Spring Greens as a Nourishing and Healing Food

One of my favorite times of the year is spring–when the land is awakening, and the green is returning! Beltane is here! Here in the Allegheny mountains, one of our folk herbal traditions is to “thicken” the blood in the fall with nourishing root teas like those made of Burdock (Articum lappa) and Sassafras root (Sassafras albidum) and then in the springtime, “thin” the blood with spring greens like dandelion leaf (Taraxacum officinale), garilc mustard (Alliaria petiolata) and chickweed (Stellaria media). This was, in part, because diets radically changed in the winter months. As people got closer to the end of the year, the holiday feasts were in part to use up many of the stored vegetables and fruits (especially things like apples, pears, onions) before they went bad. In the coldest season of the year–January, February, and March – people often would live on preserved foods and high-fat meats until the spring greens emerged. This old folk wisdom was spot on–in more modern terms, the…