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A question for the eaters
Feb. 18th, 2009 04:49 pmI know many of you are fond of eating wild foods. I just got this question to my 365 urban species post on Japanese knotweed:
can you make a tea with japanese knotweed...will the liquid contain
resveratrol?...Zev Bodek
Beats me! Do you know?
EDITED to add: Resveratrol, as seen in ads alongside half of the pages I look at on the internet, appears to be the flavor of the month in herbal supplements. It has a variety of effects in laboratory animals, and may help reduce blood sugar levels in humans. I'll let you read the wikipedia page yourself. It is a chemical produced by plants in response to fungal infection. Different plants have different amounts of it, and individual plants that have been attacked by fungi contain more of it. It is found in some foods, including grapes and wine. It has been isolated from Japanese knotweed roots for use in the supplement market. I've never made tea from knotweed roots, but I bet it tastes nasty, not that taste stops people from herbal medicine. Burdock root is about the worst thing I've ever tasted and people put it in food. Some teas can be made from the leathery and woody mushrooms that grow on dead trees. Urban knotweed roots are likely to have a great many other components in them besides resveratrol, including pollutants that may be harmful if consumed. Just sayin'.
can you make a tea with japanese knotweed...will the liquid contain
resveratrol?...Zev Bodek
Beats me! Do you know?
EDITED to add: Resveratrol, as seen in ads alongside half of the pages I look at on the internet, appears to be the flavor of the month in herbal supplements. It has a variety of effects in laboratory animals, and may help reduce blood sugar levels in humans. I'll let you read the wikipedia page yourself. It is a chemical produced by plants in response to fungal infection. Different plants have different amounts of it, and individual plants that have been attacked by fungi contain more of it. It is found in some foods, including grapes and wine. It has been isolated from Japanese knotweed roots for use in the supplement market. I've never made tea from knotweed roots, but I bet it tastes nasty, not that taste stops people from herbal medicine. Burdock root is about the worst thing I've ever tasted and people put it in food. Some teas can be made from the leathery and woody mushrooms that grow on dead trees. Urban knotweed roots are likely to have a great many other components in them besides resveratrol, including pollutants that may be harmful if consumed. Just sayin'.
