During a recent cleanse and purge of tremendous amounts of paperwork in our home office that still contains a lot of paperwork :-( , I came upon a box of essential oil information from tips on how to use oils to recipes and concoctions/decoctions containing oils.
I also came across a number of pages of info I printed from newsletters by Elizabeth Ellis who owned wholelifeessentials.com. On her website was a link to subscribe to her newsletter, which took you to a Yahoo Groups page where readers were welcomed to the newsletter described as "A free monthly newsletter filled with ideas, recipes and inspiration focused on life enhancing, aromatherapy based, natural products and practices."
She also sold essential oils, books and more; and she was (still perhaps is) a life coach. Being curious, I visited the website, but it appears there hasn't been any activity since 2006. The bottom of the site has a copyright: "2001-2006 Whole Life Essentials & Aromata Perfumes. All Rights Reserved."
I don't know when her newsletters quite arriving in my email box (perhaps in 2006) or what happened with her, but I am happy I saved many of the recipes she so willingly shared. Finding them was a treasure and they should not be stuck away in a box, so I am going to share them from time to time.
First on my list is a "Pine Needle Tea Decoction."
Elizabeth wrote: the "Pine Needle Tea Decoction" is a "traditional remedy that may be used in the treatment of about 80 percent of human diseases."
That is right -- 80 percent. Amazing, don't you think?
"The remedy is effective for working with the smooth muscles that line the blood vessels and other muscular-related diseases such as sclerosis (a condition in which the soft tissues inside the body become unusually hard)."
She also noted that "This decoction is known to have very good success rates with cancer in the first stage."
And, she suggests drinking it for the relief of heart disease, heart ailments, varicose veins, muscle fatigue, kidney ailments, gangrene and eye-related ailments that concern connective muscles in the eye. In addition, drinking the team promotes strengthening of the nerves in the eyes.
Please remember: "These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. The information in my blog is not intended or implied to be a substitute for professional medical advise, diagnosis or treatment. Please confirm any information obtained from any part of my blog with other sources, and review all information regarding any medical condition or treatment with your physician. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking medical treatment because of something you have read in my blog."
With that duly noted, here is the recipe.
PINE NEEDLE TEA DECOCTION
Ingredients
1 ounce (28 g) baby pine needles (select the newest needles at the end of a branch that are a light green in color)
1.5 pints (840 ml) water
Directions
Remove any of the brown, papery sheaths that may remain at the base of the needles. (They will pull off easily,)
Put the needles (herbs) into an enamel, glass or stainless steel pan (do NOT use aluminum). Bring just to a boil (boiling too long will remove the vitamin C) and simmer for 10 minutes or until the liquid is reduced by one-third.
Place the water and needles in a thermos. Let it sit overnight for 12 hours. Strain and remove the needles. Return the water to the thermos and drink it warm throughout the day.
Continue to drink 1 pint (500 ml) of "Pine Needle Tea" every day for a month.
Being eager to learn more about "Pine Needle Tea," I did a Google search and came up with several websites touting the benefits and side effects of the tea.
Erin Orr on the wildedible.com website wrote that pine needles supposedly contain "three to five times more vitamin C than an orange, depending on what source you read."
According to the book, "Vitamins in Animal Nutrition: Comparative Aspects to Human Nutrition," by Lee Russell McDowell, French explorer Jacques Cartier learned as early as 1536 from American Indians that scurvy could be cured and prevented by imbibing a drink made from pine needles and pine bark. Nearly all of his men developed the condition during a cold freezing winter exploration.
Cartier discovered the Indians "had used an infusion of spruce or pine needles to prevent scurvy for at least four centuries," McDowell wrote. Scurvy, a chronic condition caused by not getting enough vitamin C, if left untreated, can cause death.
Although Cartier's crew boiled the decoction, destroying a significant amount of the vitamin C in the needles, apparently there was enough of the vitamin and various amino acids to cure the crew and reverse their symptoms, Orr wrote.
Because of the dramatic change in the health of the men, the tree used to make the tea became known as the "tree of life," Orr wrote, adding, "There's no way to determine what species it was, but we know the tree of life was a conifer. Eastern white pine is just one of the handful of candidates that could have been used."
And, according to Orr, the vitamin C -- or ascorbic acid -- content of the pine needs seems to vary significantly depending on the species of pine used and the age of the needles.
As for the benefits of the "Pine Needles Tea," in addition to the ones Elizabeth wrote about, the tea prevents respiratory infections, stimulates circulation, speeds healing and increases cognitive performance write, editor and publisher John Staughon wrote on the organicfacts.net website.
Research has been done on the effects of pine oil on chronic diseases such as cancer, heart disease and autoimmune disease, wrote Staughton, noting "The high and diverse antioxidant concentration in the tea is shown to counteract the effects of free radicals and protect the body from these conditions."
According to Staughton, some of the side effects include irritation of the throat and mouth, inflamed patches on the skin, vomiting, nausea, dizziness, headaches and diarrhea.
To read more of Staughton's article, visit www.organicfacts.net/health-benefits/herbs-and-spices/pine-needle-tea.htm.
Coming in my next post (or so it is the plan at the moment): Concoctions for the common cold.
