019s Tooth. Wonder-drug? Maybe. Super-food? Absolutely. Party-vegetable? Most definitely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This Earth Day, it\u2019s time we stop trying to kill the dandelion, and let it help us live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Earth Day coming up, I scrolled through the archives looking for past stories about nature, and I found a lot of them. In this blog, I\u2019ve explained how Fireflies channel Lucifer; why Woollie Bears cross the road; the ABC\u2019s of CCD; how we\u2019re wasting all our fresh water busily…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1884,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/Dandelion.jpg?fit=1024%2C747&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1885,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1883\/revisions\/1885"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}