Strawberries

As a child, I would go for walks in the summer picking and eating the wild Strawberries that grew by the road side.

We would see all kinds of wild plants but the Strawberries were our favorites. Sometimes we would take a container along and collect enough of them to take home so Mom could make Strawberry short cake.

Wild Strawberries have a very distinct flavor. They are very tangy, quite unlike the large ones we buy in the store today. Wild Strawberries are small and red most of the way through.

I allow weeds in my gardens and every so often I find a wild Strawberry that has migrated to my yard. They make a good ground cover for the places that always need help. That brings me to why they are called Strawberries. One would think it is because straw is laid under the berries to keep them off the ground but that is not so. According to Mrs. Grieves (a noted herbalist), they had the name long before this custom. It seems the verb "to stew" was changed to straw; this was referring to "the tangle of vines with which Strawberries cover the ground."

Did you know that Strawberries are a great blood purifier and that Strawberry juice combats bacterial infections? According to Dr. Christopher in his Natural Healing Newsletter Vol. 5 #1,
Strawberries are recommended for sluggish liver, gout, rheumatism, constipation, high blood pressure, skin cancer and syphilis. (And we just thought they tasted good.) He also said that if one pound of Strawberries is eaten in the morning with no other food until noon, pinworms would often disappear. He mentioned that eating some at the beginning of a meal would stimulate the appetite.

With some people, Strawberries clean their system faster than the liver can process the toxins that are being flushed out. When this happens the toxins head for the skin, one of the four ways to get things out of the body (Liver, Lungs, Bowels/Kidneys and Skin.) This makes people think that they are allergic to Strawberries since they get a rash when they eat them. What happens is that the Strawberries are doing a heavy cleansing. I recommend that people who think they are allergic to Strawberries, clean the bowels and liver first so when the toxins are released they will exit the body in an easy-normal way. (Another reason for an allergy to foods might be the chemicals that the farmer put on the plants to get a good harvest.)

Strawberries are high in iron and the leaf tea is used as a wash for skin problems such as eczema. Fresh berries can be rubbed over blackheads to assist the healing.

Another thing that is nice about Strawberries is that leaving the fresh juice of the berries on one's teeth for about five minutes and then rinsing with warm water which contains a small amount of bicarbonate of soda, will tend to remove discoloration from teeth. A great thing for herbalist who drink a lot of herbal tea.

I have also learned that Strawberries contain salicylates that are helpful in dealing with pain . In the area of salicylates; I just read an article by Jessica Marshall, written for Discovery News stating that plants "make methyl salicylate, a volatile form of salicylic acid." This is sent through the air when the plants are stressed, such as cold or draught to activate the plants immune system.

Sometimes I feel that plants talk to each other a lot more than we think. Aren't plants wonderful? The next time they talk to you, let me know what they told you.