WEBVTT - The Fascinating History of Dandelions 0:00:04.760 --> 0:00:06.840 Unless you like to puff the little seeds off of 0:00:06.920 --> 0:00:10.320 dandelion heads, you probably don't think very highly of dandelions. 0:00:10.640 --> 0:00:13.119 There are weeds, after all, but what is a weed 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:16.400 other than an unloved plant? You know, you might have 0:00:16.440 --> 0:00:19.319 a different opinion of these teeth of the lions after 0:00:19.360 --> 0:00:22.119 hearing this episode, and come to think of it, I 0:00:22.120 --> 0:00:25.040 feel like we're really laying a bridge of understanding between 0:00:25.120 --> 0:00:31.040 humans and our garden pest with this playlist, so gratifying cool. 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:45.960 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:49.360 --> 0:00:51.800 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's 0:00:51.840 --> 0:00:55.800 Puffball Chuck, and there's Blowball Jerry, and I like to 0:00:55.800 --> 0:00:58.920 call me Month's head. And this is stuff you should do. 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:02.800 Did you get those references? 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:05.520 Uh? Sure? 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:08.680 Okay, Well we should probably explain them to everybody else 0:01:08.720 --> 0:01:10.880 because they probably think it's an in joke. But it's 0:01:10.920 --> 0:01:13.559 not at all. Number one, because we're about to share 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:16.520 it with you. Number two, it's not really a joke. 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:21.120 And number three, those are alternate names for dandelions. 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:25.080 That's right, And we're going to be exalting the dandelion 0:01:25.560 --> 0:01:28.479 probably say a lot of times how great we think 0:01:28.520 --> 0:01:28.800 it is. 0:01:29.280 --> 0:01:31.640 Yeah, sorry if you hate dandelions. 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:35.640 Yeah, how it's unfairly maligned. And we want to thank 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:39.080 Sarah Andrews from Idaho because Sarah is a listener who's 0:01:39.040 --> 0:01:39.759 senting this in. 0:01:40.200 --> 0:01:44.160 Nice, very nice. Thanks a lot, Sarah. Every time I 0:01:44.200 --> 0:01:46.720 hear Idaho, I'm reminded of that silly T shirt that 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:51.600 said Idaho Daho. Do you remember that one? 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:53.200 I never saw that one. 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:55.160 What was that one? There was a company called like 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.520 Dangerous T Shirts or something like that, and they had, like, man, 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:01.120 they were killing it with the crazy T shirts for 0:02:01.160 --> 0:02:03.560 a while in like the early two thousands. 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:07.000 Was that like instead of Saint coch let's say, you know, 0:02:07.240 --> 0:02:09.200 poke or cocaine. 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:11.440 Yeah, that kind of thing. 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:16.000 Yeah, kind of sometimes more original than that, but yeah, 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:18.519 they were coveted for a little bit among people who 0:02:18.560 --> 0:02:20.000 liked incubus and stuff like that. 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:25.320 I couldn't name an incu of a song, so that's 0:02:25.360 --> 0:02:25.640 not me. 0:02:26.680 --> 0:02:28.920 Okay, So let's get back to dandelions. I don't know 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:31.920 how we ever get off track. It's kind of strange, 0:02:31.960 --> 0:02:34.840 but it happens from time to time, and it just happened, chuck. 0:02:34.880 --> 0:02:37.480 So let's stop it from happening right now. 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:41.840 Right because dandelions, as you will see, have had a long, 0:02:42.200 --> 0:02:45.720 rich history that we're going to talk about in depth 0:02:46.040 --> 0:02:50.440 as a medicinal plant, as an edible plant, as a 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:56.160 wonderful pollinator, and it was recast as a villains, as 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:59.280 a weed to get rid of. But you need only 0:02:59.280 --> 0:03:01.239 look at the history of the dandelion, the fact that 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:05.079 it was brought to North America by colonists to kind 0:03:05.080 --> 0:03:09.920 of underscore the fact that we wanted the dandelion here. 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:13.120 Right, And it's important to say that they brought it 0:03:13.160 --> 0:03:15.480 here on purpose. I saw somebody point out like this, 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:18.360 it wasn't it didn't hit your ride. It was like 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:22.360 purposely brought here. And the idea that dandelions suck is 0:03:22.400 --> 0:03:28.560 a really recent development, especially compared to how long people 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:32.840 valued and prized dandelions. I just find that fascinating. 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:33.960 For sure. 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:38.360 This thing is about thirty million years old, native and 0:03:39.120 --> 0:03:44.200 sort of Atlantic Europe all the way to Siberia and 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:47.840 in the northern Hemisphere. You're gonna know a dandelion because 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:50.600 between March and October you're going to see these beautiful 0:03:50.640 --> 0:03:54.880 yellow flowers. You'll see some what's called a rosette, which 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:58.720 are these very short level ground stems that grow in 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:03.080 a circular pattern, and then these little slender, green, hollow stalks, 0:04:03.680 --> 0:04:07.080 you know, two to twenty inches, but usually at least 0:04:07.120 --> 0:04:10.880 around here the dandelions are i don't know, like eight inches. 0:04:11.640 --> 0:04:14.640 Yeah, that seems about right. That's my experience as well. 0:04:15.160 --> 0:04:15.880 Yeah. 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:18.720 So one of the other really impressive things about the 0:04:18.800 --> 0:04:21.279 dandelion is if you look really closely at the flower, 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:26.160 each individual pedal has a little what becomes the part 0:04:26.200 --> 0:04:31.760 of the puffball. When the flower seeds, it already is attached, 0:04:31.760 --> 0:04:34.040 and that thing is called the papas and at the 0:04:34.080 --> 0:04:37.120 bottom of the papist is the seed, and the papos 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:42.240 itself is like this like parachute essentially that keeps the 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:48.760 seed aloft. And research into I saw pepeye, but I 0:04:48.880 --> 0:04:51.279 like paposes as the plural. 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:53.320 Oh, I love peppy. 0:04:54.000 --> 0:04:59.039 So it's found that they're actually phenomenal at keeping the 0:04:59.080 --> 0:05:02.839 seeds aloft. They create a kind of vortex that, until 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:09.320 it was seen when they started testing pappy was thought 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:10.160 to be impossible. 0:05:11.240 --> 0:05:11.600 Yeah. 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:14.880 And that vortex not only makes it, you know, travel 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:17.520 up and out and away in such a way that 0:05:17.560 --> 0:05:19.560 if it was shaped any differently, it wouldn't do that. 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:22.000 But if that little thing lands on water, that same 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:24.480 vortex is going to form a little air bubble around 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:25.200 it and protect it. 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:30.480 Yeah. One of my prize possessions is this dandelion puffball 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:33.559 in caseed in resin, and it's like the real deal. 0:05:34.000 --> 0:05:36.160 And I've never understood how it worked, but it turns 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:38.640 out that if you actually take a dandelion puffball and 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:41.919 actually not just put water in it, but submerge it 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:46.400 in water, the puffball does not It doesn't collapse. Isn't 0:05:46.440 --> 0:05:46.960 that nuts? 0:05:47.440 --> 0:05:48.039 It's amazing. 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:50.480 I think so too. So that's just one of the 0:05:50.480 --> 0:05:54.080 many amazing things we're going to reveal today on stuff 0:05:54.120 --> 0:05:54.599 you should know? 0:05:57.520 --> 0:05:58.919 Did I wander into the wrong show? 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:02.880 Well, we should tell everybody it's ten am, and we 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:06.400 usually refer one. So I'm a much different person at 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:07.120 ten am. 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:12.240 You're a news anchor, apparently, So I mentioned yellow. They're 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:14.640 not always yellow. They can be orange, they can be white, 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:18.360 they can be kind of purply peach. They open in 0:06:18.400 --> 0:06:21.640 the morning and close in the evening, which has given 0:06:21.680 --> 0:06:24.520 them the name the Shepherd's Clock, and they do that 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:27.800 to preserve pollen and keep that pollen safe for the 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:30.440 next day, which also makes it and this is one 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:33.400 of my favorite words at photo nasty. 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:35.279 Oh that's a great word. 0:06:36.040 --> 0:06:40.120 Yeah, plants open and close with the setting and rising 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:42.360 of the sun. Yeah, felt photo nasty. 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:46.200 I saw like a time lapse. I actually was in 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.839 a video. It's just a series of photos of the 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:52.880 dandelion flower opening and closing over the course of the day. 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:56.240 I found I ran across a word from researching this 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:59.919 that I'd never heard before that I absolutely love dandelion, 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:03.039 Like you said, are edible. They're used in cooking their 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:07.440 culinary plant, which makes them a potter herb. One word, 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:11.360 a potterb. Isn't that awesome? What a great homey little 0:07:12.080 --> 0:07:15.119 like I just imagine, you know, hobbits using that word. 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:18.000 Yeah, hobbits. And my wife, Oh does. 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:19.600 She call it potterbs? You've heard that before? 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:22.920 Oh yeah, yeah, she's I mean that's older. We're talking 0:07:22.920 --> 0:07:25.360 about dandelions today, and she was just like, oh, are 0:07:25.400 --> 0:07:26.240 you going to talk about this? 0:07:26.240 --> 0:07:27.680 This, this, this, this, this all right? 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:29.520 She's like, oh, the famous potter. 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:32.320 It's also another kind of clock, you know. 0:07:32.320 --> 0:07:34.480 I already mentioned the shepherd's clock because of opening and 0:07:34.480 --> 0:07:38.240 closing it at the sunrise and sunset. But those little 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:41.480 seed heads. They're called dandelion clocks, and that is from 0:07:41.520 --> 0:07:44.080 the old uh you know, you make a wish when 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:47.120 you blow the dandelion and you scatter those seeds as 0:07:47.120 --> 0:07:50.840 sort of a long rich childhood tradition. But apparently the 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:53.680 number of puffs it takes to empty that thing is 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:56.640 what time it is, so it can I haven't tested 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:00.840 this out. I don't know this is rock solid signs, but. 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:03.960 That's a sort of a thing that's pretty neat. 0:08:04.280 --> 0:08:05.360 Yeah. 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:09.680 And one other thing about those paposes and the seeds 0:08:09.680 --> 0:08:13.880 that are attached to them, there's a longstanding, I guess, 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:18.240 kind of urban legend or maybe rural legend that they 0:08:18.280 --> 0:08:22.360 can travel up to one hundred kilometers sixty two miles, 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:25.240 and that does not seem to be the case, even 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:29.320 though you'll see that stat absolutely everywhere, including some legitimate places. 0:08:29.320 --> 0:08:33.920 But Kyle helped us with this, our British buddy, and 0:08:34.240 --> 0:08:36.680 he found that a two thousand and three study, which 0:08:36.679 --> 0:08:39.520 is the most recent you can find on this, is 0:08:39.559 --> 0:08:43.920 that just one in seven thousand papases travels more than 0:08:44.280 --> 0:08:47.679 one kilometer. So just leave one hundred kilometers out of 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:48.480 the whole equation. 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:52.000 Yeah, And Kyle told us that because he's from England. 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:56.760 But for our North American listeners, we're talking three hundred 0:08:56.760 --> 0:08:58.880 and twenty something feet if it's one hundred kilometers in 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:01.440 about three and a half feet for a meter. 0:09:02.120 --> 0:09:04.720 Yeah, and apparently ninety nine and a half percent of 0:09:04.760 --> 0:09:09.480 all papists land just within thirty feet of the parent plant, 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:13.280 which is also ten meters. So yes, if you ever 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:16.000 hear that a papist contain travel one hundred kilometers, you 0:09:16.000 --> 0:09:18.520 can be like, that's wrong. What you just said is wrong. 0:09:19.679 --> 0:09:22.560 I think like one did, and they framed that. Maybe 0:09:22.559 --> 0:09:23.760 that's the one you have in amber. 0:09:23.880 --> 0:09:26.120 Yeah, it's like that first dollar bill you make as 0:09:26.160 --> 0:09:27.920 a business, you put it into amber. 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:29.600 Yeah. 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:33.400 There's also a cool adaptation where after they flower, that 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:36.480 little hollow stalk that the flower sits upon goes limp 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:39.440 on the ground and is just sort of hiding there 0:09:39.559 --> 0:09:42.920 away from birds and stuff, And when they ripen up, 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:45.360 they jump back up again and they're like, here we are. 0:09:45.520 --> 0:09:47.800 That's pretty cool. I think so too. Do you want 0:09:47.840 --> 0:09:50.280 to take a break and come back and talk about 0:09:50.280 --> 0:10:16.319 where they got their name? Let's do it, so, Chuck Dandelion. 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:18.920 I've never stopped and considered why it was called that, 0:10:19.880 --> 0:10:22.440 But it turns out that whole that lion at the 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:25.720 end is actually a giveaway for where the name came from. 0:10:26.400 --> 0:10:30.840 It's French for lion's tooth, dent de leon pretty neat. 0:10:30.880 --> 0:10:31.240 I love that. 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:33.400 The reason they call it that is it's a reference 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:38.120 to the deeply serrated jagged leaves. I guess somebody was like, 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:41.200 that looks like a lion's tooth, and they lived in France, 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:43.040 and that's where they got the name dandelion. 0:10:43.960 --> 0:10:44.200 Yeah. 0:10:44.240 --> 0:10:47.320 And it's also if you look at the botanical name, 0:10:47.360 --> 0:10:49.160 it really gives a good indication of what it was 0:10:49.160 --> 0:10:53.640 being used for back then. The genus name is Taraxicum, 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:56.400 and there are a couple of explanations here. I kind 0:10:56.400 --> 0:10:59.200 of like the second one. The first one is a 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:03.559 Greek word for disorder, which is a taxia, but it's 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:07.040 also could have come from Arabic for bitter herb, which 0:11:07.080 --> 0:11:11.880 is terraq chagogue. And then when you combine bitter herb 0:11:12.120 --> 0:11:15.640 with the species name, which is how'd you say that, 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:21.240 I don't know? Aficionelle. That is a word for monastery 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:24.880 store room. So a bitter herb in a monastery storeroom 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:29.000 basically is telling you, hey, we use this plant in 0:11:29.040 --> 0:11:30.520 a very productive way. 0:11:30.600 --> 0:11:33.839 Yeah, The whole disorder thing is totally insensible if you 0:11:33.880 --> 0:11:34.280 ask me. 0:11:34.920 --> 0:11:35.720 Yeah, I agree. 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:38.840 So one of the other great things so humans use 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:41.400 dandelions is we'll see in a lot of different ways 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:45.439 and have for a very long time. But our animal 0:11:45.440 --> 0:11:50.439 friends love dandelions too. Those flowers, even though they look 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.080 kind of flimsy if you think about it, they're rich 0:11:53.120 --> 0:11:56.679 in nectar packed with it. So bees, butterflies, basically any 0:11:56.760 --> 0:12:00.880 kind of pollinators love dandelions. Like you said, the reason 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:04.880 the stalk falls to the ground after flowering and as 0:12:04.880 --> 0:12:09.320 the seedheads are developing, that's because birds love the little 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:12.840 dandelion seeds. And one of the other things that's important 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:19.920 about them too is they they basically flower and seed 0:12:20.360 --> 0:12:23.880 almost around the like the whole year, depending on where 0:12:23.920 --> 0:12:27.199 you live. So at times where there's not a lot 0:12:27.320 --> 0:12:31.960 of food sources for birds and pollinators, the dandelions there 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:34.680 to kind of keep them going through the same you know, 0:12:35.040 --> 0:12:36.640 late fall. 0:12:37.760 --> 0:12:37.960 Yeah. 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:40.240 Yeah, and I think it's one of the first guys 0:12:40.280 --> 0:12:41.320 to get going in the spring. 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:41.839 Too, right, I believe. 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:42.000 So. 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:45.600 Yeah, So we're going to get more in detail about 0:12:45.640 --> 0:12:49.960 you know, how it's been eaten. But well, actually, let's 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:52.160 let's save all that. Let's just let's just tease it 0:12:52.160 --> 0:12:54.800 then and say it has long been eaten, is now 0:12:54.840 --> 0:12:59.840 being eaten again due to the sort of foraging movement 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:01.320 happening in the culinary world. 0:13:01.440 --> 0:13:02.080 It's a great time. 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:05.320 I think that kind of kicked off in COVID when 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:06.920 people are like, well, it can't go to the store. 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:08.600 What can I eat that's in my backyard. 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:11.160 I'll try dandelions. I've always wondered what it tastes like. 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:12.600 Bitter? 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:17.360 So yeah, nice. So I think we said probably a 0:13:17.360 --> 0:13:19.920 couple of times that people have been using dandelions for 0:13:19.960 --> 0:13:22.920 all sorts of reasons, not just as potterbs, for a 0:13:22.960 --> 0:13:27.400 long time. One of the earlier mentions we can find 0:13:27.559 --> 0:13:30.880 was in the Arabic world. A couple of physicians named 0:13:31.200 --> 0:13:34.960 Rozi's and Avicenna both wrote about some of the properties 0:13:34.960 --> 0:13:39.000 of dandelions and dandelion roots back in the tenth and 0:13:39.040 --> 0:13:44.480 eleventh centuries, and most of what they were talking about 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:48.959 was its use as a diuretic and medicinally speaking, that's 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:53.480 probably the most famous property that dandelions have, as they 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:55.640 make you pee. And in fact, there's a couple of 0:13:55.800 --> 0:13:58.160 names that refer to that, depending on where you are. 0:13:58.840 --> 0:14:01.120 For dandelions, that were to the fact that they make 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:01.920 you pee, right. 0:14:02.280 --> 0:14:02.880 Yeah, that's right. 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:05.880 In France they're called the apparently more than they're called 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:09.480 the dentte leone, they're called the pisson lit, which means 0:14:09.559 --> 0:14:12.480 you know, pepe in the night, and a folk name 0:14:12.520 --> 0:14:13.680 in England. 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:16.160 Is a pissipad for the same reason. 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:20.120 Yeah, and you know, apparently it's it's all the potassium 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:23.440 in there that's going to stimulate your nation. And you know, 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:26.600 because of that, diuretics are used for a lot of things, 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:31.440 and you know, medicinally now and historically, if you want 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:33.640 to work something through your system and pee it out, 0:14:33.720 --> 0:14:35.880 dandelions is a good way to make that happen. 0:14:36.160 --> 0:14:39.760 Yeah, and very famously in the American Midwest they're called 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:44.680 peepee weeds. Oh that's that's totally made up. 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:47.480 I should say, Oh, that's not true either. 0:14:47.560 --> 0:14:48.600 No, I just made it up. 0:14:49.400 --> 0:14:49.680 Okay. 0:14:49.720 --> 0:14:52.560 I got you. I got you back for the what 0:14:52.640 --> 0:14:56.400 was the lateral gene transfer gospel group that you got 0:14:56.440 --> 0:14:56.760 me with? 0:14:57.560 --> 0:14:59.680 Oh geez, I don't even remember now it was that. 0:15:01.040 --> 0:15:02.160 But I've only gotten you once. 0:15:02.200 --> 0:15:07.280 The score is Josh three thousand one. Oh man, there 0:15:07.320 --> 0:15:09.160 was a sixteenth century book too. What was the name 0:15:09.160 --> 0:15:09.600 of that one? 0:15:10.440 --> 0:15:13.320 People call it Garden of Health because the full title 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:18.320 of it is containing the sundry, rare and hidden virtues 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:21.960 of all kinds of simples and plants, together with the 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:24.640 manner of how they are used and applied in medicine 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:28.720 for the health of man's body against diverse diseases and 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:33.120 infirmities most common against men, gathered by the long experience 0:15:33.120 --> 0:15:37.160 and industry of William Langham, practitioner of physic That's the 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:39.840 actual title of that book, which is why there's like, yeah, 0:15:39.880 --> 0:15:41.360 we're just going to call it Garden of Health. 0:15:41.920 --> 0:15:43.880 I mean, Garden of Health really says what that says. 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:46.000 I know, he didn't need all that extra stuff. That's 0:15:46.000 --> 0:15:48.640 like the introduction. I think he put the introduction in 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:49.200 the title. 0:15:49.920 --> 0:15:51.520 Yeah, that was a little did it say? The end? 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:53.440 At the end pretty much. 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:56.880 This is from, like I said, the sixteenth century, and 0:15:56.920 --> 0:16:00.440 it talked a lot about, you know, all the kinds 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:02.800 of things they thought it could help back then, toothache, 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:07.200 fever's depression, even baldness. But they also talked about growing 0:16:07.280 --> 0:16:10.880 it alongside other vegetables. And herbs in the garden, and 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:14.200 you duck up this kind of cool fact. It's ethylene 0:16:14.240 --> 0:16:16.800 gas that they released. So if you actually grow dandelions 0:16:16.840 --> 0:16:20.280 or have dandelions growing near fruiting plants like tomatoes, they're 0:16:20.280 --> 0:16:21.160 going to ripen faster. 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.400 Yeah, and that neat super cool. Yeah, we're going to 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:28.720 cover a lot of actually pretty cool little benefits I 0:16:28.720 --> 0:16:31.280 guess that they provide. But let's keep going with the 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:36.280 tradition of using them medicinally, shall we. Sure there's a 0:16:36.320 --> 0:16:38.320 guy named John Girard who wrote a book in the 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:41.040 sixteen thirties and he's like, hey, I want to contribute 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:45.560 to this too. I've found that dandelion strengthens the weak stomach, 0:16:46.280 --> 0:16:49.600 and which is important because actually, if you use the 0:16:49.680 --> 0:16:54.320 roots of a dandelion, it contains a lot of inulin, 0:16:54.440 --> 0:16:57.840 which is an important prebiotic for gut health. So John 0:16:57.840 --> 0:17:00.400 Girard wasn't just whistling dixie. 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:01.640 No, not at all. 0:17:01.960 --> 0:17:04.200 It turns out they have more vitamin A than spinach, 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:08.439 more vitamin C than tomatoes. They've got a ton we 0:17:08.480 --> 0:17:11.240 already mentioned potassium, but also a lot of calcium, a 0:17:11.280 --> 0:17:15.000 lot of iron, and then a lot of words that 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:18.560 I can barely pronounce that you found that it's packed 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:21.520 with starting with flavonoids, that's the only one I had 0:17:21.520 --> 0:17:21.879 heard of. 0:17:23.040 --> 0:17:29.440 Has triterpenes, sesquiterpenes, phenolic acid, sterols, and cumerants, and they 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:35.720 bestow things like antibacterial, antioxidant, anti inflammatory, hepadoprotective, and anti 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:38.680 tumor properties. And you dug up a lot of ways 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:40.200 that they actually help health. 0:17:40.280 --> 0:17:42.760 Right, Yeah, So, I mean we can talk all day 0:17:42.760 --> 0:17:45.000 about like the ways that people thought it would help 0:17:45.080 --> 0:17:48.680 you back in the sixteenth century, but people might poo 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:51.720 poo something like that, But there have been modern studies. 0:17:52.359 --> 0:17:54.879 I'll just give you a few examples. There was a 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:58.879 study from twenty fifteen in Canada that reported that dandelion 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:03.760 extract can block ultraviolet UVB radiations crazy when applied to 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:07.520 the skin, it can also irritate the skin. So don't 0:18:07.520 --> 0:18:10.480 necessarily just like take dandelions and like start rubbing them 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:13.680 all over yourself at the pool. There was a twenty 0:18:13.720 --> 0:18:17.679 sixteen review of studies from a university in Denmark that 0:18:17.760 --> 0:18:22.640 suggests that dandelion extracts actually stimulates pancreatic cells to produce insulin, 0:18:23.400 --> 0:18:28.280 so it could potentially help control blood sugar, right, and what. 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:30.159 About there was one on the liver too, right. 0:18:30.640 --> 0:18:33.119 Yeah, I said it was Hepato protective, which means it 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:35.840 helps the liver. And actually it goes in and like 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:40.679 just kicks butt in your liver. It slows the progression 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:44.000 of fibrosis, which is scarring of the liver, and the 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:49.040 extract actually inactivates the cells that cause fibrosis in the 0:18:49.080 --> 0:18:52.720 liver and essentially your liver, as everybody knows, it can 0:18:52.920 --> 0:18:56.760 regenerate itself. Once the dandelion extract has gone in and 0:18:56.760 --> 0:19:00.719 stopped the fibrosis, the liver can heal. So it's incredibly 0:19:00.760 --> 0:19:04.920 helpful with protecting the liver from damage. I mean, that's nuts. 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:07.119 It's almost like it was designed to do that for 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:09.240 the liver. It's that effective. 0:19:10.240 --> 0:19:12.040 I do want to mention the cancer one because Emily 0:19:12.040 --> 0:19:15.359 had a very funny, very Emily line. There was a 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:19.680 twenty twenty man, why do I do that lately? Twelve? 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:23.040 I did that. I did that a lot. Yeah, what 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:23.680 is happening? 0:19:23.720 --> 0:19:24.159 I don't know. 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:27.480 It's a study from the University of Windsor in Canada 0:19:27.560 --> 0:19:34.360 about dandelion root extract can induce apoptosis, which is cell death. 0:19:34.359 --> 0:19:38.200 And pancreatic and prostate cancer and test tube and their 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:42.280 cells in the test tubes potentially preventing their spread. So 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:45.960 this is something Emily new and this morning she was like, yeah, 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:51.080 it's so like modern American at the very least, to 0:19:51.680 --> 0:19:54.280 take something that could actually help fight cancer and sprayue 0:19:54.320 --> 0:19:56.840 chemicals on it to kill it it cause cancer. 0:19:57.440 --> 0:19:58.800 Yeah, and she stormed out of the room. 0:19:58.920 --> 0:20:00.680 Sometimes we have to learn the hard way, but it 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:04.080 is reassuring that things seem to be coming full circle, 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:04.680 you know what I mean. 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:07.480 Yeah, I feel like people are getting a little more 0:20:08.160 --> 0:20:09.360 eyes open to stuff like that. 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:13.320 Yeah, they're getting on board the dandelion train. So one 0:20:13.359 --> 0:20:17.480 thing about those studies that you said, like, they're essentially 0:20:17.560 --> 0:20:22.840 confirming to our modern tastes what the Chinese knew all 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:26.959 the way back in six point fifty nine CE, people 0:20:27.000 --> 0:20:29.880 like Nicholas Culpepper knew in the eighteenth century. All these 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:34.199 people wrote about this stuff and just how effective it was. 0:20:34.240 --> 0:20:36.480 And then now science is going in and saying these 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:40.119 people were right, and here's how it is effective. I 0:20:40.160 --> 0:20:43.160 think that's pretty cool. And in part because of that, 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:47.080 the dandelion is being rehabilitated. But first I think we 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:50.600 need to mention you said that it came by North America. 0:20:50.920 --> 0:20:53.640 I piped up on purpose, I think more than once, 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:56.520 even I was so excited about that. And it's possible 0:20:56.560 --> 0:20:59.399 it was actually on the Mayflower. It arrived that early. 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:02.439 And they think that because of plant migration, as we 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:06.560 talked about before, the dandelion may have spread ahead of 0:21:06.720 --> 0:21:11.320 Europeans as they entered further and further into the North 0:21:11.359 --> 0:21:15.400 American continent, and so Native Americans that they encountered may 0:21:15.440 --> 0:21:18.600 have already been using dandelions in some of their medicines. 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:23.240 Oh yeah, absolutely. They were drinking it in tonics. They 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:27.920 were boiling it with fatty meats, which it sounds disgusting. 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:31.679 It does it really, unless you're talking about something like 0:21:31.840 --> 0:21:35.639 collards with like hamhocks or something that sounds okay. But 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:39.840 in this case, I imagine a pot of boiling water with 0:21:40.080 --> 0:21:42.439 a skin of fat just bubbling at the top and 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:44.720 some dandelion leaves floating around in it. 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:48.320 And we'll talk about you know, more ways you can 0:21:48.359 --> 0:21:50.640 eat it, but it's long been used in like cordials 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:54.199 and beers, like the dandelion root. You can you know, 0:21:54.240 --> 0:21:56.520