Dandelion: The Buttoned-Up, All Business Side

The in-depth profile of Dandelion, part 1.

Stop! Put down the Round-Up! One of the most amazing things about this world of ours is that the most generous and healing plants are also amongst the most resilient and abundant. It’s one of those things that makes you feel like there is a benevolent Creator/God/Universe out there looking out for us. To be honest, as I dug through research on this plant on PubMed, I felt sad and angry that it isn’t part of standard medical care. The evidence for its use is pretty strong (not to mention the millennia of experience not documented in academic research), and it is very well tolerated, with no known toxicity except for those people who are allergic. To be clear, this level of safety is pretty unheard of in prescription medications. 

This week, I thought I’d switch gears a bit to share about a plant that everyone who lives south of me (near the Twin Cities) should be able to find in abundance right about now: the legendary Dandelion. Dandelion is a great plant to start with because I don’t think I need to tell you how to identify it (if I’m wrong about that, please hit me up in the comments, happy to describe more and share photos), the whole plant is edible, and it’s just so powerful. I had intended to write a single post about dandelions, but after word 3000 or so, I figured I should tone it down a notch. So, we’re going to take the mullet approach to dandelions–business in the front, party in the back. Today, we’ll focus on the buttoned-up, all-business side of dandelion, her role as a powerhouse of nutrition and medicine, and all of the many services she provides to healing Mother Earth as well. Next time, we’ll focus on the more imaginal, free-spirited, magical side of dandelion, learning about folklore, magical uses, flower essences, and plant spirit medicine. I’ll include a blessing inspired by dandelion at the end of both posts. I hope by the end, you love dandelion as much as I do. Maybe you’ll be inspired to become a Dandelion Witch! 

The symbol in black was given to me as a way to connect to my ancestors, specifically, the ancestors of my dad’s dad’s mom. It definitely looks a lot like a Celtic cross, and I think that’s part of it, but as I received it, it was much more about the sun and the rivers (and happened to look a bit like Dandelion in this piece)

Food uses

Dandelion greens: Best when the greens are tender and young (before they flower), AKA now! This is the ultimate spring food. Our ancestors would have delighted at the appearance of these and their nutrients after a long winter. They can be eaten raw (I recommend mixing them with other greens and a good shot of apple cider vinegar or lemon juice to cut the bitterness) or cooked (I’ll share my favorite recipes for fried greens below). Cooked greens are a brilliant way to get a lot of greens into your body in an easy to digest form.When people talk about the Mediterranean diet, these cooked wild greens are one of the key components, though it’s often presented as “eat more pasta” in the media. 

Dandelion root: Dandelion root is most commonly used as tea. If you roast it, it has some similarity to coffee. It’s a little bit of a stretch, but definitely still tasty and medicinal. You can eat dandelion root as well, but I really haven’t done that enough to have any recommendations on how. If pressed I’d probably either mix it with roasted root vegetables or with a stir fry. 

Dandelion flowers: To be honest, most of my efforts to cook with dandelion flowers were not as delicious as I imagined they would be. However, in my research I found one that looks promising, which I’ll share below. 

Dandelion buds: Can be pickled. They claim these are similar to capers. When I did this last year I used some that had started to open a bit, so the texture was wrong, and in my opinion unpleasant. Don’t be like me, use tightly closed buds. 

I have also been told the dandelion “heart”, the whitish purple part where all the leaves meet up with the root is the most delicious part. I haven’t yet tried it myself, but please report back your findings if you do. 

Nutritional value

Dandelion leaves are rich in iron, calcium, copper, manganese, potassium, magnesium, vitamin K, vitamin A, vitamin C, and vitamin E. Compared to lettuce and spinach, dandelions contain more protein, more dietary fiber, a greater variety of amino acids, and a higher proportion of unsaturated fatty acids. In fact, I have been told it contains 50 times more nutrients than kale, but was not able to independently verify that. It is one of the best plant sources of beta-carotene.

Dandelion roots are rich in vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, protein, phosphorus, aluminum, and carotene. It is also a great source of a carbohydrate called inulin, which researchers found was useful for a wide variety of things that I will discuss more in the upcoming section on medical literature. Dandelion flowers are rich in polyphenols which prevent heart disease and cancer. Dandelion flowers also contain powerful antioxidants and anti-inflammatory properties. 

Favorite recipes

My homemade recipes are usually just eyeballed, so in reality my measurements are a “big ass bowl of greens” rather than 8 cups or a glug of oil rather than a tablespoon, so definitely taste and adjust when using my homemade recipes. 

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Dandelion greens: 

Sauteed greens

Ingredients:

• Dandelion greens about 5-6 cups or big handfuls

• 1-2 Tbsp of olive oil

• ½ Tbsp of lemon juice (about ¼ lemon)

• Salt and pepper to taste

• Parmesan cheese

Instructions: 

1. Heat olive oil in medium frying pan. 

2. Add dandelion greens, saute until partially wilted

3. Remove dandelion greens from heat immediately.  

4. Add lemon juice, salt, pepper, sprinkle on parmesan cheese. 

Bacon fried greens

I learned this recipe from Sam Thayer at his foraging class. It’s a delicious way to get a huge amount of greens into your body. There is definitely flexibility about using different wild (or grocery store) greens, but I like to aim for a ratio of 1:1:1 for bitter, neutral, and sour greens

Ingredients: 

• 4-6 slices of bacon

• 1 onion, chopped

• 4-5 cups dandelion greens

• 4-5 cups nettle greens

• 4-5 cups yellow dock greens 

• 1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

• 1 Tbsp soy sauce

• 1 Tbsp honey or maple syrup

Instructions: 

1. Chop bacon into small pieces, fry in pan. 

2. While bacon is cooking chop greens. I find that chopping them pretty finely works best for the texture of these greens. 

3. After bacon is cooked, add in chopped onions and cook until translucent

4. Add in greens, cook until wilted. Add additional oil (like olive oil) if pan dries out. 

5. Add in apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, and honey (or maple syrup). 

6. Taste and adjust sweet, sour, or salty as needed. 

Wild Greens Smoothie

This is pretty much a standard green smoothie. If you use exclusively dandelion greens, add 1 Tbsp of lemon to cut the bitterness of the greens. There really aren’t instructions, just throw it in a blender and blend. 

Ingredients: 

• Large handful of mixed greens (I love to use dandelion, lamb’s quarters, wood sorrel, amaranth, purslane, or yellow dock. If you blend it well, and feel bold and daring you can even use nettles. I have done it and lived to tell the tale.)

• 1 banana (I like it best frozen, but usually I’m not that organized)

• 1 cup of frozen fruit (a mix of mango and pineapple is my go to)

• 1 cup of water (or milk)

• 1 Tbsp of lemon juice

• Optional add ins: avocado or yogurt for creaminess, chia or ground flax seeds

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Dandelion roots: 

Roasted Dandelion Root: 

1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit

2. Chop dandelion root (Most of the medicine is in the outer layers, so don’t peel)

3. Roast for about 2 hours until you can smell the carmelization and see some browning or char

If you want to use it as a tea, you can grind up the roots in a coffee grinder. 

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Below are recipes that I am so excited to try, but haven’t tried yet. 

Dandelion buds: 

Pickled Dandelion buds

This recipe, for pickled dandelion buds, is from Forager Chef, Alan Borgo, whose work I recommend highly. I’m looking forward to digging into his mushroom tutorials this spring as that is my main wild food learning goal this year. 

Dandelion flowers: 

Dandelion honey

This dandelion “honey” is really a dandelion citrus syrup. However, the authors suspect it is an even healthier sweetener than honey. From University of Nevada Reno

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Medicinal uses

Most of the methods I discuss for how to use dandelion as medicine I learned from Heather Mashuga, my herbalism teacher, and Steven Martyn from Sacred Gardener. Heather and Steven are both herbalists, so rely on information from that tradition rather than the biomedical system. There are not randomized controlled trials to prove all of these uses. However, you’ll be surprised how much research there is!

*Dandelion tincture has been shown to worsen side effects when taking Lithium, so should not be used in that situation. 

Both Heather and Steven mention dandelion’s effectiveness in addressing issues of the liver, kidneys, gallbladder, pancreas, and lymphatic system, but did not address specific illnesses, beyond those listed above. 

Dandelion is also considered an alterative. Within herbalism, this means that it generally enhances wellness because of its nutrition and healing action on many body systems. Steven Martyn recommends that anyone over 40 take dandelion tincture daily. I, personally, rotate it with a few others, like Burdock and Yellow dock. However, after my deep dive in the medical literature, I may have to switch to daily use. 

If you are interested in making your own tinctures, oils or salves, check out these videos (tinctures and salves) I made a while back. If you were here way back when I made those videos and noticed it was two copies of the same video, I fixed that error, so check out the brand new tincture video. For dandelion oil and salve use the flowers only. For the tincture, I like to dig up whole dandelions and make a whole plant tincture. 

Medical literature

Dandelions contain a wide variety of nearly unpronounceable compounds that have been found to prevent cancer and heart disease, reduce inflammation, improve immune response, decrease inappropriate blood clotting, reduce cholesterol. I am trying my best to un-jargon my writing, but please reach out with questions where I fail at that. 

From https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5553762/

Antioxidant: There is lab and animal evidence that dandelions neutralize a wide variety of free radicals whose names probably don’t mean much to you unless you recently took a biochemistry class. 

Anti-inflammatory: There is lab and animal evidence that dandelion inhibits inflammatory chemicals called cytokines (including COX-2, like the medication Celebrex, interleukin-1, and tumor necrosis factor alpha). In humans, it has been shown to reduce disease activity in inflammatory bowel disease (Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis). 

Diabetes: In the lab, they found that dandelion stimulated more insulin secretion. In animals, it reduced blood sugar in rats, mice, and rabbits. A review of the research on medicinal chemicals in dandelion for use in diabetes stated, “Dandelion has been considered a key anti-diabetic plant because of its anti-hyperglycemic, anti-oxidative, and anti-inflammatory properties.”

Obesity: Dandelion extract had an antiobesity effect in mice and rats fed a high fat diet.  

Blood clotting: In the lab, dandelions prevented platelets from forming blood clots (a key factor in the development of strokes and heart attacks). 

Heart disease: Choi et al, found that treatment with dandelion root or leaf extract had antioxidant properties that resulted in decreased thickness of the aorta.

Cancer: Dandelion extracts slow the growth of cancer cells and prevents the growth of new blood vessels (which is a key part of cancers being able to grow).

Dandelion sugars change how the protein hepcidin is expressed. This protein impacts how iron is processed in the liver and increased levels are found in liver cancer cells, so it appears dandelion can reduce the risk of liver cancer. 

Triple negative breast cancer is a type of cancer that is more aggressive and less responsive to existing treatments. However, dandelion extract had antitumor effects against these cells. 

Liver disease: Changes how the phase I and phase II detoxification enzymes work, decreases liver damage in rats. In vitro studies suggest that dandelion inhibits hepatitis B virus, and the component taraxasterol may have a future as an anti-hepatitis B medication. 

For patients with acute worsening of their chronic liver failure, dandelion ethanolic extract (which I think is the fancy academic word for tincture), resulted in improvement of multiple liver function tests, as well as kidney function. 

Gastrointestinal: Improves how smooth muscle (muscles you don’t control like intestines, ureters) contract. It also increases the growth of at least six helpful bacterial strains in the gut. 

Dandelion improves constipation, diarrhea, and cramping in patients with chronic colitis and improves symptoms of stomach ulcers. 

Various research studies have shown benefit in treating gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD or heartburn), inflammation of the stomach, ulcers of the small intestine, ulcerative colitis, gallstones, acute pancreatitis, and intestinal cancers. 

Kidney: Dandelion has been proven to be a diuretic in animals and humans. The French call dandelion pis en lit (wet the bed), so we definitely knew this before the research was performed. I suspect, but haven’t seen in the literature, that because it is so rich in potassium and magnesium, it would be less likely to cause electrolyte abnormalities than the diuretics we typically prescribe. 

Skin: Dandelion fermentation broth was found to repair skin inflammation caused by UVB rays. 

Pain: Dandelion relieved pain in mice. 

Ecosystem services

Dandelions are an important source of early season nectar for pollinators, especially bees. When the green crown and root decompose, they provide important food for soil microorganisms. The taproots aerate the soil as they die off. While they are living taproots break up hard soils, bring nutrients from deep in the soil up to the surface, and reduce heavy metal contamination. 

We’ll pause there for today to let all of dandelions amazing pragmatic powers sink in. We’ll pick up next week with the equally amazing spiritual powers of dandelion. For now, I’ll leave you with this blessing, that you may incorporate the gifts of dandelion into your life. 

Blessing

Powerful Dandelion, we thank you for the generous gifts you consistently provide us, even when we overlook you. 

Thank you for the many ways you nourish and heal us. 

Thank you for how you clean our bodies and the earth. 

Thank you for loosening up compacted soil and compacted spirits. 

May we embody your radiance, generosity, and gentle tenacity. 

May we share your courage to surrender. 

As you allow your progeny to be carried on the wind, so may we surrender to our call in this life. 

May we also bloom where we are planted.