I poured a LOT into this one. I really hope that you enjoyed it! If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what tree you would like to see covered next! Remember, the description contains a link to get the FULL set of winter tree profiles for all the trees covered in this video (plus more!)
What a great find. I don't know how I stumbled upon your page but I'm subscribing and looking forward to more videos such as this. Your work is appreciated and indispensable. Thank you.
I would love to see another informational video like this on Sassafras, this tree absolutely amazed me with it's history of uses and controversy. I'd love to see how you use Sassafras
I served Sassafras tea at a snack table, at a Steampunk convention. A man in his late 60's said that as a boy in Appalachia he loved Sassafras tea and would drink a gallon or more a day! So when he would have an injury or cut it took longer for the bleeding to stop. His mother had heard of 'free bleeders' (Hemophilia) and took him to the doctor. The doc knew exactly what was wrong. The sassafras tea was acting as a blood thinner. The doctor told him to cut back on the sassafras tea and the kid was just fine!
Yeah I've had odd reactions from drinking a lot of sassafras tea harvested in, let's see, North Carolina along the Appalachian trail. A little goes a long way.
Was that the Grand Canadian Steampunk Exposition, by chance? They haven't run for a few years, but my wife and I greatly enjoyed the sassafras tea they served there (on our anniversary, as it happened), and it's a lovely memory!
From my reading, an 8oz glass of Sassafras tea is no more carcinogenic than an average can of beer. My Grandpa drank it quite a bit growing up and he's 95.
As a botanist and instructor, I greatly appreciate your simple, yet thorough descriptions of tree species for winter identification. Great work on this video. I will definitely be looking at your other resources. Well done!!😊
From what I’ve learned from local herbalist in my state of Kentucky is that when you cook the black willow down to a thick paste it becomes more concentrated and thus works better on pain for the body. Also wild lettuce done the same way works as well for pain.
I asked the Lord to show me how to utilize the land I bought over 20 years ago, due to a dream I had. It has so many different types of trees, grasses and plants that I also get alot of wildlife. I was born on a farm, but raised in the city, but the Lord led me to this area, so I know provision abounds, I just need people like you that share their knowledge! Thank you.
LORD, we ask Your forgiveness for the Satanist who commented. As with Your words on the cross, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do! Thank You for giving Your life's blood to cover our sins and may we in turn help to lead others to know You. Amen ✝️
As an herbalist I love this! Now here's a weird thing, I am allergic to aspirin and all over the counter pain relievers but not to white willow bark, which I make into a tincture for pain. I like that you gave the warning, I think I might just be an exception.
Aspirin like most medications are made from petroleum. They synthesize petroleum molecules to be similar to say, white willow bark. It works similarly to the real thing but has many side effects.
@@shirleytruett7319 yes, I think that's exactly what it is. There's probably some chemical in them that I'm allergic to. I'll stick with my white willow bark.
If you're harvesting bark you can buy or make Bonsai Paste it can be either clay based or wax based but is seals the wounds and stops weeping sap that can attract bugs and animals.
I will look into that. I have a small papaya tree that got attacked by something. It looks like a bug bit into the trunk. But the tree didn't die, and I wanted to patch it up to give it chance.
No mention at all of sweet birch. I make it every winter. The tea is pink make from the one year old branches generally the diameter of toothpicks. If you like wintergreen youll love this
Awesome video with great information. A quick for you. I am a 52 year old woman and have drank warm and iced sassafras tea most of my life with no problems but the best tea is made with the root rather than the branches and you can cut and store the root for a few years prior to use with no problem. Im not saying you should go out and kill a bunch of sassafras trees but we collected it most often when placing fence rows where the tree had to be removed anyway. Small sapling roots are just as good as big.
In the early 80’s I was introduced to sassafras by a Cherokee medicine man from Oklahoma. I had an abscessed tooth and it was killing me. He told me it grew along railroad tracks and the trains helped them spread. He told me to get some fresh buds or catkins and put them directly on the tooth or gums where it was infected, grind or chew them to extract the juice. It worked within two days and the infection never returned.He didn’t mention using the roots, but I can imagine that the same medicine is in them.I read somewhere years later that sassafras’s could cause liver cancer, but that’s probably some bull or isolated case where somebody overdosed on to much. I never swallowed it anyhow… just used it like chewing tobacco and spit it out mostly.
We have a mother tree that sends out runners every year. We collect the runners that she sends up instead of damaging maturing trees. Also we have learned smaller roots are better and less waste.
My family used to dig sassafras roots and make tea from them, but only in the early spring before they budded, if I remember correctly. I guess we didn't have enough of it overall to get a meaningful dose of any carcinogens in it. Either way, it was delicious as a brief seasonal "tonic" and none of us appear to have any cancers, thank God (knock on wood, of course). The leaves, pounded and dried, are what my mother called gumbo filet; it thickens gumbo nicely. Thanks for a really interesting video; I knew about cherry bark but didn't know it paired well with sweet gum. Years of reading and listening and experimenting, and there's still SO much more to learn!
Great video! I would recommend writing Sam Thayer about Sassafras and safrole. He gave a talk on this subject at a wild foods event a few years back. Lots of interesting points were raised, particularly that safrole is not water soluble and much of it vaporizes when boiled. The flavors present in the tea are due to many complex flavor molecules. The study from the 1960s usually cited involved chemically isolated safrole, not whole sassafras. Thanks again!
Came here to say exactly this! Safrole is the extracted compound, given at high dosages to mice, showed it as a WEAK carcinogen. "Toxicological studies have shown that safrole is a weak hepatocarcinogen at higher doses in rats and mice. Safrole requires metabolic activation before exhibiting toxicological effects." Wikipedia itself says this. Another case of FDA fear mongering to ban perfectly healthy medicinal plants, same game different plant.
@@bobbader4789we use it in the spring to thin the blood after a long winter of heavy foods. My wifes deceased father spoke of his elders drinking it and never having to take blood thinners. There are many great books, books not the Internet, on plant medicine.
I literally stumbled across your video today. Really brought back some great memories for me. My father was from the south. He used to make sassafras tea twice a year. I loved the taste of it. But he didn't use the bark to make sassafras tea. He used these little roots. And I remember he used to get these roots in a brown paper bag each time we visited down south. Alot of people where he grew up dig up little feeder roots and use them to make the tea. We are talking smaller than a number 2 pencil, about 1/8" diameter. My father lived to be 87 years old, no cancer. He got a cold that turned into pneumonia. I have not tasted sassafras tea in over 15 years. One other thing that comes to mind on the trips was old fashioned sassafras hard rock candy. I loved it as a kid. Thanks for this video. Very informative and I subscribed. Keep up the great work.
Mmmmm....you take me back. Grandma made sassafras soda, didn't seem to hurt us none. And she used roots. And I forgot all about the hard candy till you just mentioned it.
@@charlesartificer2158 I keep my eye peeled for a tree in my neck of the woods, haven't seen those mitten shaped leaves yet, but when I do, I'm gonna do for my granddaughter what my grandma did for me.
if i remember correctly Alexis Nikole Nelson (BlackForager on socials) made a video on a fermented pine drink, I wonder if those uses of pine have similar medicinal properties
This is very exciting. I have black cherry trees and will go forage. The combo of cyanide and benzaldehyde is said to kill cancer cells. The world without cancer video by Edward Griffin talks about how it works. The drug laetril /amygdalin was that combo. It’s also why apricot seeds are said to be so so helpful in cancer treatment which means I won’t have to keep buying apricot seeds, I can just harvest the bark from the black cherry tree. 🙌
Make sure it is living wood you are harvesting from. Never harvest bark from a dead cherry. The toxins are concentrated in the dead wood. Using small twigs or branches is best for the tree.
Safrole also has another use as a precursor which has resulted in it being classified as a controlled chemical that is basically illegal to own as a purified substance.
When you said slippery elm was common in your area you got my attention. You see, I have studied up on its’ priority uses, and especially as an an additive to pemmican for taste and long term preservation. Centuries old pemmican has been discovered in Native American food caches. The recipe was adopted by early trappers and settlers and its popularity was so great, that many trees were destroyed by incorrect bark harvesting and thus became rare in some areas in a short time. Many other trees were poached by herb gatherers in the 70’s onward and it is now difficult to find true slippery elm bark from vendors. It was patented at one time by a pharmaceutical company as a preservative for medicinal ointments. I almost gave up on my search for it until I saw your video. I live in the southwest and it doesn’t grow here at all.I don’t usually comment about videos,let alone elaborate to this extent, but I’m dead serious about my enthusiasm for this tree and I’m hoping to collaborate with you in a renewed attempt to obtain some bark strips. I don’t need a lot. The ratio of strained,powdered bark is very small when added to the rendered fat used to make pemmican,and your harvesting method is what native tribes used to keep the trees alive. Anyhoo, I have subscribed and hopefully you can help me out now that I have explained. I am willing to pay well for your efforts in this regard and provide further info about the exact process of making pemmican, and the correct ingredients in the production. I hope to hear back soon while the subject is still hot.Thank you sir.. I hope I haven’t over-extended myself, but hey…
Great video with a ton of information. In my AO locals like to use sassafras root, especially the young saplings that pop up. Again thanks for this video.
Great video. One thing you might consider is that people with red hair react differently to medicine than non red haired people. Over the year of having medical procedures, I have had allergic reactions. I have had doctors ask me repeatedly if I had red hair. No I do not have red hair but loads of it in the family. I noticed you have red facial hair. Anyway, because I have had so many allergic reactions I have been very nervous about reacting to new plant materials. I am getting braver as I get older. I used to demonstrate birch twigs used as a tooth brush, called the “TOOTH BRUSH TREE” by my family. I had a reaction that surprised me. My gums pulled away from my teeth. After researching the plant more, I learned that there is a compound similar to aspirin in Birch. I am allergic to aspirin. Anyway. I appreciate your videos and the research you put into to it.
It's awesome what you're doing and it's not about perfection but if you're trying to get medicine out of bark or root (hard material) you need to cook low and slow for 1 - 2 hrs minimum. Add more water. Fill the pan then bring to a boil and simmer for a very long time. The material needs time to release the medicine.
This is the first video of yours I watched after YT randomly recommended your community post to me. Your presentation, easy explanations and comprehensive coverage of identification are really lovely and great to follow. Will definitely watch more, though just wish I could follow on more than just the black cherry as I don't have these trees in my country!
Not sure where you are from, but for many of these they have cousins in other parts of the world that can be used in similar ways (other willow species, Siberian Elm, etc). I'm so happy to hear you like the presentation. :D
No books from me! For the foreseeable future I'll be sharing my knowledge through videos. I do have PDFs like what was shown in the video available on my Patreon, and I write articles on my website if you are interested in written material!
Trees can also be very filling. Both the Finns and the Swedes ate trees during famines (though the nutritional tree flour from phloem was usually mixed with other flour).
Every piece of military equipment had a purpose. Even the necklace can be used to keep track of the months days and time for a POW situation. There’s 31 beads on the short tag 365 beads in the long tag. Just as every plant on earth has a purpose. This is amazing.
I loved touring the these lovely bookstore with you, Morgan! I’ve added the book recommendations to my wishlist so that we can explore them together! 🩵
You’re a great person for this man. Thank you so much this will make it a lot easier than snapping of twigs to come home and dig through books to identify. Love, peace & chicken grease from coastal Virginia!
So stoked I’ve found your channel! My 8yr old daughter and I are learning to identify different trees together, this channel is perfect! We’re in rural WV and have been looking for paw paws
__ Siberian elm makes tea, too? Excellent. I was doing Wim Hoff breathing here in Niagara fruit region five days ago, an unusually warm Christmas I guess, and a Siberian was dripping on me like it was March or something. I kept licking it off my clothes. Sweet, I think. It probably knows that the neighbors want to cut it down. Maybe it was trying to contact me. Me sitting barefoot for several minutes with no air in my lungs, one foot in a bucket of pee, and licking my clothes probably did nothing to reassure my neighbors. But I do wave in a friendly manner. I really have to pay attention to this video, as this is essential info. By the way, I've been harvesting lots of delicious rose hips today, last day of 2023, just to put me into temporal and geographical perspective.
Sasafrass trees are great! Fun fact: In addition to the bark, the leaves are dried and pounded into filé powder, which is vital for great Creole cooking. The leaves also make a lovely, mild tea. Also, the plant contains small amounts of dopamine antagonist chemicals, so it could possibly help to make you happy.
How about the Birch tree? It is the source of xylitol, which is proven to inhibit strep mutans, the bacteria that makes plaque on the teeth. xylitol also helps to inhibit the growth of streps in the nasal and ear pathways.
Thank you for all that information. Wow... You did put a lot into that. A lot of research for sure. You are awesome. I will be making a lot this winter for sure. And about the willow... Thank you for explaining that we need to find the black willow and not the willow I was thinking about. Your awesome.
Very helpful video. I'm well versed on slippery elm and sweet gum. Not so familiar with the willow and sassafras as the latter is very hard to find. Great video
Also, safrole isn’t a carcinogen at levels that one would regularly consume. Safrole was vilified due to its litany of uses and its status as a precursor to several psychoactive chemicals.
Wonderful video! Thank you so much, I always love your videos, and you did great work on this one. I heard in Kent Hovind's The Bible and Health seminar that the combination of the cyanide with another compound in the seeds (aprocot seeds, etc) makes it (pretty much) harmless until it hits a cancer cell.
My grand parents grew a patch of sassafras when I was growing up. It was used occasionally, once, maybe twice a year. The used the roots more so than the bark.
I'd love to see a video from you on situations when it would be beneficial to remove trees! We are about to start working on a large property and building our homestead on it. Although I'm not oblivious to some reasons to remove trees, I also know that I don't know everything! Also I'm not an arborist! I love your videos and trust your information (because you make your sources clear and communicate really well)!
I'm actually working on a video that will touch on this subject more! My friend Kyle from @NativeHabitatProject has a great channel where he talks about this subject in great depth.
Thank you! I at least know my sweet gum and sassafras, but really need to examine the rest closer. So many look alike out here, and they're so tall I can't see the buds.
Thank you for everything you do. You really should open up a road side store. We would buy all of this from you. Even if it's just the items needed and not the end product
The pith in the branches can also be packed around a tooth that is hurting and it will stop the pain till you can see a dentist. Small branches were also used as tooth brushes.
Great video! Winter tree ID is a weakness of mine and I've been trying to find slippery elm for a while. Your video should help. Another use I've heard for slippery elm was that it helps to preserve animal fats.
This is truly a great video! So much knowledge gets lost. I have subscribed and I added this to my library playlist called interesting by others so people can find you easier! Is the inner bark called the Cambian Layer?
That's a great question! The answer is no, they're right next to each other, but they are different. If you're starting from the outside, cambium will come right after the "inner bark". Sam Thayer talks about this in his new field guide.
Just subbed, great video! I just started foraging and am very excited to learn more! As a colder climate dweller, identifying bark n buds is ideal as only about 1/4 of the year leaves are available 😂. Thank you!
That's the first time I've heard the word "mucilaginous" used to describe anything like a foodstuff, and I'm there for it! PS: The block of steel thing slew me! XD
We use the car to pull the tree out by the roots, the whole tree was used , there was 7 kids in our family plus grandparents, parents you get the idea took care of our whole family, the roots was washed and use smaller kids had to debark every root. The the older kids had to chop the root itself up into small pieces .while the rest of the family chopped the tree up never hurt none of us, , I still get my sassafras bark and roots to boil and drink all year round, chew on branches in spring and summer months , love the leave they are so good .
Great video love your work!! Sam Thayer mentions sasafrass tea would need to be consumed at 40 gallons on a regular basis to have carcinogenic effects according to their research. Give his book a read where he talks about it. I think it’s a non issue and it can be used in very low quantities to give tea a nice flavor.
what about the western strawberry tree, I heard about it having anti fungal properties which in my belief is an extremely important species to know and understand how to extract the necessary constituents. Mainly because fungal infections are extremely hard to treat and when in a grid down scenario it may save you life (if it is true being a medicinal tree).
I deeply researched sassafras as I drank it often. We harvested from Roots as a child. The carcinogenic affect comes from the oils of the inner bark. You have to have inner bark in mass quantities and then you have to put it through a still process to make an oil. The oil is the carcinogen not the roots or leaves.
I'm glad i found this. You explained winter id so well. I subscribed. That study on sassafras was flawed. Imagine using a chunk of steel instead of a feather to prove that the feather will bruise you. Thats about the same as the study of safrole. Thank you for the very educational video.
On Sassafrass, the people in the Piney woods here where I lived, back in the day, enjoyed sassafras tea, for pleasure & medicine, on a regular basis with no ill side effects.
Growing up in the Appalachian mountains and born in the sixties my mother would boil the roots and make us kids a tea in fall and winter and spring to boost our immune systems and it taste so delicious there was a lot of us kids and if one of us got a cough or runny nose she would make it for us all to drink we loved it She would use herbs to keep us healthy I never went to a doctor because of cold or flu and I hardly ever got sick either she also made a lot of vegetable soup in the winter for us from her canned vegetables
Well I live in the desert not many trees here. Prickly ash is another great tree. The natives called it tickle tongue tree or toothache tree.. great video thank you l.
Great info. I was wondering if you would use alcohol as a solvent to make tinctures which are shelf stable and are ready for use and made while you aren’t feeling ill ?
I poured a LOT into this one. I really hope that you enjoyed it! If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment and let me know what tree you would like to see covered next! Remember, the description contains a link to get the FULL set of winter tree profiles for all the trees covered in this video (plus more!)
Great info. Thank you.BTW. medical doctors will just tell you to stay away from anything not pharmaceutical.
Absolutely fantastic video. 👍👍👍
What a great find. I don't know how I stumbled upon your page but I'm subscribing and looking forward to more videos such as this. Your work is appreciated and indispensable. Thank you.
Apple mint tea save my life in 2016
I would love to see another informational video like this on Sassafras, this tree absolutely amazed me with it's history of uses and controversy. I'd love to see how you use Sassafras
I served Sassafras tea at a snack table, at a Steampunk convention. A man in his late 60's said that as a boy in Appalachia he loved Sassafras tea and would drink a gallon or more a day!
So when he would have an injury or cut it took longer for the bleeding to stop. His mother had heard of 'free bleeders' (Hemophilia) and took him to the doctor. The doc knew exactly what was wrong. The sassafras tea was acting as a blood thinner. The doctor told him to cut back on the sassafras tea and the kid was just fine!
Yeah I've had odd reactions from drinking a lot of sassafras tea harvested in, let's see, North Carolina along the Appalachian trail. A little goes a long way.
Sassafras is also a known carcinogen in humans. But, go ahead.
We noticed the blood thinning aspect in the video. I would never serve fras tea In a public setting because of the untrue study.
Free bleeding means something else now...
Was that the Grand Canadian Steampunk Exposition, by chance? They haven't run for a few years, but my wife and I greatly enjoyed the sassafras tea they served there (on our anniversary, as it happened), and it's a lovely memory!
Learning Tree ID without using leaves is the best! Once you know the details of specific trees you can't unsee them.
From my reading, an 8oz glass of Sassafras tea is no more carcinogenic than an average can of beer. My Grandpa drank it quite a bit growing up and he's 95.
We noted he's covering his hindside for legal reasons.
The “can” is probably a big part of the problem here
The beer depends…some beer is really good for you
Sassafras may cause genetic mutations.
@@grateful7839 yeah i doubt that.
@@grateful7839 i would love to see the peer study on tha assertion
As a botanist and instructor, I greatly appreciate your simple, yet thorough descriptions of tree species for winter identification. Great work on this video. I will definitely be looking at your other resources. Well done!!😊
From what I’ve learned from local herbalist in my state of Kentucky is that when you cook the black willow down to a thick paste it becomes more concentrated and thus works better on pain for the body. Also wild lettuce done the same way works as well for pain.
Willow bark can end pregnancy in early stages...
Hello fellow Kentuckian!
@@ronaldbird6285 hello fellow Kentuckian how are you
@@elizabethcox6701 doing well, getting hyped for spooky season! hope all is well with you :D
Perfect example of how to do an educational video. Soothing voice and no music or rambling! Thank you.
I asked the Lord to show me how to utilize the land I bought over 20 years ago, due to a dream I had.
It has so many different types of trees, grasses and plants that I also get alot of wildlife. I was born on a farm, but raised in the city, but the Lord led me to this area, so I know provision abounds, I just need people like you that share their knowledge! Thank you.
Love to hear your dream
Amen brothers & sisters !
Hail Satan
@@richardgerefanaccount4520 he hates you. You’re made in the image of God
LORD, we ask Your forgiveness for the Satanist who commented. As with Your words on the cross, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do! Thank You for giving Your life's blood to cover our sins and may we in turn help to lead others to know You. Amen ✝️
Man I mix sassafras with fresh ginger in my tea and it smells SO GOOD
As an herbalist I love this! Now here's a weird thing, I am allergic to aspirin and all over the counter pain relievers but not to white willow bark, which I make into a tincture for pain. I like that you gave the warning, I think I might just be an exception.
Aspirin like most medications are made from petroleum. They synthesize petroleum molecules to be similar to say, white willow bark. It works similarly to the real thing but has many side effects.
@@VikingMale can you recommend any further reading on this?
It probably because the pain med's you buy from the stores have more crap in it than they tell.
@@shirleytruett7319 yes, I think that's exactly what it is. There's probably some chemical in them that I'm allergic to. I'll stick with my white willow bark.
Willow water makes a mild pain killer and a good rooting solution
If you're harvesting bark you can buy or make Bonsai Paste it can be either clay based or wax based but is seals the wounds and stops weeping sap that can attract bugs and animals.
That seems important. I do hate to go around stabbing trees.
I will look into that. I have a small papaya tree that got attacked by something. It looks like a bug bit into the trunk. But the tree didn't die, and I wanted to patch it up to give it chance.
That sap/resin is medicine also. Research it though.
If you take small twigs and branches you wont need mud
Rubbing a wax candle or coating with red wax from cheese is a great way to seal a cut. Warming it a little helps the spreading over a large scrape.
No mention at all of sweet birch. I make it every winter. The tea is pink make from the one year old branches generally the diameter of toothpicks. If you like wintergreen youll love this
Is that what they used to make birch beer from?
Awesome video with great information. A quick for you. I am a 52 year old woman and have drank warm and iced sassafras tea most of my life with no problems but the best tea is made with the root rather than the branches and you can cut and store the root for a few years prior to use with no problem. Im not saying you should go out and kill a bunch of sassafras trees but we collected it most often when placing fence rows where the tree had to be removed anyway. Small sapling roots are just as good as big.
Thank you for this info!
In the early 80’s I was introduced to sassafras by a Cherokee medicine man from Oklahoma. I had an abscessed tooth and it was killing me. He told me it grew along railroad tracks and the trains helped them spread. He told me to get some fresh buds or catkins and put them directly on the tooth or gums where it was infected, grind or chew them to extract the juice. It worked within two days and the infection never returned.He didn’t mention using the roots, but I can imagine that the same medicine is in them.I read somewhere years later that sassafras’s could cause liver cancer, but that’s probably some bull or isolated case where somebody overdosed on to much. I never swallowed it anyhow… just used it like chewing tobacco and spit it out mostly.
We have a mother tree that sends out runners every year. We collect the runners that she sends up instead of damaging maturing trees. Also we have learned smaller roots are better and less waste.
First learn to listen with emotion and medicine must always be made with love and respect and compassion in your heart
My family used to dig sassafras roots and make tea from them, but only in the early spring before they budded, if I remember correctly. I guess we didn't have enough of it overall to get a meaningful dose of any carcinogens in it. Either way, it was delicious as a brief seasonal "tonic" and none of us appear to have any cancers, thank God (knock on wood, of course). The leaves, pounded and dried, are what my mother called gumbo filet; it thickens gumbo nicely. Thanks for a really interesting video; I knew about cherry bark but didn't know it paired well with sweet gum. Years of reading and listening and experimenting, and there's still SO much more to learn!
I wonder if it really does cause cancer? The big pharmacy doesn't want us to use what works. Just makes me wonder?
Great video! I would recommend writing Sam Thayer about Sassafras and safrole. He gave a talk on this subject at a wild foods event a few years back. Lots of interesting points were raised, particularly that safrole is not water soluble and much of it vaporizes when boiled. The flavors present in the tea are due to many complex flavor molecules. The study from the 1960s usually cited involved chemically isolated safrole, not whole sassafras. Thanks again!
Came here to say exactly this! Safrole is the extracted compound, given at high dosages to mice, showed it as a WEAK carcinogen. "Toxicological studies have shown that safrole is a weak hepatocarcinogen at higher doses in rats and mice. Safrole requires metabolic activation before exhibiting toxicological effects." Wikipedia itself says this. Another case of FDA fear mongering to ban perfectly healthy medicinal plants, same game different plant.
Yes we always boiled the root and then either drank it warm with honey or put a little sugar in it and chilled it in the fridge as an iced tea
What’s sassafras good for ?
@@bobbader4789building barns
@@bobbader4789we use it in the spring to thin the blood after a long winter of heavy foods. My wifes deceased father spoke of his elders drinking it and never having to take blood thinners. There are many great books, books not the Internet, on plant medicine.
I literally stumbled across your video today. Really brought back some great memories for me. My father was from the south. He used to make sassafras tea twice a year. I loved the taste of it. But he didn't use the bark to make sassafras tea. He used these little roots. And I remember he used to get these roots in a brown paper bag each time we visited down south. Alot of people where he grew up dig up little feeder roots and use them to make the tea. We are talking smaller than a number 2 pencil, about 1/8" diameter. My father lived to be 87 years old, no cancer. He got a cold that turned into pneumonia. I have not tasted sassafras tea in over 15 years. One other thing that comes to mind on the trips was old fashioned sassafras hard rock candy. I loved it as a kid. Thanks for this video. Very informative and I subscribed. Keep up the great work.
Mmmmm....you take me back. Grandma made sassafras soda, didn't seem to hurt us none. And she used roots. And I forgot all about the hard candy till you just mentioned it.
@@reibersue4845 I wish I has some sassafras right now.
@@charlesartificer2158
I keep my eye peeled for a tree in my neck of the woods, haven't seen those mitten shaped leaves yet, but when I do, I'm gonna do for my granddaughter what my grandma did for me.
I literally live in a tropical wet country. Why am I so interested in watching this?
Very grateful for all this information, especially on how not to kill or damage the trees. 👍
Can't wait to look for these trees on my next woods walk!
You should check out pine needle tea and chicory flower tea. I use them to open my airways and help get mucous out.
if i remember correctly Alexis Nikole Nelson (BlackForager on socials) made a video on a fermented pine drink, I wonder if those uses of pine have similar medicinal properties
Please explain how to do it 😊
white pine needle tea has more vitamin C than a lemon !
@@rockpooladmirer Not medicinal, but pine needles make great mulch for blueberries because their acidic.
This is very exciting. I have black cherry trees and will go forage. The combo of cyanide and benzaldehyde is said to kill cancer cells. The world without cancer video by Edward Griffin talks about how it works. The drug laetril /amygdalin was that combo. It’s also why apricot seeds are said to be so so helpful in cancer treatment which means I won’t have to keep buying apricot seeds, I can just harvest the bark from the black cherry tree. 🙌
Make sure it is living wood you are harvesting from. Never harvest bark from a dead cherry. The toxins are concentrated in the dead wood. Using small twigs or branches is best for the tree.
I'm 65 now,but as a young girl, I'd always nibble on the pits of apricots,plums,peaches . I simply liked the odd taste.
.....cyanide won't just kill cancer cells 💀
Inner Elm bark has the same protein content of oats. Moose is Indian for Bark Eater. Cheers from Sunny 😎 Alberta!
thanks for adding full closed captions! looking forward to watching this :)
Very welcome! I hope you enjoy it. :D
Safrole also has another use as a precursor which has resulted in it being classified as a controlled chemical that is basically illegal to own as a purified substance.
Yes it can be used to make mda# a "drug"
When you said slippery elm was common in your area you got my attention. You see, I have studied up on its’ priority uses, and especially as an an additive to pemmican for taste and long term preservation. Centuries old pemmican has been discovered in Native American food caches. The recipe was adopted by early trappers and settlers and its popularity was so great, that many trees were destroyed by incorrect bark harvesting and thus became rare in some areas in a short time. Many other trees were poached by herb gatherers in the 70’s onward and it is now difficult to find true slippery elm bark from vendors. It was patented at one time by a pharmaceutical company as a preservative for medicinal ointments. I almost gave up on my search for it until I saw your video. I live in the southwest and it doesn’t grow here at all.I don’t usually comment about videos,let alone elaborate to this extent, but I’m dead serious about my enthusiasm for this tree and I’m hoping to collaborate with you in a renewed attempt to obtain some bark strips. I don’t need a lot. The ratio of strained,powdered bark is very small when added to the rendered fat used to make pemmican,and your harvesting method is what native tribes used to keep the trees alive. Anyhoo, I have subscribed and hopefully you can help me out now that I have explained. I am willing to pay well for your efforts in this regard and provide further info about the exact process of making pemmican, and the correct ingredients in the production. I hope to hear back soon while the subject is still hot.Thank you sir.. I hope I haven’t over-extended myself, but hey…
Useful additional info. Always nice to hear what folks are doing pemmican-wise.
Great video with a ton of information. In my AO locals like to use sassafras root, especially the young saplings that pop up. Again thanks for this video.
You are very welcome!
Great video. One thing you might consider is that people with red hair react differently to medicine than non red haired people. Over the year of having medical procedures, I have had allergic reactions. I have had doctors ask me repeatedly if I had red hair. No I do not have red hair but loads of it in the family. I noticed you have red facial hair.
Anyway, because I have had so many allergic reactions I have been very nervous about reacting to new plant materials. I am getting braver as I get older. I used to demonstrate birch twigs used as a tooth brush, called the “TOOTH BRUSH TREE” by my family. I had a reaction that surprised me. My gums pulled away from my teeth. After researching the plant more, I learned that there is a compound similar to aspirin in Birch. I am allergic to aspirin. Anyway. I appreciate your videos and the research you put into to it.
Fantastic info that more people should know, thanks for making videos like these!
Thank you for watching!
It's awesome what you're doing and it's not about perfection but if you're trying to get medicine out of bark or root (hard material) you need to cook low and slow for 1 - 2 hrs minimum. Add more water. Fill the pan then bring to a boil and simmer for a very long time. The material needs time to release the medicine.
Thanks for the information, especially about the sweet gum tree and its bark. 🙂
You are so welcome! I'm always happy to share more about sweetgum. :D
Thanks for all the detailed information. Very helpful. I like how you show comparisons to identify. This is a wealth of information.
I'm glad to hear that!
This is the first video of yours I watched after YT randomly recommended your community post to me. Your presentation, easy explanations and comprehensive coverage of identification are really lovely and great to follow. Will definitely watch more, though just wish I could follow on more than just the black cherry as I don't have these trees in my country!
Not sure where you are from, but for many of these they have cousins in other parts of the world that can be used in similar ways (other willow species, Siberian Elm, etc). I'm so happy to hear you like the presentation. :D
Videos like this are priceless. Thank you so incredibly much for the work you did to put this together. I'm forever grateful 🙏🏻
You are very welcome!
Do you have a book?
No books from me! For the foreseeable future I'll be sharing my knowledge through videos. I do have PDFs like what was shown in the video available on my Patreon, and I write articles on my website if you are interested in written material!
@@FeralForaging what state do you live in? What zone in that state do you live in?
@@marklawrence76 North AL
Trees can also be very filling. Both the Finns and the Swedes ate trees during famines (though the nutritional tree flour from phloem was usually mixed with other flour).
Yes, I've heard of Slippery Elm bark being used in this way!
Visuals on this are a beaver saying "thanks, but I couldn't touch another bite."
Ive never been so excited to learn something new in my life. Thank you.
I'm so happy to hear that!
[comparison activities not cited]
The beech tree would be a good one for you to do a video on. Thanks for the info great video.
I can see the amount of effort you put in to this informative video. Commenting and thumbs up for the algo!
Much appreciated!
Every piece of military equipment had a purpose. Even the necklace can be used to keep track of the months days and time for a POW situation. There’s 31 beads on the short tag 365 beads in the long tag. Just as every plant on earth has a purpose. This is amazing.
I feel like I went to college for a whole 6 weeks awesome job
I loved touring the these lovely bookstore with you, Morgan! I’ve added the book recommendations to my wishlist so that we can explore them together! 🩵
I'm nearly 70 and can remember drinking sassafras tea in my early teens. You could buy it in liquid form and I think it was called Pappy's
I'm 79 & remember sassafras tea that my Grandmother made. It was WONDERFUL!
You’re a great person for this man. Thank you so much this will make it a lot easier than snapping of twigs to come home and dig through books to identify.
Love, peace & chicken grease from coastal Virginia!
You need to be careful with cherry bark, it depresses respiratory system, hence helps coughing. Start small amount and observe.
Really well done and super informative. Thank you as always!
Many thanks, Andrew! Happy New Year!
So stoked I’ve found your channel! My 8yr old daughter and I are learning to identify different trees together, this channel is perfect! We’re in rural WV and have been looking for paw paws
Great! Make sure to watch my video on Pawpaw that I just posted. :D
Oh we did, another awesome video! We are searching our woods for everything!
@@jt-gm6ji happy foraging!
__
Siberian elm makes tea, too? Excellent. I was doing Wim Hoff breathing here in Niagara fruit region five days ago, an unusually warm Christmas I guess, and a Siberian was dripping on me like it was March or something. I kept licking it off my clothes. Sweet, I think. It probably knows that the neighbors want to cut it down. Maybe it was trying to contact me. Me sitting barefoot for several minutes with no air in my lungs, one foot in a bucket of pee, and licking my clothes probably did nothing to reassure my neighbors. But I do wave in a friendly manner. I really have to pay attention to this video, as this is essential info. By the way, I've been harvesting lots of delicious rose hips today, last day of 2023, just to put me into temporal and geographical perspective.
I made tea with tiny sweet gum seeds (about a tablespoon) when I was feeling sick with fever and it quickly made me sweat and then I felt better😊
Great video. Looking forward to what's next. Pine and Poplar maybe?
Poplar is on the list. Pine would be fun too!
Really enjoyed this excellent video! Thank you for sharing this information. My grandpa used to make sassafras tea and I love it.
Once again, Thanks!!
Sasafrass trees are great!
Fun fact: In addition to the bark, the leaves are dried and pounded into filé powder, which is vital for great Creole cooking. The leaves also make a lovely, mild tea. Also, the plant contains small amounts of dopamine antagonist chemicals, so it could possibly help to make you happy.
How about the Birch tree? It is the source of xylitol, which is proven to inhibit strep mutans, the bacteria that makes plaque on the teeth. xylitol also helps to inhibit the growth of streps in the nasal and ear pathways.
Very good video. The woods are loaded with healing and nutritional trees and plants.
This video is incredible thank you for compiling all this information!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks!
You bet! Thank YOU! :D
Thank you for all that information. Wow... You did put a lot into that. A lot of research for sure. You are awesome. I will be making a lot this winter for sure. And about the willow... Thank you for explaining that we need to find the black willow and not the willow I was thinking about. Your awesome.
Very helpful video. I'm well versed on slippery elm and sweet gum. Not so familiar with the willow and sassafras as the latter is very hard to find. Great video
Thank you!
Also, safrole isn’t a carcinogen at levels that one would regularly consume. Safrole was vilified due to its litany of uses and its status as a precursor to several psychoactive chemicals.
Wonderful video! Thank you so much, I always love your videos, and you did great work on this one. I heard in Kent Hovind's The Bible and Health seminar that the combination of the cyanide with another compound in the seeds (aprocot seeds, etc) makes it (pretty much) harmless until it hits a cancer cell.
My grand parents grew a patch of sassafras when I was growing up. It was used occasionally, once, maybe twice a year. The used the roots more so than the bark.
I'd love to see a video from you on situations when it would be beneficial to remove trees! We are about to start working on a large property and building our homestead on it. Although I'm not oblivious to some reasons to remove trees, I also know that I don't know everything! Also I'm not an arborist! I love your videos and trust your information (because you make your sources clear and communicate really well)!
I'm actually working on a video that will touch on this subject more! My friend Kyle from @NativeHabitatProject has a great channel where he talks about this subject in great depth.
Slippery elm trees grew fast ty for letting me know what it was and how to use it
Thank you!
I at least know my sweet gum and sassafras, but really need to examine the rest closer. So many look alike out here, and they're so tall I can't see the buds.
Can you do a video talking and comparing pine needle teas?
Sassafras, you wanna dig the roots up in the Spring time? I use the root for tea
The hardened sap from the sweet gum also burns like pine sap.
Thank you for everything you do. You really should open up a road side store. We would buy all of this from you. Even if it's just the items needed and not the end product
The pith in the branches can also be packed around a tooth that is hurting and it will stop the pain till you can see a dentist. Small branches were also used as tooth brushes.
We approve here of your italicized genus and species names. Cheers.
Ah, I see you are a man of culture as well!
@@FeralForaging Lol. My girlfriend the botanist and editor taught me well.
Amything bitter is really good for You. Speaking on behalf of the trees that are actually edible.
This is very helpfull thx
Glad to hear!
Great video! Winter tree ID is a weakness of mine and I've been trying to find slippery elm for a while. Your video should help. Another use I've heard for slippery elm was that it helps to preserve animal fats.
This is truly a great video! So much knowledge gets lost. I have subscribed and I added this to my library playlist called interesting by others so people can find you easier! Is the inner bark called the Cambian Layer?
That's a great question! The answer is no, they're right next to each other, but they are different. If you're starting from the outside, cambium will come right after the "inner bark". Sam Thayer talks about this in his new field guide.
Just subbed, great video! I just started foraging and am very excited to learn more! As a colder climate dweller, identifying bark n buds is ideal as only about 1/4 of the year leaves are available 😂. Thank you!
Happy to have earned your sub!
I have use sassafras ROOT for tea and root beer for decades with no problems. So maybe the root is safer?
I have used sassafras to make some nice shooting longbows. Made the tea many times.
Thank you for your hard work ❤
Love this! Thank you for sharing!
That's the first time I've heard the word "mucilaginous" used to describe anything like a foodstuff, and I'm there for it!
PS: The block of steel thing slew me! XD
I use to buy sassafras tea in tea bags and also in a glass bottle of liquid sassafras ....i liked making tea with them. I liked the tea bags best.
You should give tips for Midwest around great lakes(Northern Indiana) great job n tks
We use the car to pull the tree out by the roots, the whole tree was used , there was 7 kids in our family plus grandparents, parents you get the idea took care of our whole family, the roots was washed and use smaller kids had to debark every root. The the older kids had to chop the root itself up into small pieces .while the rest of the family chopped the tree up never hurt none of us, , I still get my sassafras bark and roots to boil and drink all year round, chew on branches in spring and summer months , love the leave they are so good .
This video answered my question on the black walnut video.
I was camping out 1 time and forgot the coffee so I drank oak bark tea it didn't taste bad even though it has tannin in it.
To bad i have none of those in my area. 😢 We do have ceder. Used for cough, bronchitis, joint pain (rheumatism), water retention, and flatulence.
I intentionally eat foods that CAUSE flatulence.
An example of sentences not often used on dating sites.@@philkearny5587
@@philkearny5587😂
Great video love your work!!
Sam Thayer mentions sasafrass tea would need to be consumed at 40 gallons on a regular basis to have carcinogenic effects according to their research. Give his book a read where he talks about it. I think it’s a non issue and it can be used in very low quantities to give tea a nice flavor.
The criss cross gray, with orange in the grooves, is a dead giveaway for elm.
what about the western strawberry tree, I heard about it having anti fungal properties which in my belief is an extremely important species to know and understand how to extract the necessary constituents. Mainly because fungal infections are extremely hard to treat and when in a grid down scenario it may save you life (if it is true being a medicinal tree).
Really well done. Full of useful content.
Glad you think so!
Very informative, a keeper for sure. Thanks
Very welcome!
Sir you are a blessing. 🙏♥️
I deeply researched sassafras as I drank it often. We harvested from Roots as a child. The carcinogenic affect comes from the oils of the inner bark. You have to have inner bark in mass quantities and then you have to put it through a still process to make an oil. The oil is the carcinogen not the roots or leaves.
I'm glad i found this. You explained winter id so well. I subscribed. That study on sassafras was flawed. Imagine using a chunk of steel instead of a feather to prove that the feather will bruise you. Thats about the same as the study of safrole. Thank you for the very educational video.
Excellent video. You earned a new subscriber.
On Sassafrass, the people in the Piney woods here where I lived, back in the day, enjoyed sassafras tea, for pleasure & medicine, on a regular basis with no ill side effects.
Growing up in the Appalachian mountains and born in the sixties my mother would boil the roots and make us kids a tea in fall and winter and spring to boost our immune systems and it taste so delicious there was a lot of us kids and if one of us got a cough or runny nose she would make it for us all to drink we loved it She would use herbs to keep us healthy I never went to a doctor because of cold or flu and I hardly ever got sick either she also made a lot of vegetable soup in the winter for us from her canned vegetables
Pine needle tea!
Unusual tree item
Very high vitC
Well I live in the desert not many trees here. Prickly ash is another great tree. The natives called it tickle tongue tree or toothache tree.. great video thank you l.
Wish you reviewed the poplar tree. (Balm of Gilard)
Yes, I have this one on my list! I will have a video up about it before the end of winter.
Great info. I was wondering if you would use alcohol as a solvent to make tinctures which are shelf stable and are ready for use and made while you aren’t feeling ill ?
Yes, I'd like to know too.