The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Herbal Medicine for Preppers: Honey Locust, Kentucky Coffee Tree and Silverbell

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey y'all, welcome to this week's show. We're continuing our series, of course, on the medicinal uses of trees. And this is actually one of my absolute favorites, okay? It is honey locusts. Now, if you've ever been around honey locusts, you may know that it is covered with huge thorns, if you have the natural variety. I mean, these thorns are actually so big and strong they've actually been used by as nails in the past you may know that it drops pods everywhere what you may not know is those pods are full of a sweet nutritious pulp that is sort of like caramel you can make sugar from them they're very closely related to carob. Carob is the

Starting point is 00:00:46 chocolate substitute, but the honey locust is really more like honey or caramel. You can make a very good beer out of it. So a tree that makes beer, I'm all for it. Okay. It's also really good wood. Those pods are also very nutritious. It's a nice tall as a pretty tree as long as you avoid the thorns and they're tough enough to rip tractor tivers open I mean so seriously they can be very thorny I think it makes a wonderful boundary plant if you're planting boundaries both the honey and black locust which there's some controversy over whether they're actually related. The black locust is a different tree, has a completely different Latin name, used to be thought they were two varieties of the same tree.

Starting point is 00:01:34 Both are very thorny. Both are excellent wood. I mean, locust is one of the finest woods there is. The black locust pods, however, are not edible. Well, the flowers are, as we've discussed. The honey locusts are a food that's been used by man forever. In fact, there's a little bit of controversy. You know, in the Bible where it says that John the Baptist fed on wild locusts,

Starting point is 00:02:02 some people think it should have been translated as the pods from the honey locust tree, wild carob, essentially. We do know that the prodigal son ate the pods from the tree that were supposed to be fed to the hogs, and they were locust pods. Very, very useful food tree, whether or not John the Baptist was eating insects or the pods from the locust tree, not John the Baptist was eating insects or the pods from the locust tree. It doesn't really matter. The locust has been used as food by people in the Middle East and such for millions of years, I mean millions of years, and wonderful animal feed. Great, I think incredibly great, useful tree. Like I said, related to the carob tree. And I don't know, no one really knows, if the ancient Greeks, such as Dioscorides, were writing about the honey

Starting point is 00:02:55 locust or the carob, they used the same name for both, carotia. And Dioscorides wrote, you know, some 2,500 years ago, the pods taken while fresh are bad for the stomach and loosen the intestines. In other words, they had a lot of fiber and they could cause diarrhea and people did not used to really appreciate fibrous foods. Let's just put it that way. But when dried, they stopped the discharge of the bowel. So the dried pods, which could be used against diarrhea. stop the discharge of the bowel so the dried pods which could be used against diarrhea he said they are also better for the stomach and a diuretic which means removing excess fluids especially when combined with the remains left ever after pressing out grapes so uh the skins and and everything the seeds which are highly astringent when you press grapes to make wine which are highly astringent when you press grapes to make wine. The leftovers, even like the little stems, the skins, the seeds, they're very, very good for you, actually very high in antioxidants,

Starting point is 00:03:57 but also very astringent, very high in tannic acid. So they would combine these two to stop diarrhea, which makes tons of sense. Plants for a Future in Modern Use says that medicinal use of honey locusts, the pods have been made into a tea for the treatment of indigestion, metazoles, cataract, which is congestion, mucus congestion. The juice of the pods is antiseptic. The pods have been seen as a good anecdote for children's complaints. The alcoholic extract of the fruit or tincture of the fruits of the honey locusts, the pods, after the elimination of tannin considerably retard the growth of up to 63% of carcinoma in mice. So, I mean, I'm not, you know, I never give remedies for cancer,

Starting point is 00:04:47 cancer, but it has been found in laboratories where they can remove the tannins as a potential way to slow down the growth of carcinoma. However, the cytotoxicity of the extract was quite high, and the animals, besides losing weight, showed dystrophic charges in the liver and spleen. So it has cytotoxins when processed that way and was bad for the liver and spleen. So it has cytotoxins when processed that way and was bad for the liver and spleen. The alcoholic extract of the fruit exerted moderate oncostatic activity against sarcoma and the total dose of, well, we don't need to get into that, but the weight loss was considerable. So, you know, probably not something you can really replicate at home and probably not something you'd necessarily want to unless it was a desperate situation. An infusion of the bark has been drunk and used in a wash and the treatment of dyspepsia. It is also, well dyspepsia is

Starting point is 00:05:38 an ingestion. I'm not sure how you would use it as a wash for dyspepsia. Huh, I'm not getting that, but yeah, drunk I can see. An infusion, this is just tea of the bark. It has also been used for the treatment of whooping cough, measles, smallpox, etc. The twigs and leaves contain the alkaloids gletchdichine and stenocarpine. I cannot pronounce the first one for anything. and stenocarpine. Cannot pronounce the first one for anything. Stenocarpine has been used as a local anesthetic, whilst gletschschin causes stupor and loss of reflex activity.

Starting point is 00:06:14 So you probably want to avoid that. Current research examining the leaves is a potential source of anti-cancer compounds. And so that makes sense. So leaves would probably be a better way to use it peterson field guide for eastern central medicinal plants says the seeds of chinese species g-sinenses that's the chinese version of honey locusts are used in chinese medicine for sore throats asthmatic cough swelling stroke. Experimentally, seed pods cause the breakdown of red blood cells. Wow. It is strongly antibacterial, antifungal, and acts as an expectorant,

Starting point is 00:06:52 aiding and expelling phlegm and secretions from the respiratory tract. Minute amounts of the seeds are taken in powder for constipation. The thorns constitute another drug used in traditional Chinese medicine. They are used as a wash to reduce swelling and to disperse toxic matter. In treatment of carbuncles and in lesions, early reports of cocaine in the plant have been discredited. Well, I've never even heard of that before. Warning, all parts of the plants of both species contain potentially toxic compounds, as we

Starting point is 00:07:29 just discussed. Now, another, I'm going to go ahead and do another tree. This one was much used in early America as a tea substitute or coffee substitute when the British were restricting imports and on the frontier where you couldn't get stuff. It was an important tree, and it was called American coffee. I mean, literally, it was used as a pure substitute for morning coffee. And it's often, it looks a lot, well, it has similar characteristics.

Starting point is 00:08:04 I won't say it looks a lot, well, it has similar characteristics. I won't say it looks a lot. It doesn't look a lot. But the pods and such, it has similar characteristics to locust. So I think it's a good time to discuss Gymnoclaudius diocea or the Kentucky coffee tree. It's a native plant to America. And you may well have one growing in your yard, and you just don't know what it is. I mean, it's fairly widespread, but especially in the Appalachians. But it grows well up into New York and New Jersey.

Starting point is 00:08:35 I mean, it's all over the place, but it grows more abundantly, I think, in more mountainous, hilly regions where it doesn't get super hot. But it actually has a relative that grows in hotter areas. So we're just going to get a jump into this. King's American Dispensatory 1898 says the tincture of the pulp and pods, and in some instances the bark also, has been used with benefit in intermittent fever. Fever is usually called by malaria. Also the fevers that come along with things like COVID and such, like quinine. Good to know. More recently, it has been tried with advantage in cases of abnormal states of the nervous centers and is, as indicated among other symptoms, by impaired sense of touch and vision,

Starting point is 00:09:18 numbness, dull headache, apathy, and fornication. Now, I don't think that word's being used as we would think of it today. I think they're really talking more dull, numbness, stupor, headache, low energy. So that's interesting. It says, in one case of locomotor atoxia, it proved decidedly beneficial and is valuable in some cases of more serious symptoms resulting from excessive masturbation. Hmm. So maybe they did actually mean it that way. Uh, but I think, Hmm. I think they're saying it could be good for... What would come from excess...

Starting point is 00:10:09 Well, you know what? I'm just going to leave that to your imagination because it's up to my imagination. I have no idea what they mean. Anyway, recent reports by Dr. Vassar confirm it as a valuable remedy for spermaturia. So, Professor Robert Bartholomew, MD, investigated physiologically the purified tincture of the leaves as prepared for him by a pharmacist and found it to be very marked in its quantities. and found it to be very marked in its quantities.

Starting point is 00:10:48 It has likewise been recommended in laryngeal cough with chronic irritation, of the mucous lining of the membrane of the air passages, and erysipelas in all fevers presenting of a typhoid condition, and perpetual peritonitis. And it is certainly deserving of the attention of our practitioners. The tincture is best made by taking two ounces of the bruised seed and one ounce of the pulp and adding them to eight fluid ounces each of water and alcohol and letting it macerate or just kind of steep for 12 to 14 days with frequent agitation and then filtered. Really? Um, I, you know, I honestly, I can't explain everything that was just said in that paragraph. Um, hmm. Worth a lot of thought and, uh, who knows,

Starting point is 00:11:37 who knows anyway, but getting into more common use plants for Future says the pulverized root bark is used and is effective in anemia. A tea made from the bark is diuretic. The pulverized root bark is used as an effective enema. A tea made from the bark is diuretic. That's really the most common folk use is diuretic tea. bark is diuretic. That's really, it's more, most common folk use is diuretic tea. Yeah, I'm kind of, if it kind of tightens up tissue and, yeah, I'm kind of getting an idea of what they meant in some of those cases. Anyway, it is used in the treatment of cough due to inflamed mucous membranes and also to help speed up protracted labor. Believe it or not. Remember, we never recommend that. A snuff made

Starting point is 00:12:28 from the pulverized root bark is used to cause sneezing in comatose patients. Anyway, a tea made from the leaves and pulp of the pods is laxative and has been used in the treatment of reflex troubles. A decoction of the fresh green pulp of the unripe fruit is used in home treatment of reflex troubles. A decoction of the fresh green pulp of the unripe fruit is used in homeopathic practice. And Peterson Field Guide to Eastern and Central Medicinal Plants says the caramel-like pod pulp was used by American Indians to treat lunacy. I have no idea. I cannot imagine how the caramel-like pulp of the pod, which is somewhat like the honey locust pulp, would help treat lunacy.

Starting point is 00:13:09 No idea. No idea whatsoever. Leaf and pulp tea formerly employed for reflex troubles and as laxative root bark tea used for coughs due to inflamed mucous membranes, diuretic given in childbirth in protracted labor, stops bleeding, used in enemas for constipation, warning it is toxic to grazing animals the seed contains toxic saponins. So amazingly this tree which is one of the most used in early America not used much now in herbal medicine, may have some really interesting properties, but definitely good for coughs and inflamed mucous membranes and as a diuretic and for diarrhea and all that. Good as a coffee substitute, but as far as all the other, you know, I can't say one way or the other. If it has some means of helping in terms of sexual dysfunction, it could be a very valuable plant.

Starting point is 00:14:15 Someone should definitely look more into it and try to find out what the heck they were talking about in 1898, and that comes from an official pharmacy manual in 1898. So there's probably something to it. I'm just saying. Anyway, y'all, I do know that honey locust is one of my favorites. I mean, any tree that you can get like a sweet caramel-like pulp from its pods and use as a sugar substitute make beer out of I'm pretty good I'm gonna be a big fan of that tree I just gotta say but also you know thinking of it I mean it's not only good wood for carving and lumber and all that but as I said those thorns in certain varieties especially the ones I've seen

Starting point is 00:14:59 well people have talked about I've never been to Australia but I got a lot of friends from Australia and they talk about how in colonial times, those thorns were used as nails. They are that hard and strong. And in a grid-down situation, hey, what if you couldn't get to the hardware store to buy nails? You're going to need nails. That's another thing to think about. Other uses for them have been sewing needles. You can take them and trim them down, put an eye through them, and use them

Starting point is 00:15:30 as sewing needles. They've been used as harrows, I guess you would call it, for carding wool. That's another use for honey locust thorns. Anywhere you could use a spike of some sort, where you could use a spike of some sort. The honey locust has been employed by native peoples or primitive peoples wherever they grow. So really useful plant, really fast. I think it's a very pretty tree as well. And yeah, I mean, good for herbal medicine too. Both of these just really interesting, very, very very interesting trees two of the most

Starting point is 00:16:06 interesting trees i've run across so y'all um let's see could i fit in one more i think i got a short one i will try the next next week i'm going to kick off with a long one so i was trying to get a couple short entries in here the other one i guess i'll cover is Silverbell, Latin is Helicia. And there are actually two that are native to my region. They're very pretty, but it's fairly rare, and that's actually more than most folks have, our two. We have Mountain Silverbell, and we have Common Silverbell. And really the only thing I know about its medicinal properties comes from the fruit. It's acidic, it's astringent, it's high in vitamin C and used to be popular pickled. The

Starting point is 00:16:54 old-timers in the mountains used to pickle the fruit, not really used as a fresh eating fruit, but during the wintertime when they were worried about scurvy and other issues from not having a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables the pickled fruit of the silver bell helicia was very important and real survival food but also said to be quite tasty and you know this one that doesn't grow in your area it's a pretty plant and you might want to start growing them ornamentally so we will go ahead and wrap it up there y'all have a great week and i'll talk to you next time the information this podcast is not intended to diagnose or treat any disease or condition nothing i say or write has been evaluated or approved by the fda i'm not a doctor the u.s government does not recognize the practice of herbal medicine,

Starting point is 00:17:45 and there is no governing body regulating herbalists. Therefore, I'm really just a guy who studies herbs. I'm not offering any advice. I won't even claim that anything I write or say is accurate or true. I can tell you what herbs have been traditionally used for. I can tell you my own experience and if I believe in herbs help me. I cannot nor would I tell you to do the same. If you use an herb anyone

Starting point is 00:18:05 recommends, you are treating yourself. You take full responsibility for your health. Humans are individuals and no two are identical. What works for me may not work for you. You may have an allergy, a sensitivity, an underlying condition that no one else even shares and you don't even know about. Be careful with your health. By continuing to listen to my podcast or read my blog, you agree to be responsible for yourself, do your own research, make your own choices, and not to blame me for anything ever.

The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Herbal Medicine for Preppers: Honey Locust, Kentucky Coffee Tree and Silverbell

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