Stinging Nettle : Uses and Benefits

Hello friends Heidi here from rain country god is good all the time and today we're going to be talking about stinging nettle I'm going to be talking about many of the benefits of stinging nettle why you should grow it how I grow it uh, and how I Put it away for long-term storage and use it throughout the year So starting off you can see I have a basket here or a colander full of fresh stinging nettle And I just cut this this morning this here on my one of my dehydrator trays. I have more out there Dehydrating hooked up to our solar power and this is all dry and i'm going to show you what I do with that here In just a minute now first Let's talk about some of the benefits of stinging nettle. So I took notes So hopefully I won't forget anything even when I take notes. I still tend to forget everything I want to say So I want to talk about the nutrients that you can find in stinging nettle stinging nettle is just loaded with nutrients And this is the urtica dioica That's what that's the latin name for the botanical name. So the nutrients would be a it's very high in vitamin c Uh k which I believe would be k1 And then several different b vitamins, so I didn't quite nail down exactly which one it does have several b vitamins Which are just excellent also high in calcium iron magnesium phosphorus and potassium and also with has amino acids and is surprisingly high in Protein, which is one of the main reasons why I decided to grow it For a vegetable it's pretty high in protein kind of like kale. Yes. Now some health benefits of the Stinging nettle would be that it's very detoxifying It is has anti-inflammatory Properties both when taken internally and when used externally, so there was a time they used to use the Stinging nettle. This was a common practice in Rome. They would actually hit the swollen knuckles of someone with arthritis and actually allow it to sting because the Sting the chemicals in the stinging is what helped relieve the pain and bring down the swelling of the Arthritis and actually helped heal it because the increased blood flow and I've come to find out they actually still do such things today in different places That may might not be for everyone, but apparently it is helpful and it does work. It's also very beneficial to reproductive health for both men and women for Cardiovascular health for liver detoxification it's also help at regulating blood pressure and Blood sugar. So if you're diabetic or you have high blood pressure This is something you can consider But you have to this one of those things just like anything you don't want to take an herb That's going to help with these things at the same time that you're taking medications for those But if you're like me and you're one that's looking for ways to get off of the medications that you were that you're currently on We are currently on none now but These are this is just one way you can do that I honestly believe that most if not all people that are on high blood pressure medicine Can get off and most people that are diabetics can heal themselves I that's what I believe just from what I've learned over the past several years in researching these things stinging It also has styptic property So if it's used on like the juice from it is used on a wound it can help stop or slow down blood flow Much like Yarrow does Yarrow is the same way It's also good for eczema and acne this can be both taken You know internally as a tea or used as a tea applied topically to these things So helping from the both the inside and the outside in inside out outside in And then the last thing I wanted to talk about as far as health this was the number one reason why I chose to start growing my own stinging nettle and that was for Thyroid health now those who've been following us for a while know that Patrick and I used to be on thyroid Medications both of us and we were each on them for 15 years apiece You know believing that all of you you have to take this or you're gonna die If you you can't ever go off and you have to take them for the rest of your life But I started the more I started researching health and different things I just became more and more convinced there was no need for us to be on thyroid medication and Started looking for natural ways to get off of it And that is exactly what we did and it's been about seven years now that we've been off the thyroid medication and doing great and so The the great thing about the nettle is it's not just for people with hypothyroidism Like we had but those with hyperthyroidism or Hashimoto's It's all the way across the board because what it does is it helps to regulate your thyroid So if you have high, you know high producing thyroid this will help bring it down a little bit If yours is a little bit sluggish, it will help give it a boost. It's just it's such an incredible herb I'm I just love it so much. And again, I'm always surprised. I forget to it's one of the ones I forget to mention Another really good thing you can do with your nettle after you dry it powder it up add it to your chicken's feed It's really good for chickens and chickens will eat raw nettle, too It's really really good for them and it will help give them more healthier eggs and also good for your pets So when I use I dehydrate my stinging nettle One of the things I the main thing I do with it is I mix it in with other great garden greens like kale carrot tops dandelion greens Uh grape leaves strawberry leaves, uh Plantain borage leaves just about anything green beet greens that I grow out there that is edible I will dry it up I mix it all together and then it goes into what I call my mixed greens blend that goes in just about anything and now I've come to the point because i've been craving the greens so much And our greens are just starting to come in at the time that i'm shooting this video. I'm getting fresh kale I've been making a tea out of the mixed greens every night and just Loving it and making me just feel so good all the way around And then the stinging nettle and the grape leaves are two of the things that make up Most and the dandelion leaves those three things make up the most of what's in those greens you know the amaranth leaves and kale and all that stuff do make up a good part too, but Those top three that I mentioned there are what's mostly in it since I know i'm going to be getting the most stinging nettle I've got for my plant so far. I plan on not mixing all of it in with my mixed greens bun But keeping some of it separate for doing other things of making a tea just with the nettle Or for like I said mixing in with the chicken's feed So now what I do is once the stinging nettle is fully dry Um, it's no longer it deactivates the chemicals in there that make it sting So what I do is I just crush it up with my fingers you don't have to do this you can throw it in a coffee grinder or in a food processor However, you want to do it Just make sure you check for any thick stems that might not get pulled off of there That those tend to take longer to dry and I just pull those out and so I just I just crush it up like that And then after I get it all crushed up like that. I simply put it in my jar And so what will happen with this is i'll keep filling the jar until i've got it completely full and you know As I keep dehydrating more Nettle, and then i'll put my lid on there and then i'll vacuum seal it and Keep and then just keep making more jars like that Now if you're interested in how I vacuum seal my jars I do it with just a brake bleeder I'll go ahead and link to my video I did on just vacuum sealing right up here So you can check that out some other things That I like to do with the nettle that I actually what I just started doing with the fresh nettle though I've added fresh nettle as I picked it to meals as I cooked them one of the things I finally did for the first time last night for dinner was I Cut I took the leaves I boiled them and we ate them like spinach and what I found I thought I was going to like it better with vinegar because that's how I always liked my cooked spinach But I found I liked it best with a little butter and some salt. I thought it was delicious It was way better tasting than I actually thought it was going to be so when it comes to Harvesting your nettle. That's the other thing I want to talk about You can actually grab the front part of the leaves here. The stingers are not on the front part of the leaves They're on the back side of the leaves. That's the part that stings and so you can do this I typically will wear gloves. I still manage to get stung sometimes but To me it's really not that big a deal and as long as you have some plantain or some dock which usually grows close to your nettle Uh, you can just rub a little bit on that and it's going to take the sting out I just don't bother but some people are highly allergic So you may even want to wear some kitchen gloves when you do this some big thick rubber gloves and I usually take the The stem usually has stickers on it Needles on it too But I usually try to pull all this stuff off and take the thickest part of the stems off though You can use those too. Um, I just try to focus on the leaves and then how I grow the nettle some Some people ask well, do you border it off put a fence around it to keep people from accidentally falling into it? No, I personally don't uh right now. We don't have any young kids running around here But even where it's at it's not likely that's going to happen but Uh, you can do that if you want. However I grow ours right under a bedroom window. So this serves a couple of purposes. It's out of the way It's not out there with the rest of the vegetables. It's not right in the middle of the garden Though it is good to know that growing your nettle among your other herbs is actually very nourishing to the herbs But when it comes to harvesting the other herbs, that could be literally a pain But I put it under the window so not only is it out of the way it also adds a measure of defense So if someone's getting into the nettle That means they're probably trying to climb into the window and they shouldn't be and they deserve to get the hex done out of them So, you know, that's one of the reasons why I plant it there now in these pictures I'm showing you keep in mind the nettle had just started growing because it's early spring Uh, it will get up to three feet tall if you let it the best way to deal with your nettle I did do a video a couple years ago when I first started harvesting it But what I have found I do it differently now is I cut it pretty much clear down to the ground I'll leave about that much cut it clear down and it will it will get thicker It'll get bigger and it will just keep coming back Throughout the season eventually it will go to seed at that point. You want to probably finish up harvesting your Your leaves they're not as nutritious at that point once your plant has gone to seed But there's a lot of nutrition in those seeds if you want to save those seeds as well so just some things to consider and You know Some people may grow in areas like I know nettle grows wild around here but for me, I like to grow it right on my property because Most likely i'm not going to remember to go out and harvest it and this was important enough for my health Knowing that we needed all these nutrients that were in here in our diet personally that I wanted to grow it right here So it was easy to get to and I wouldn't forget like I always do with the chanterelles every year We love chanterelles yet We always forget because life gets so busy It's right at the time of year Where everything is the busiest as far as harvesting our grapes and all that kind of stuff And apples and so we tend to forget to get out there and get the chanterelles I don't want that to happen with the stinging nettle So it grows here, but a lot of people live in places where it grows wild everywhere Most people do and so you can always just make a day of it I know people that do that get your rubber gloves and a bag a few bags and just go out there and harvest a bunch And you can do what I did here. You can choose to put in Like ziploc bags or food saver bags, then you can use it for Like a spinach type replacement like doing like we did last night for dinner and um You know, but again dehydrating it up. Let's say you don't like the flavor of it cooked or whatever Dehydrating it up and sprinkling it into things is excellent It's just a really good way to get that and some other really beneficial greens into your diet into your family's diet Without you even noticing it's there especially when you add it to soups that have a lot of flavor You're not going to notice the taste of the dried kale or the dried dandelion leaves or the dried Nettle leaves you just won't I mean it's uh, unless you put way too much in there. It's not going to be noticeable I usually put about a handful like this into a pot of soup so but I also add it to casseroles, I also add it to meatloaves and to meatballs and Uh the breakfast sausages that I make pretty much anything gravies and sauces Including my italian sauces anything I can get it in to make it healthy You can put it in your fruit smoothies, too If you want and uh, it's pretty likely you're not going to notice the flavor, especially if you got a lot of real strong tasting fruits in there You're not going to notice the flavor It'll just change the color a bit and then you're still getting all those great vitamins and minerals into your diet So that's it for today on the stinging nettle I'll probably be talking more about it down the road if you have any more questions on this I'm sure there's something I forgot to mention so go ahead and put your questions in the comment section down below and also if you have Uh ways that you like to use your stinging nettle. How do you use it? What kind of things do you use it in? How do you preserve it? Go ahead and share that with us so that we can also learn from you Okay. Well, I hope you enjoyed this video and that you learned something new. Thanks for watching. Take care and god bless You