Infuse Yourself With Liquid Nourishment
“Nettle Dreams” © D. Yael Bernhard
Like many people, I have a morning ritual. As soon as I wake up, I stretch a little, then walk in bare feet into my kitchen. There I open the glass canning jar sitting on my kitchen counter, and strain out the liquid that’s been steeping overnight. This goes into my fridge, where it will keep for up to two days – but first I measure out a mug full, then heat this up in a small pot, which takes just a few minutes. During that time I go outside or stand by my window and look at the eastern sky, allowing the morning light to flood my eyes and stimulate my pineal glands. Then I sit down to taste my morning brew, and start my day with the best liquid nourishment that money can’t buy – not one, but five different herbal beverages, which I rotate on a regular basis: nettles leaf, red clover blossoms, oat straw (the green parts of the oat plant), comfrey leaf, and linden flowers. These are nourishing herbal infusions – rich, deeply satisfying, and loaded with freshly-extracted, highly-absorbable nutrients. My morning brew has less than ten calories, yet sustains me for the next few hours so that I can delay my breakfast and enjoy the benefits of intermittent fasting.1 I drink my brew plain, the better to taste the subtle flavors of these wonderful plants. Later in the day, I often drink another cup or two cold. It’s completely non-toxic, received by the body as liquid nourishment.
Each nourishing infusion begins with a simple ritual the night before. First I put water up to boil in my tea kettle. While the water is heating, I measure an ounce of dried plant material on a small digital scale, and put the herbs in a quart-size canning jar. I fill the jar with boiled water, stir with a wooden spoon, top off the liquid, cover the jar, and leave the brew to steep overnight. In the morning, my nourishing infusion is ready to be strained. It’s that easy. You can find instructions and a video demonstration of how to make nourishing infusions here, and videos for individual herbs here.
Most people start their day with coffee or black or green tea – available in a wide variety of flavors these days, often including additives such as mushroom powders, artificial sweeteners, or added flavors such as hazelnut or caramel, of questionable origins. Coffee and tea do have some healthy components such as antioxidants and flavonoids – but these are all readily available from numerous fruits and veggies. Why not start your day with a more nourishing beverage? With nourishing infusions, you have complete control over what goes into your morning brew – no additives, and no down side.
I’ve been drinking nourishing infusions for forty years, ever since I met herbalist Susun Weed at a workshop in upstate New York. Since then, I’ve illustrated two of Susun’s books on herbal medicine and created the banner image for three of her conferences. I’m deeply grateful for the enrichment that these herbs, and Susun’s teachings, have brought into my life. My morning brews have nourished and sustained me for decades, through three pregnancies, many injuries and illnesses, and times of upheaval and stress. I believe my nutrition and underlying health have benefitted greatly from these wonderful, beneficent allies. It feels good to start each day with a beverage that’s invigorating, substantial, and satisfying.
What is an herbal infusion? Simply put, it’s a water-based extract – a very strong tea, steeped much longer and with much more plant material than a teabag. The standard proportion is 1 ounce per quart (with exceptions, such as linden, which only requires 1/2 ounce). Dehydrating the plant material first breaks down the cellulose of the plant’s cell walls, enabling the water to penetrate and extract its water-soluble components. These are often minerals, but may also include vitamins, proteins, and phytonutrients such as chlorophyll and carotenes. Unlike dehydrated plants in pill form, which are largely passed as insoluble fiber, liquid extracts are highly absorbable, as they’re in their original biochemical form – an intricate key that perfectly fits into the lock of our biologically-evolved receptors. Nature’s design is complex, with numerous cofactors that work together. Supplements and drugs, by contrast, take active ingredients out of context, isolating and concentrating them. Only a scientist can figure out how to do this; only a factory or lab can make the end product; and only money can make it available to consumers. These are commodities, not foods.
I don’t know how to produce a nettle leaf, and I can’t figure out how to duplicate its properties. Fortunately, I don’t need to – I only need to know where to find it, when to harvest it, what part of the plant to use, and how long to steep it. The plant does the rest, yielding its marvelous nutrients into hot water while I sleep. It’s free if I pick my own, costing nothing but time well spent, or just pennies per quart if I buy the plant material from an herbal supplier such as Star West Botanicals, Frontier, Red Moon, or my local health food store. For example, if you’re not fortunate enough to have a wild nettles patch near you, a pound of “cut & sifted” (finely chopped and dried) nettles leaf costs $21.04 on Frontier, enough to make 16 quarts of nettles infusion. That’s $1.31 per quart, or 33 cents per cup.
What about the morning boost that caffeinated coffee and black tea give? Nourishing herbal infusions have no caffeine. How do they compare? The answer is simple: deep nourishment fills the wellsprings of energy. I wake up naturally, drawing on my own resources to power me through the day. Instead of stimulating – and depleting – my adrenals with caffeine every day, I nourish them. Instead of acidifying my gut with coffee, which leaches vital minerals such as magnesium,2 I infuse myself with mineral-rich infusions that help my body function optimally, and alkalinize my system with herbs such as red clover. This common summer weed that grows along roadsides is a gift to pollinators and people alike. Red clover infusion offers a plethora of benefits, and is especially good for the hormonal system, the memory, the skin, and all mucous membranes, reducing inflammation and helping maintain hydration. Red clover infusion may help prevent osteoporosis, diminish headaches, relieve muscle and joint pain, and support healthy circulation to the brain.3 What amazing gifts are packed into this common, humble flower!
Golden oat straw infusion is also rich in minerals, especially bioavailable calcium; as well as amino acids (proteins). It’s soothing and toning to the endocrine and nervous systems, which is where the expression “feeling your oats” comes from. When your hormones and nerves are happy, your body is humming.4
Stinging nettles (which only stings when fresh, not with prickers but tiny droplets of formic acid on its microscopic hairs) is even more impressive, containing virtually every mineral needed for human health. Infusion of dried nettles leaves is so rich, it’s nearly black – high in chromium, cobalt, iron, phosphorus, zinc, copper, selenium, silicon, sulfur, and potassium. The only mineral that’s low in nettles is sodium. It’s also rich in vitamins D, C, and K, as well as B complex. Nettle leaves are an ally to the kidneys, the lungs, the adrenals, the bladder, and helps nourish intestines, skin, and even hair.5 You could literally live on nettles if you had to, and apparently in England during WWII, some people did.
Dark green comfrey leaf infusion is a star of healing and regeneration, offering more benefits than I can fit in a paragraph. It keeps your bones strong, your skin supple, your respiratory tract healthy, your short-term memory cells nourished. Comfrey is rich in allantoin, which helps new tissue proliferate following infection or injury.6 Comfrey leaf infusion came into my life later, during my last pregnancy – and though my midwife warned it would take longer to recover after giving birth at age 41, I sprang back from this pregnancy faster than the previous ones that took place when I was 27 and 30. I credit comfrey leaf infusion, the only thing I did differently. In fact, I felt no need to recover at all, so dramatic was the difference.
Linden flowers and leaves are a superior anti-inflammatory, with a unique and subtle flavor. Linden is a cooling, soothing, mucilaginous plant that yields a slippery, gold-colored infusion. Linden can be brewed twice, with the second infusion closer to copper color, pulling out even more healing mucilage. The same is true of comfrey leaves. Mother Earth is generous with her gifts!
Fortified by nourishing infusions, I feel little need to take supplements. I still take fish oil, vitamin D, and as I’ve aged, find I need a few others as well. Recovering from Lyme disease, I needed extra vitamin C to help rebuild collagen in the joints that were attacked by the spirochetes. But that was temporary. My baseline of nutrients is supported by nourishing herbal infusions. You can’t buy them in a store, as they’re too perishable. That’s part of the gift, for these plants are here to connect us with nature and teach us about the handmade life. There’s nothing like hand-picked, homemade nourishment.
From time to time I also make other infusions. I love my root brews, especially in autumn and winter: dandelion, burdock, and eleuthero (Siberian ginseng) are my favorites. These roots store complex polysaccharides that support my liver, kidneys, and adrenals, helping my body cope with the chemical toxins and stresses of our modern world. Roots are denser and need to steep longer (8-12 hours) than leaves (4-8 hours) in order for the hot water to penetrate. Flowers (with exceptions, such as red clover), seeds, and aromatic leaves need less time – no longer than 15-20 minutes. These are teas, not infusions. My favorite teas are rose hips, sage, chamomile, calendula, lemon balm, tulsi, and mint.
Herbal vinegars are another great source of liquid nourishment, and easy to make at home. The same plants that make nourishing infusions may be steeped in vinegar for six weeks to draw out minerals. Raw vinegar should be briefly boiled and cooled first in order to pasteurize it. Fill your glass jar with fresh plant material, then fill it again with vinegar. Apple cider vinegar is my favorite, but you can use any kind. I also use goldenrod, wild leeks (ramps), store-bought leek tops, garlic, and young springtime horsetail to make herbal vinegars. Horsetail is rich in silica, needed for strong bones – but should be used sparingly, as too much is hard on the kidneys. A little herbal vinegar sprinkled on salads is enough.
Tinctures are another liquid extract that offer up the gifts of plants and fungi in a way that is much more bioavailable than pills or powders. These are usually medicinal, however, as alcohol extracts the medicinal components of plants and fungi. Some bottled extracts do contain water-based decoctions – a reduction of liquid polysaccharides – but these complex sugars are also meant to be used for medicinal purposes.
My background in herbal medicine preceded my education in nutrition, but the two are hardly separate, for nutrition and healing are intrinsic to both food and herbs. This is especially true of the school of herbal medicine closest to my heart – what Susun Weed calls the “Wise Woman” tradition. Nourishment is the cornerstone of the Wise Woman way, which stretches back way before Christianity and industrialization divorced our ancestors from their earth-centered wisdom. Represented by a spiral, the Wise Woman tradition is about cyclic change. It’s the common people’s medicine – and food – requiring no special expertise and little money.
Illustration from Abundantly Well: Seven Medicines by Susun Weed, Ash Tree Publishing, 2019
Picking red clover involves going for a slow walk, plucking the pink ball-shaped blossoms one by one and dropping them into a basket or bag. Foraging in nature is the most peaceful and rewarding part of my day, conferring similar benefits as meditation. Gathering red clover on a recent afternoon, I also gathered my thoughts for this article. Honeybees and butterflies landed gingerly on the flowers; I couldn’t possibly pick enough to deprive them of pollen. Cardinals perched on nearly wild primrose, singing their lovely songs. Busy cars and trucks passed by, and busloads of campers on their way to the nearby summer camp. What did they think of the lady in the straw hat standing waist-high in roadside weeds? Am I an anomaly in today’s modern world?
If so, then so be it. Good nutrition and good health involve independent thinking, gathering your own food from diverse sources, and making your own meals and preparations. Many nourishing plants and fungi may be found in your own neighborhood, growing along parking lots or roadsides, in small patches of forest, or clustered along fences. One need not venture deep into the wilderness to find nature’s gifts. They’re right at your fingertips, and easy to incorporate into your life. Liquid nourishment made with your own hands provides optimal nutrition, and is another step toward strong and resilient health. Why not give it a try?
To your good health –
Yael Bernhard
Certified Integrative Health & Nutrition Coach
Special thanks to Susun Weed for her editorial input on this article.
_________
Yael Bernhard is a writer, illustrator, book designer and fine art painter with a lifelong passion for nutrition and herbal medicine. She was certified by Duke University as an Integrative Health Coach in 2021 and by Cornell University in Nutrition & Healthy Living in 2022. For information about private health coaching or nutrition programs for schools, please respond directly to this newsletter, or email dyaelbernhard@protonmail.com. Her art newsletter, “Image of the Week,” may be found here. Visit her online gallery of illustration, fine art, and children’s books here.
Information in this newsletter is provided for educational – and inspirational – purposes only.
95% of Americans are deficient in magnesium. https://chriskresser.com/magnesium-an-essential-nutrient-that-most-people-dont-get-enough-of/
Weed, Susun, New Menopausal Years The Wise Woman Way, Ash Tree Publishing, 2002, pp 161-162.
Weed, Susun, Healing Wise, Ash Tre Publishing, 1989; pp200-205.
Weed, Susun, Healing Wise, Ash Tree Publishing, 1989; pp 171-177.
http://www.susunweed.com/herbal_ezine/June08/wisewoman.htm