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Simple (and Free) Ways to Celebrate the First Day of Winter

December 21 is the first day of winter and the shortest day of the year in the Northern hemisphere. Parts of Canada, Alaska, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Greenland, and the northern tip of Iceland will experience 24 hours of total darkness.

Winter could be a long, dark, and difficult time for many of our forebears. The solstice provided an opportunity to celebrate the return of more daylight.

How did ancient people celebrate?

Gift-giving

The ancient Romans exchanged candles and other gifts during Saturnalia, their week-long solstice celebration.

Role-switching

In Persia, the king changed places with one of his subjects on the winter solstice, and the subject was crowned during an elaborate street party.

In Rome, masters and servants switched roles; senators wore simple, rather than elaborate togas; men sometimes dressed as women; fights and grudges were forgotten; and other everyday conventions were put aside.

Candle-lighting

In England and Scandinavia, people lit a Yule log, or oak branch, which was often replaced by a large candle that burned throughout the day.

Bonfires

Japanese Shinto farmers lit fires on the mountainsides to welcome back the sun.

Mistletoe and Evergreen Trees

The British Celts put mistletoe on their altars. And the Germans and Romans decorated their houses with evergreen trees, wreaths, and garlands as a symbol of life and renewed fertility.

Sun Festivals

The Hopi celebrated the return of the sun with ceremonies. Priests dressed in animal skins with feathers in their headdresses to look like the rays of the sun.

Why celebrate the first day of winter?

The holiday season is busy enough for most of us. Why add anything else to the to-do list?

Celebrating the first day of each season offers the perfect opportunity to:

Note the cyclical changes in the soil, sky, trees, plants, and wildlife.
Reflect on the lessons each time of year imparts. Winter reminds us of the importance of quiet, rest, and dormancy.
Learn about different celebrations around the world.
Celebrate! Seasonal celebrations are affordable, nature-based, and as easy or elaborate as you want them to be.
Be grateful for the gifts of food, family, and friendship.

The key to celebrating the first day of winter, when most of us are busy planning other celebrations, is to keep it simple, and choose traditions that give you time to relax and reflect.

Simple (and free) ways to celebrate winter

Observe

Watch the sunrise and sunset. You probably won’t even have to set an alarm. At our house, it will rise at 7:44 and set at 4:37 on Tuesday. (The good news is longer, brighter days are coming.) You can find out what time the sun will rise and set where you live here.

Wander

Take a hike, go cross-country skiing, or go for a walk and look for signs of the season. Listen to winter’s music. Compare winter’s textures: dry bark, soggy leaves, and spongy moss. Notice winter’s distinctive scents.

Give

Find gifts for each other from nature. Exchange small handmade gifts. Make maple caramel corn for friends or neighbors. The key is to keep it simple.

Feast

Serve up your favorite winter crops: beets, winter squash, potatoes, onions, kale, cabbage, or parsnips. We’re fans of stuffed squash and homemade sauerkraut this time of the year. Lighting candles can turn an ordinary meal into a celebration.

Reflect

Spend some time relaxing together in front of the fire. Share one thing you’ve lost and one thing you’ve gained over the past year. Tell stories about your best and worst holiday memories. Make wishes for the coming year. Reflect on the lessons of winter: the importance of rest, dormancy, and stillness.

The key to seasonal celebrations is to make them simple and relaxing. The last thing most of us need is another stressful winter tradition.

What’s your favorite thing about winter? Leave me a comment. I’d love to hear about it!

(Editor’s note: This is an updated version of a post originally published December 14, 2009)

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How to Thrive During the Winter

By Abby Quillen

Chances are, winter’s not your favorite season. Only 11 percent of people prefer winter over other seasons. More than a third (36 percent) of people prefer spring, 27 percent prefer fall, and 25 percent are keen on summer. Today, we’re mostly protected from winter’s harsh elements, and our lives may not look much different in winter than in spring or summer. But the cold, dark, short days are still challenging.

Our distant ancestors’ lives were far more dependent on natural elements. And amazingly, they survived (even thrived) during long, cold winters without modern amenities. Read on to discover three lessons we may want to heed from past generations about thriving during the coldest season.

Pay Attention to Natural Rhythms

The bears, bees, and bats are slumbering. Many plants are dormant. What about us? Humans don’t hibernate, but should we be catching more Zs in the winter? When the sun rises at 7:30 a.m and sets at 4:30 p.m., the nights are long and cold. If I didn’t have Netflix not to mention indoor heat or electric lights, I’m sure I would turn in much earlier.

Up to 25 percent of people today experience some form of Seasonal Affective Disorder, depression that occurs during one season, typically winter. Moreover, winter is peak season for colds, flu, stomach viruses, ear infections, and cardiovascular disease. Could these maladies be due in part to us ignoring nature’s call to rest during the winter?

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), a 2,000-year old healthcare system, seeks to harmonize the nature inside of us with the external natural world. Practitioners advocate people adjust their sleep patterns to reflect the seasons and advise going to bed early and rising late with the sun during the winter.

A study of 12 Equatorial tribes suggests humans who live closer to nature sleep longer during the winter even near the equator. On average, people in the study slept about an hour more per night during the winter. In some tribes, people slept up to two hours more per night during the winter.

I’ve never heard a Western medical doctor advise people to sleep more in the winter, but that may change because our scientific understanding of the human circadian rhythm is still in its infancy. The three scientists who won the Nobel Prize in 2017 study circadian rhythms (how plants, animals, and humans sync with the movement of the earth.)

Increasingly, health experts understand that staying up late or doing shift work may be harmful to health and contribute to the development of illness. In one study, people who slept fewer than seven hours a night were three times more likely to catch a cold than those who got eight or more hours.

This winter, try to stay in sync with nature’s day-night rhythm and see if you feel better rested. Here’s how:

Go outside early in the day after the sun rises
If you work indoors, sit next to a window and go outside during breaks
Dim indoor lights when it gets dark outdoors
Install a blue light filter on laptops, tablets, and phones
Go to bed eight or more hours before you need to wake up
Sleep in a dark room

Eat for the Season

Nutritionists are beginning to catch on to something traditional cultures understood well. The foods in season where you live are the perfect foods to help you adapt to the season. During the winter, seasonal foods help your body adjust to colder, darker, and drier conditions.

Winter squash and root vegetables are loaded with vitamin A, an essential nutrient for the immune system. Fish, a widely available food in northern regions, is loaded with omega 3s, which help to prevent seasonal depression. Mushrooms, which are available in fall and winter, are some of the only foods that contain vitamin D (as well as many other immune boosting properties).

Trust nature’s wisdom and make a variety of seasonal foods your winter staples.

Winter foods include:

Pumpkins
Squash
Sweet potatoes
Carrots
Kale
Spinach
Squash seeds
Persimmons
Pomegranates
Apples
Mushrooms
Beans
Whole grains
Seaweed
Garlic, onions, and leeks
Fish
Meat
Wild game

If you crave warm foods in winter, there may be a reason for that too. According to Traditional Chinese Medicine, warm, cooked foods are easier to digest and obtain energy from. Bring on the soup and stew!

Look for Opportunities

Imagine winter in northern Michigan and Alaska before indoor heat, automobiles, and imported foods. The words bleak, foreboding, and dangerous may come to my mind. That’s why I was surprised to learn that northern Natives may have looked forward to winter.

“Northern peoples have always found an ally in winter,” Steven Gorman, author of the book, “Winter Camping,” told the Northern Express.“The season makes their lives easier, not harder.”

Why? Because dense vegetation makes traveling, hunting, and fishing difficult during spring, summer, and fall. But packed snow during the winter makes overland travel faster and hunting and fishing easier.

European observers were in awe of the northern tribes’ winter hunting. The Chippewa of Northern Michigan trapped animals and traveled to trading forts. Alaska natives crossed the tundra grasslands on dogsleds.

I don’t hunt or fish. But winter brings unique opportunities to my life and probably to yours as well. You may be inspired to take advantage of winter by embarking on any of these wintertime activities:

Bird watching
Whale watching
Hiking
Ice skating
Sledding
Skiing
Snowshoeing
Snowboarding
Sitting next to the fire
Reading novels
Playing cards
Making bread
Making soup, casseroles, and stews

Conclusion

I’m grateful to live in a warm house when the temperatures dip below freezing, but we may have much to learn from our ancestors who thrived during winter without modern amenities.

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(Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an article first published December 19, 2017.)

5 Winter Immunity Boosters

By Abby Quillen

Most adults catch between two and four colds a year and the average infant or child catches from six to ten colds a year. That means, in our lifetimes, most of us will have a cold or flu for between two and three years. That’s a lot of Kleenex.

Immune Boosters

The good news is, nature offers some powerful immune-boosters. You may want to have these on hand this winter.

Garlic

Garlic has antibacterial, antibiotic, and antifungal properties. Allicin is garlic’s defense mechanism against pest attacks, and in clinical tests, it also prevents the common cold. In one study, volunteers were randomized to receive a placebo or an allicin-containing garlic supplement every day between November and February. The garlic group reported 24 colds compared to 65 in the placebo group. The volunteers in the garlic group also recovered significantly faster if they did get infected.

You don’t have to buy a supplement. The tastiest way to take garlic is to eat it. Raw is best. But garlic’s active ingredients are also present in cooked food.

Lemons

Lemons are loaded with vitamin C. One lemon contains anywhere from 50 percent to 80 percent of the vitamin C you need in a day.

And if you come down with a cold or virus, one study confirmed that hot lemonaid (or another hot fruit beverage) relieves runny nose, cough, sneezing, sore throat, chilliness and tiredness.

Elderberry

Elderberry is a popular herbal cold remedy in Europe. It’s getting a lot of press this flu season, because in clinical tests its flavonoids compare favorably with the antiviral Tamiflu in treating the H1N1 flu . You can buy over-the-counter elderberry syrup at most health food stores. Or you can harvest your own elderberries or buy them in the bulk section of your local health food store and make your own syrup. (Recipe below.)

Ginger

Ginger increases circulation and brings warmth to the body. It excels at quelling nausea, motion sickness, and dizziness. Many people also insist it can knock out the common cold.

Chicken Soup or Miso

Chicken soup and miso are full of vitamins and minerals. At least one study confirmed that chicken soup mitigates the symptoms of upper respiratory infections, possibly by reducing inflammation. Plus, the taste, smell, and warmth of these nourishing soups just make us feel good.

Herbalist Rosemary Gladstar recommends adding any or all of the following immunity herbs to the broth for a bigger boost of vitality:

Astragalus
Dandelion root
Burdock root
Echinacea root

Simple Immune Boosting Recipes

Here are four of my favorite recipes for the cold and flu season.

Lemon and Garlic Quinoa Salad

(Adapted from Feeding the Whole Family by Cynthia Lair)

Salad

1 c. dry quinoa
1/2 tsp. sea salt
1 and 3/4 c. water
1/2 c. chopped carrots
1/3 c. minced parsley
1/4 c. sunflower seeds

Dressing

4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 c. freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 c. extra virgin olive oil
1 to 2 tbl. tamari or shoyu

Rinse quinoa and drain. Place rinsed quinoa, salt, and water in a pot. Bring to boil, reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 15 to 20 minutes until all the water is absorbed. Let stand for 5 to 10 minutes uncovered, then fluff with a fork. Place quinoa in a large bowl. Add carrots, parsley, and sunflower seeds. Mix. Combine dressing ingredients and pour over quinoa. Toss. Serve at room temperature or chilled.

Hot Ginger Garlic Lemonaid

2 cloves garlic
1 tbs. grated ginger root
Juice of one freshly-squeezed lemon
Honey, to taste
Hot water

Put ginger root in a tea ball or tea bag. Place garlic, lemon juice, honey, and tea ball or bag in your favorite coffee mug. Pour hot water in. Cover and steep. Drink very hot.

Miso

(Loosely adapted from Feeding the Whole Family by Cynthia Lair)

3 inch piece wakame
4 c. water
4 tbs. light or mellow unpasteurized miso.
2 scallions, thinly sliced, for garnish

Any or all of the following

1 potato
1 carrot
1/2 c. chopped bok choy
5 sliced shitake mushrooms
1/4 lb. firm tofu, cut into cubes
Handful of immune-boosting herbs: astragalus, echinacea root, dandelion root, or burdock root.

Soak wakame in small bowl of cold water for 5 minutes. Put herbs in a large tea ball or bag.

Put water (and potato, carrot, and herbs if using) into a pot and bring to a boil.

Tear wakame into pieces, removing the spine. Add wakame to soup. Lower heat, cover pot, and simmer 15 to 20 minutes, until vegetables are tender. Near the end of the cooking time, add mushrooms, bok choy, and tofu cubes if using, and let simmer a few minutes more.

Remove soup from stove. Dissolve miso in a little warm water. Remove tea ball or bag. Add miso to broth. Stir well. Ladle into bowl and add scallions for garnish.

Elderberry Syrup

(From Rosemary Gladstar’s Family Herbal*)

1 c. fresh or 1/2 c. dried blue elderberries*
3 c. water
1 c. honey

Place berries in a pan and cover with water. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for 30 to 45 minutes. Smash berries. Strain mixture through a fine-mesh strainer and add 1 cup of honey, or adjust to taste. Bottle the syrup and store in the refrigerator. It keeps for 2 to 3 months.

*Make sure you use blue elderberries, not red ones. Never eat uncooked elderberries.

(Editors note: This is an updated version of Stay Well: 5 Winter Immunity Boosters and Winter Wellness Recipes, originally posted in November 2009.)

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Local, Seasonal Foods are Superfoods

By Abby Quillen

What should you eat for optimal health? That question has inspired wildly contradictory dietary trends from Low-fat to Raw Vegan to Paleo to Keto, each backed by health claims and scientific studies. However, nobody will ever discover a one-size-fits-all optimal human diet because we didn’t evolve to eat the same thing. Throughout most of history, whether humans hunted and gathered, raised animals, or cultivated crops, they ate a menu of local foods that shifted with the seasons. All traditional diets emphasized seasonal eating.

In the past hundred years, the industrialization of agriculture and the invention of refrigeration radically remade our diets. Today, 70 percent of the American diet is processed, and the fresh foods in your grocery store were likely imported from all over the globe. However, locavore, Farm to Table, and Farm to School movements are flourishing for good reason. Exotic superfoods may be trendy, but the foods grown near you are usually the freshest, most nutritious, healthiest, and most flavorful foods you can eat. Even a modest change to eating more local and seasonal foods can bring health, environmental, and culinary benefits.

Eating seasonally may require a mindset shift and some effort, because most modern Americans weren’t raised doing it. But the benefits are worthwhile! Keep reading to learn why local, seasonal foods are superfoods and discover ways to shift to a more seasonal diet.

The Case of the Missing Nutrients

The industrial food system has brought convenience, but the price tag is high, both for human health and the health of our ecosystems. First of all, we’ve lost an incredible amount of food diversity. In 1903, 408 types of peas were available in commercial seed catalogs; by 1983, there were 25 available pea types. More than 300 varieties of sweet corn in 1903 dwindled to 12 in 1983; 544 cabbage varieties in 1903 diminished to 28 in 1983.

Here’s the problem: Modern crops are significantly less nutritious than the crops our grandparents ate. Farmers must select crop types for yield and their ability to be transported and stored, rather than for nutrition. Moreover, soil depletion and rising carbon levels in the atmosphere may further contribute to the declining nutrient values of our food. The USDA has monitored the nutrition in crops since the late 1800s, and the data is troubling. According to one analysis, an orange today contains eight times less vitamin A than an orange your grandparent would have eaten. Broccoli contains less than half as much calcium as it did in 1950.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Exotic superfoods may be trendy, but local, seasonal foods are the real superfoods. #localfood” quote=”Exotic superfoods may be trendy, but local, seasonal foods are the real superfoods.” theme=”style1″]

To complicate the problem, nutrients degrade quickly after produce is picked. Conventional produce is often picked before it’s ripe, is shipped an average of 1494 miles, and is handled frequently and stored on shelves for days.

For obvious reasons, local produce is nearly always fresher than produce shipped from across the world. And it may contain more nutrients in the first place because farmers growing food for local markets can choose crop types for nutrition and flavor, such as antioxidant-rich purple carrots and potatoes. Moreover, there’s a less understood reason to eat seasonal foods; by doing so, we tap into nature’s wisdom about what’s best to eat when.

Tap into Nature’s Wisdom

Because of the tilt of the earth, seasons exist everywhere, except for a small tropical band near the equator, which has minimal seasonality. In some regions of the earth, seasonal changes are extreme. In parts of Alaska, summer and winter temperatures vary by 100 degrees. Flora, fauna, and weather vary widely by region and and season, and it makes sense that our diets would vary accordingly, since they were once dependent on the local environment. The bottom line? We evolved to eat certain foods at certain times. And now that we’ve lost touch with which crops grow when, we may have lost a natural way to stay healthy during each season.

Consider these examples:

Summer crops (berries, fruit, snap beans, corn, cucumbers, melons, peppers, tomatoes, and summer squash) provide energy, hydration, and antioxidants to help people deal with the potentially damaging effects of summer sunshine.
Fall and winter crops (sweet potatoes, winter squash, chard, spinach, bok choy, and kale) provide large amounts of vitamin A, a nutrient that supports the immune system, just as seasonal illnesses are circulating.
Spring crops (watercress, pea shoots, wild nettles and greens) have anti-histamine effects in the body, which helps fend off spring’s seasonal allergies. (Nettles worked better than allergy medication in one study.)

The health benefits of seasonal eating go beyond ingesting antioxidants and phytochemicals. Eating is not only about nutrients; it’s about our relationship with the natural world, the source of all real food.

Humans are wired to be outside. Spending time in nature is therapeutic, healing, and necessary for human health. Reconnecting food to its true source by hunting or gathering wild foods, gardening, or visiting farms or orchards can be a powerful step toward better health. When you adjust your diet with local conditions, you must observe and relate with the environment outside the climate-controlled homes, buildings, and cars, where Americans now spend 90 percent of the time.

Invest in Healthier Ecosystems

The industrial food system, which was developed in the decades after World War II, features enormous single-crop farms and animal production facilities and relies heavily on chemical fertilizers. The system has been successful at increasing crop yields, making food cheaper, decreasing the need for farm labor, and increasing the availability of off-season crops. Unfortunately, the environmental costs for industrial agriculture have been huge and include mass extinctions, a biodiversity crisis, contaminated water ways, the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and pesticide toxicity.

In wealthy nations, food consumption is estimated to account for 20 to 30 percent of each family’s environmental footprint. Environmental life cycle food assessments are complicated, and it’s important to factor how the food is grown and transported to market. However, many studies suggest that even a small shift to local and seasonal eating may make a difference to the environment. A research team found the conventional food distribution system emitted 5 to 17 times more CO₂and used four to 17 times more fuel than the local and regional food distribution systems in Iowa. A Canadian study estimated that replacing imported food with locally grown food in just the Waterloo, Ontario region would save transport-related emissions roughly equivalent to taking 16,191 cars off the road. According to another analysis, if everyone in the U.S. just ate one meal a week consisting of local and organic produce, we’d reduce our national oil consumption by 1.1 million barrels a week.

Step Outside of the Grocery Store

Seasonal eating goes against our always-available, fast-food culture, and it may not be intuitive if you weren’t raised doing it. Growing up in rural Colorado, nearly all of my family’s produce came from refrigerated cases at a national grocery chain. My dad grew a small vegetable garden one summer (an experience that had an enormous impact on me). Other than that, we didn’t grow food or visit farms or orchards. Most years, the apples and plums on the trees in our yard fell to the ground and rotted, as did the fruit on the trees around our neighborhood. Little of the wisdom my ancestors must have possessed about hunting or growing, storing, and gathering food was passed to me. However, I’m committed to eating more local and seasonal foods because it feels like the most nutritious, sustainable, and nourishing way to eat.

These days, my family and I garden, gather food, belong to a Community Supported Agriculture program, and regularly visit farms and orchards. We don’t stick to a 100-mile diet or eschew all imported foods. We enjoy coffee and imported oranges and bananas as much as the next family. But we do our best to heed some traditional wisdom and stay connected to our natural environment as we live our busy lives in the modern world.

Even a little local and seasonal eating may make a difference to your health, community, and local ecosystems. And it’s an amazing way to connect with the natural world and glimpse the beauty and wisdom pervasive there.

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Editor’s note: This is an updated version of a blog originally posted October 3. 2017.

5 Fun Ideas to Keep Your Kids Busy This Summer

By Abby Quillen

It’s summertime and the living’s easy, unless you have kids at home sneaking screen time and moaning about being bored. If your kids need some motivation to get off the couch and have some fun, here are 5 fun summer activities for kids.

1. Have a Cooking or Baking Competition

Full confession: my family loves watching people cook as much as we like to cook. My kids have watched all the Great British Baking Show episodes and they love to throw around words like fondant and marzipan, even though they’ve never eaten either.

If your family has binged on the Great British Baking Show, Nailed It, The Final Table, or another cooking show, your kids may be thrilled to recreate one of these popular shows.

Depending on the age and abilities of your kids, they may need you on hand as an assistant chef. But if your kids are older, hand over your kitchen and serve as a judge. (It’s not a bad job, if you can get it.) Pro tip: Make cleaning up part of the contest.

2. Create a lemonade stand

Nothing excites kids like drinking lemonade and making spare money, so setting up a lemonade stand could become a favorite past time. Here are the simple steps for your budding entrepreneurs to get their business off the ground.

Supplies needed:

Outdoor table and chairs
Poster board
Markers
Lemons
Honey
Ice
Paper cups

Instructions:

Set up the table and chairs in the front yard.
Make a sign.
Whip together lemonade. For a healthy recipe, combine 4 cups water, juice from 5 lemons, and 1/3 cup of honey (or more for desired sweetness).
Pour it into paper cups, and add ice and lemon wedges
Sell your lemonade for $.75 or $1 a cup.

Your kids will get to know some of the neighbors and wile away a hot afternoon. Plus, they may just make a little arcade money.

3. Send them on a treasure hunt

My friend Marianne shared a brilliant idea that she’s used to curb her kids’ boredom. It will take a little crafting on your behalf, but it will delight your kids and buy you an afternoon without hearing the words “I’m bored.” Plus, you may just get some homemade cookies for your efforts.

First, decide where to hide your clues. And remember, the goal here is to keep your kids busy. Try these wonderful ideas, from Marianne:

Hide a clue in a book they have to read to find it.
Hide a clue in a garden they have to explore.
Hide a clue among instruments they have to play.
Hide a clue in a card game they have to play before turning the card over.
Hide a clue in a tree they have to climb.
Make the final clue a bag of chocolate chips and a recipe.

Next, write the clues. Rhyming clues set a fun tone, and don’t worry, you don’t need to be a poet laureate. These examples may get your creative juices flowing.

To figure out your next plan, read chapter one of a book about a dragon clan.
To see what you need to see, climb to the top of the cherry tree.
While playing a game of Speed, search for the loving queen.
Your next clue is not inside a toy. To find it, you must play Beethoven’s Ode to Joy.

You get the idea! When you’re done, hide your clues, sit back, and watch the fun ensue.

4. Create duct-tape crafts

If you have a pair of scissors and a few rolls of duct tape around the house, you have all the tools you need to keep your kids busy for hours. Meanwhile, you may encourage a love of crafting.

Here are a few of the fun crafts your kids can make with duct tape:

5. Film movies

Lights! Camera! Action! Inspire your kids to become mini writers, directors, and actors. All they need is a smartphone, and a tripod will improve the end result if you have one. Apps like iMotion, the Lego Movie Maker, iMovie, Magisto, and Telestory can help your kids create and edit their video stories.

If your kids aren’t sure where to start, here are some ideas to inspire them.

Recreate a favorite movie scene with toys or Legos.
Make a music video by playing a favorite song and lip-syncing and dancing.
Film a sports video with commentary and slow-motion replays.
Recreate a journalistic interview show.
Do a stand-up comedy skit.

More Ideas

If those ideas don’t sound fun, there’s plenty more to keep your kids busy this summer. When you hear, “I’m bored,” be ready with these ideas:

Create a sidewalk chalk mural
Paint rocks
Run in the sprinkler
Make popsicles
Have a paper airplane contest
Invent your own board games
Build bird feeders
Learn a musical instrument
Learn to sew
Go geocacheing
Go letterboxing
Fly a kite

Buck Boredom This Summer!

It’s amazing how quickly kids go from celebrating summer to complaining about being bored. Use these fun ideas to help your kids get creative and enjoy some screen-free summertime fun.

[Editor’s note: This is an updated version of a post, originally published July 2, 2019]

Dandelions are Superfoods

By Abby Quillen

Every spring people stock up on Round Up and Weed-B-Gon to prepare themselves for battle against one of my favorite flowers – the humble dandelion. If you’re not as big a fan as I am of these yellow-headed “weeds”, which grow in lawns and sunny open spaces throughout the world, I know of a great way to get rid of them. Eat them.

Every part of the dandelion is edible – leaves, roots, and flowers. And they are nutritional powerhouses. They’re rich in beta-carotene, fiber, potassium, iron, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, B vitamins, and protein.

Over the years, dandelions have been used as cures for countless conditions including:

kidney stones
acne
high blood pressure
obesity
diarrhea
high cholesterol
anemia
cancer
diabetes
stomach pain
hepatitis

“There is probably no existing condition that would not benefit from regularly consuming dandelions,” Joyce A Wardwell writes in The Herbal Home Remedy Book.

She also says that dandelion is “one herb to allow yourself the full range of freedom to explore,” because it has “no known cautionary drug interactions, cumulative toxic effects, or contraindications for use.”

So why not harvest the dandelions in your yard? And I’m sure your neighbors wouldn’t mind if you uprooted some of theirs too. Just avoid harvesting near streets or from lawns where herbicides or fertilizers are used.

Dandelion has a few doppelgangers, but it’s easy to distinguish it. Look for a single thick stem filled with milky sap and smooth leaves shaped like jagged teeth.

The leaves

Dandelion leaves have more beta-carotene than carrots and more iron and calcium than spinach. The best time to harvest them is early spring, before the flowers appear, because that’s when they’re the least bitter.

How can you eat dandelion leaves?

Toss them in salads
Steam them
Saute them with garlic, onions, and olive oil
Infuse them with boiling water to make a tea
Dry them to use for tea

If dandelion leaves taste too bitter for you to enjoy, here are four surefire ways to mask the taste:

Add something sweet, salty, or sour.
Combine them with less bitter greens.
Cook them in oil.
Boil them for three to five minutes.

Don’t let the bitterness of dandelion leaves scare you away. Phytonutrients have a bitter, sour, or astringent taste, so bitter plants are often highly nutritious. Bitterness also stimulates the liver to produce bile, which aids digestion and nutrient availability. Moreover, bitter foods modulate hunger and help curb sugar cravings.

The flowers

Dandelion flowers are a rich source of the nutrient lecithin. The best time to harvest them is mid-spring, when they’re usually the most abundant. If you cut off the green base, the flowers aren’t bitter.

How can you eat dandelion flowers?

Toss them in salad
Steam them with other vegetables
Make wine
Make fritters
Make Dandelion Flower Cookies

The roots

Dandelion roots are full of vitamins and minerals. They are also in rich in a substance called inulin, which may help diabetics to regulate blood sugar. Dandelion roots are often used to treat liver disorders. They’re also a safe natural diuretic, because they’re rich in potassium. The best time to harvest dandelion roots is early spring and late fall.

How can you eat dandelion roots?

Boil them for 20 minutes to make a tea
Chop, dry, and roast them to make a tasty coffee substitute.
Add them to soup stock or miso
Steam them with other vegetables

As most gardeners know, dandelions are virile (some say pernicious) plants. Why not treat them as allies, rather than enemies, this spring?

[clickToTweet tweet=”Dandelions are superfoods. Put the pesticides away and eat them. #health #herbs” quote=”Dandelions are superfoods. Put the pesticides away and eat them.” theme=”style1″]

If you liked this post, check out more of my popular articles about herbs:

[Editor’s Note: This is an updated and revised version of a post originally published on March 4, 2010]

Do you eat dandelions? Do you have a favorite dandelion recipe?

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Immune Boosters

Garlic

Lemons

Elderberry

Ginger

Chicken Soup or Miso

Simple Immune Boosting Recipes

Lemon and Garlic Quinoa Salad

Hot Ginger Garlic Lemonaid

Miso

Elderberry Syrup

1. Have a Cooking or Baking Competition

2. Create a lemonade stand

3. Send them on a treasure hunt

4. Create duct-tape crafts

5. Film movies

More Ideas

Buck Boredom This Summer!

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Ready to ramp up your content and see results? Drop me an email, and we'll find a time to chat.

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