Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption
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comfrey and meadowsweetjust a couple of comments to add tyo the wild foods by water side article.
1) meadowsweet - an excellent wine ingredient - but absolutely ther best if you get a ready made white wine and steep the meadowsweet in it ( I guess this is what i would do with mead!) and drink it soon after..
much much better than including it in the must - the delicate flavours don't get fermented off with the carbon dioxide bubbles
2) comfrey - I would be a bit nervous of eating this in any quantity - its traditional name in the North "knitbone" reflects its medicinal use in healing breaks and fractures.
This works as it is encourages cells to divide an grow new tissue - but it is believed it can also encourage the growth of cancerous tissue.
Use with caution! - i keep it for the compost
mark
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cab
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Re: comfrey and meadowsweet | mark wrote: |
1) meadowsweet - an excellent wine ingredient - but absolutely ther best if you get a ready made white wine and steep the meadowsweet in it ( I guess this is what i would do with mead!) and drink it soon after..
much much better than including it in the must - the delicate flavours don't get fermented off with the carbon dioxide bubbles
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I've made a mead with the leaves as well as the flowers, and to be sure, none of the flavours are lost in the must. The resulting wine was so strongly flavoured that it needed best part of a year to be pleasant to drink!
Meadowsweet flowers steeped in a dry-ish wine take the edge off the dyness, but they also add a slightly 'medicinal' flavour to it.
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2) comfrey - I would be a bit nervous of eating this in any quantity - its traditional name in the North "knitbone" reflects its medicinal use in healing breaks and fractures.
This works as it is encourages cells to divide an grow new tissue - but it is believed it can also encourage the growth of cancerous tissue.
Use with caution! - i keep it for the compost
mark |
I've been chomping through comfrey for years, its one of my favourite wayside snacks. I'm aware of claims of toxicity if ingested in large quantities, but I've been unable to find any confirmed instances. Anyone know of any?
(oh, and shall I delve in and add a note on this in the article when I go in to fix my terrible typos?)
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mark
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I have myseklf eaten comfrey in the past and used it both as a tea and applied it to sprains. I am more careful now. I used to smoke and don't now!
the nasties in comfrey leaves are pyrrolizidine alkaloids. They are carcinogenic and can cause liver disease. They are present in young leaves and roots in large amounts.
The amount goes down in mature leaves - so i guess they are safer to eat later in the year.
Russian comfrey (Symphytum uplandicum) and prickly comfrey (S. asperum) aslo have much higher levels and potentially unsafe levels of these .
Several cases of people who developed liver disease or other serious problems from taking capsules or tea of comfrey have been reported over the years. (source Foster S, Tyler VE. Tylers Honest Herbal. New York: Haworth Herbal Press, 1999, 1216. quoted in Numark pharacisits information)
Some herbalists limit use of comfrey creams - or comfrey applied to skin to around 6-8 weeks in the year.
Most advise that use of comfrey should be avoided entirely by young children, pregnant or nursing women, and people with liver disease.
In 2001, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) asked manufacturers to remove all oral comfrey products from the U.S. market. Oral forms of comfrey are also prohibited in several other countries, but they may be sold in some places if they are labeled as a dietary supplement. Warnings were also placed on the labels of topical products that contain comfrey. As recently as December 2003, the Canadian health organization, Health Canada, re-issued warnings that comfrey products may contain harmful chemicals and that comfrey should neither be taken orally nor be applied to raw skin.
On the issue iof your own eating lots of Comfrey and coming to no harme the lkiterature suggests individual response to pyrrolizidine alkaloids is also quite variable. Some individuals, particularly children, older people, poorly nourished individuals, and those who have chronic illnesses, may have adverse results from doses of comfrey that are not toxic to other individuals. In a few documented case reports; however, young and middle-aged adults with no apparent health conditions are believed to have suffered liver damage from taking comfrey. The damage may be gradual, so comfrey poisoning may not be evident for periods up to 3 months.
on another note it might be worth adding something about distinguishing comfrey from foxglove in the article if you tweak it
some key studies I have seen referenced are (I haven't read them!!)
Williams L, Chou MW, Yan J, et al. Toxicokinetics of riddelliine, a carcinogenic pyrrolizidine alkaloid, and metabolites in rats and mice. Toxicol Appl Pharmacol. 2002;182:98104.
Mei N, Guo L, Fu PP, et al. Mutagenicity of comfrey (Symphytum officinale) in rat liver. Br J Cancer. 2005;92:8735.
Stickel F, Seitz HK. The efficacy and safety of comfrey. Public Health Nutr. 2000;3:5018.
Couet CE, Crews C, Hanley AB. Analysis, separation, and bioassay of pyrrolizidine alkaloids from comfrey (Symphytum officinale). Nat Toxins. 1996;4:1637.
Winship KA. Toxicity of comfrey. Adverse Drug React Toxicol Rev. 1991;10:4759.
Betz JM, Eppley RM, Taylor WC, et al. Determination of pyrrolizidine alkaloids in commercial comfrey products (Symphytum sp.). J Pharm Sci. 1994;83:64953.
Yeong ML, Wakefield SJ, Ford HC. Hepatocyte membrane injury and bleb formation following low dose comfrey toxicity in rats. Int J Exp Pathol. 1993;74:2117.
Yeong ML, Clark SP, Waring JM, et al. The effects of comfrey derived pyrrolizidine alkaloids on rat liver. Pathology. 1991;23:358.
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cab
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Interesting... Thanks!
I'll go and re-word a bit, or rather I'll add a note to the effect that comfrey should be eaten with some care.
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mark
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perhaps good to make a point of saying that use of comfrey should be avoided entirely by young children, pregnant or nursing women, and people with liver disease?
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cab
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| mark wrote: | | perhaps good to make a point of saying that use of comfrey should be avoided entirely by young children, pregnant or nursing women, and people with liver disease? |
I've been thinking along the lines of doing a broader article at some point; 'Who should forage?', which would incorporate all of that.
I'll add in that point about comfrey here, it would seem odd not to when there's already a very similar one in there about chicken of the woods.
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dpack
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good wound herb .
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