Not sure if you knew, pine needles cooked in tea form are high in vitamin C.
Not sure if you knew, pine needles cooked in tea form are high in vitamin C.
I do know this, and I certainly appreciate you sharing the information. Pine needle tea with a bit of honey is pretty tasty.
I'm an avid hiker so when I lived in North Carolina I used to run across sassafras root all the time. It also makes a pretty yummy tea. Something I learned from the mountain folk up there is how to make a tea made from the native holly. It's got a pretty good kick from the caffeine and supposedly is very high in antioxidants. It tastes just like green tea.
Nice one! I guffawed…out loud even.
For those who might be considering oleander tea and don't know, it is toxic.
On a side note: I learned on the most recent episode of The Walking Dead that elderberry tea is good to drink for colds and flu. Of course I had to look it up and apparently it does have health benefits. Here's an article on it. http://www.livestrong.com/article/11...-tea-benefits/
Last edited by GoldenBrain; 11-02-2013 at 06:23 AM.
I looked it up and so far can only find an urban tale of a boy scout troop being poisoned because they roasted hot dogs on oleander sticks. It'd probably make you sick doing this but I don't think there would be enough poison transferred to kill a person.
Edit: Okay, so I was just speaking to my mother in law who is visiting today. She said when they lived in Greece she would see signs along hiking trails and parks warning about the dangers of oleander. Apparently the northern Europeans who were not familiar with tropical oleander would sometimes use oleander branches to roast hot dogs and burn in fires. She said every year many people would get sick and a few would die from this. So, I guess roasting hot dogs on it can kill a person.
Last edited by GoldenBrain; 11-02-2013 at 09:10 AM.
Yeah I am thinking someone in Greece or Rome, either a person or a government used oleander instead of hemlock, but I can't find any reference either.
Maybe it was Persia. I put in just about every kind of search string I could think of, and didn't come up with anything. So, I am at a loss now of where I heard about oleander.
A Brief History of the Oleander Plant
This is the best I've got so far.Medicinal use of the oleander plant dates back at least 3500 years. Historical records show that the Mesopotamians in the 15th century BC believed in the healing properties of oleander. The Babylonians used a mixture of oleander and licorice to treat hangovers. Roman soldiers also regularly took an oleander extract for hangovers. Pliny, the Elder of ancient Greece, wrote about the appearance and properties of oleander. Arab physicians first used oleander as a cancer treatment in the 8th century AD.
Regarding pine. Interesting thing about pine sap. There's a reason wood******s like pine trees.