The Prepper Broadcasting Network - Medical Monday - Herbal Medicine for Preppers - Dill, Fenugreek, and Ginger

Episode Date: February 2, 2026

You can grow em all! Thanks so much Judson! Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/prepper-broadcasting-network--3295097/support.BECOME A SUPPORTER FOR AD FREE PODCASTS, EARLY ACCESS & TONS OF MEMBERS ONLY CONTENT!Get Prepared with Our Incredible Sponsors! Survival Bags, kits, gear www.limatangosurvival.comThe Prepper's Medical Handbook Build Your Medical Cache – Welcome PBN FamilyThe All In One Disaster Relief Device! www.hydronamis.comJoin the Prepper Broadcasting Network for expert insights on #Survival, #Prepping, #SelfReliance, #OffGridLiving, #Homesteading, #Homestead building, #SelfSufficiency, #Permaculture, #OffGrid solutions, and #SHTF preparedness. With diverse hosts and shows, get practical tips to thrive independently – subscribe now!

Hey y'all, welcome today's show. We're going to continue with our series of culinary herbs and garden plants that you may already be growing that have medicinal properties of which you may not know. And of course, this all comes from my book, Growing Your Survival Herb Garden for Preppers, Permaculture People, Homesteaders, and everyone else. But today we're going to start with Dill. And Dill is actually a very interesting herb. It's one that's mentioned in the Bible, like several of these. So we mentioned, Jesus said, woe to you scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites.

You pay a tenth of mint, deal, and cumin, yet you have neglected the more important matters of the law. Justice, mercy, and faith. These things should have been done without neglecting the others. So obviously, deal was considered very valuable. So, you know, I guess with that admonition in mind, we probably ought to look at why it deal was so valuable, but presumably it was good for more than just flavoring pickles.

But an interesting aside, these days we associate deal with dill pickles. And there's actually a reason for that. Both come from the same area of the world. The cucumber originated in the Mediterranean, and the first dill pickles were probably made by either of the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, or Samarians. and our tradition of dill pickles comes through the ancient Jews. They as they, after the fall of Israel, when they were dispersed, they took with them cucumbers and dill and garlic, and it was food and medicine.

And when we think of just the regular deal pickle we have beside a hamburger, that pickle is actually so full of historical significance. It's one of the oldest foods known to man that was essential for survival and is actually quite medicinal. Deal has been used for countless centuries as a preservative for food. It has antimicrobial properties. In the Scandinavian, you know, Norse regions, they use deal in preserving fish, you know, just dill and salt, maybe some juniper berries, A little bit of vodka or aquavit makes the wonderful grovelox, the preserved salmon. Again, you'll find this in smoked salmon, preserved salmon with dill very much in Jewish culture.

If you go to a Jewish deli, you get bagels and locks, and it's fantastic, actually. You get the bagel with the cream cheese and maybe a sprigodil. You know, if it's a little fancy, you get your smoked salmon, maybe a few capers. If you go to, I'm just going to say Scandinavian, I cannot remember exactly which of those Nordic countries this comes from. It's the Smorgasborg. I guess it's Swedish. I'm going to go Swedish. Well, anyway, they kind of mastered the art of the sandwich, and it's just this huge spread of small sandwiches.

them, you're going to find the cured salmon, the grove locks, and a lot of dill. And cheeses, deal goes very well with cheeses. It was preserved for cheese as well as meat and fish and cucumbers and just about everything else. But it really has a lot of medicinal properties. It's essentially a digestive herb. It may even be the essential digestive herb. For thousands of years, people have taken dill. well, one, to mix with food to prevent food poisoning, but two, for gas, flage, and it's upset, stomach, and all that.

It's especially good for easing, cramping, and gas in babies and children. You infuse dill in hot milk. That's the way it's traditionally been used. Other herbs can be used the same way, like caraway and such as that. Fennel, definitely fennel seed. But deal is really the go-to, the one that's been used, a lot for, you know, colic issues and just, you know, gas and flageolence. I mean, you know, that causes, you know, babies and kids to cry a lot.

They're not, you know, used to it. And it really helps. It settles the stomach. Dill actually increases mother's milk. It's what we call a galactagogue. It calms intestinal spasms. It even helps with menstrual cramps and is useful in colds and flu and helps with bad breath. You know, Dill has amazing properties that we really don't think about these days.

We just throw it in our pickle brine, but, you know, really good stuff. It's a weedy herb. It's in the Appiacea family. It's unbillifers, so it gets that like, you know, pom-pum type head of seeds. It's pretty. It'll look good in any ornamental garden or in your herb or, you know, vegetable garden. It has thin, kind of fern-like leaves. Some people say they're feathery.

I just say it's a soft texture. The flowers are yellow, and like I said, they form an umbels. Dill is an annual that will self-seed rampantly if established. If you plant Dill, you'll probably only have to plant it once. Usually, Dill is a self-seater. We'll just go with that. Dill likes loose soil that's moderately rich, but it will grow and pour a disturbed soil where weeds thrive if it has to. It's a very hardy plant.

Seeds can be broadcast. Some people call that throw sewing or different words. When I was a kid, it was called broadcasting, and it's how you take small seeds, and you can either toss them out as you walk through tilled garden beds, or there was actually a little, I don't even know what you would call it. I think it was called a broadcaster. It was sort of like a bucket with a wheel on the bottom that you turn with a crank,

and you've seen people probably use. these spreading grass seed. You walked along, it had a harness at one over your shoulder, and you turned it, and it would just throw the seed everywhere as you walk. So it really doesn't need to be planted deeply at all. In fact, it should only be sown about a quarter inch deep at most. Ideally, the plant should be about a foot apart. So either in the fall or the spring, it likes full sun and it can grow two to three feet tall. So it can be a nice kind of striking plant. It actually is very attractive and definitely one that I would consider absolutely essential to have on hand.

And I think that's interesting to me, I'm having trouble these days. Like if I don't have everything I need on hand and I go to the store to get the spices to make my pickling spices, I prefer to use dill seed. The spice companies don't seem to be selling dill seed anymore like they used to. They just sell dill weed, which is the tops. So if you want dill seed, you're probably going to have to grow it yourself. At least that's been my experience in my area. Fingia Greek is a culinary herb or spice.

It's really not used much in western cooking, but it should be. It's a medicinal herb. it has a bit of a it's odd okay I've grown fenugreek before I've worked with fenyu creek it's used a lot in the cuisines of Africa and the Middle East

as a spice for the ancient Greeks and Romans it was a medicinal herb the seed it has almost sort of a maple syrup like flavor but on the other hand it's not really sweet

it's kind of strange to describe but combined with other spices it's really good like in savory dishes it's especially used in curries and such in India it has a little bitterness to it it's it's very very hard to describe but it's more practically I mean if you're a pepper and such it's actually one of the easiest seeds to sprout so you could put this in a in a jar put a little cloth at the top put a little water in there and you're going to have a quart jar full of fenugreek sprouts that you can eat as an emergency food in a matter like 48 hours I mean they're ready to go sit them in the sun let them green up and you've got tons of nutrition in there or add them

to salads or just you know eat them throughout the winter I mean it could be really be one of survival foods that you could have in the winter and early spring when most things really aren't growing because, you know, that's the benefit of sprouts. They're not, um, do nothing to jump up and down about, you know, culinary speaking, taste wise, but they're an easy way, whether it's bean sprouts or grain sprouts or like fina Greek seed sprouts, chia sprouts, lots of sprouts, easy way to get some very fast, uh, nutrition and fiber when you might need it in times when, you know, things just won't grow outside. And it's something you could do, like even if there was no electricity and you couldn't use grow lights and such as that.

Very, very easy to make alfalfa sprouts, fenugreek sprouts, mung bean sprouts, lentil sprouts. Lentils are a really good one. I like lentil sprouts quite a bit. But the medicinal properties of fenugreek are really impressive. According to plants for a future, fenugreek is much used in herbal medicine. especially in North Africa, the Middle East, and India. It has a wide range of medicinal applications. The seeds are very nourishing and are given to convalescence to encourage weight gain, especially in anorexia nervosa.

The seed should not be prescribed medicinally for pregnant women since they can induce uterine contractions. Research has shown that the seeds can inhibit cancer of the liver, lower blood cholesterol levels and have an antibiotic effect and have an anti-diabetic effect the seeds and leaves are anticholorescholar this is so hard for me to pronounce they lower cholesterol that's antich colostrolimic anti-cholestrolimic they lower cholesterol just go with that Anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor, carminative demulcine, that means softening.

Diobstruent means getting rid of basically obstructions in the bowel, essentially. Amoliant, which means softening, expectant, gets rid of, you know, mucus in the lungs, febriuge helps with fever, galactagogue also increases mother's milk, just like Dill does. Hypoglycemic, which means lowers blood sugar, laxative, paracidiv, paracidic. It helps get rid of parasites. They really ought to make these things easier to pronounce. And restorative antuterine tonic. Seed yield a strong mucilage, and they are therefore useful in the treatment of

inflammations and alters of the stomach and intestines. Taken internally, a decoction of the ground seed serves to drain off the sweat ducts. The seed is very nourishing and bodybuilding, and is one of the most efficacious, tonics in case of physical debility caused by anemia or infectious disease, especially where a nervous factor is involved. It is also used in the treatment of late onset diabetes, poor digestion, insufficient lactation, painful menstruation, labor pains, etc. The seeds fresh and bad breath and restole a doled sense of taste. Externally, the seeds can be ground into a powder and used as a pulses for abscesses,

boils, alters, burns, etc. They can be used as a douche for excessive vaginal discharge. The leaves are harvested in the growing season and can be used fresh or dried. The seeds are harvested when fully ripe and dried for later use. Compounds extracted from the plant have shown cardiotonic, hypoglycemic, diuretic, antiflogistic, hypotensive activities. And the seeds also have saponins, which have been used in various pharmaceutical applications. But that's an amazing amount of qualities or uses for one simple little plant. Super easy to grow. You can see why I consider fenugreek almost to be not just a medicine, but a survival food. I mean, I would really think that a fenugreek would be in a survival.

Bible garden, really in the top 10. It's actually in the bean family. It's a leguminous plant. That's why it sprouts so easy. That's why it's so easy to use. Those little seeds are actually little beans, believe it or not. So you grow them just as you would, any other legume. It likes full sun.

Water needs are moderate. Venue Greek will grow up to two feet tall. Spacing should be about a foot and a half apart. So after the last frost, the folio, is shiny and blue-green and the flowers are not showy. So, you know, really, if you're planning, if you're prepping, I guess I should say, make a note of fenugreek. Probably the two, well, for me, probably the two most important legumes I would plant

would be fenugreek and lentil. And it's because, well, you've seen how useful Fenegric is. Lentils are just an excellent protein-rich, easy to use, you know, member of the bead and pea family. But the thing is, they don't need pre-soaking. You can harvest tons of lentils. You can store them up. You can actually grind them and use them in breads. You can use them as a grain.

Or you can just throw in boiling water with some onion and, you know, maybe some chicken broth or a bone or something. And you've got excellent. nutritious soup. And if fuel was an issue, if water was in short supply, lentils could probably save your life. And even if you couldn't make a soup out of them, you could take those same dried stored lentils and sprout them and have wonderful nutritious lentil sprouts. They actually taste pretty good. A lot of people would say alfalfa, but alfalfa actually does have some toxicity. when eating raw. Now, I've eaten alfalfa sprouts all my life. You know, mom was a hippie, you know, but

I mean, I enjoy them salad. I enjoy them on a sandwich. But apparently there is some concern about eating too much raw alfalfa. Finiagreek and lentils don't fall into that category. Now, of course, being southern, I'd also have to grow my field peas, my dixie leaf peas, my rattlesnake beans, purple runners, zipper creams. I love heirloon cow peas, essentially, black eyed piece at the very minimum, and some butter beans. I've got to have my butter beans. There are, there are airloom varieties of lima beans, and I love butter beans. And, yeah, I'd have some pentos and some black beans, because I got to have some refried beans and some, you know, burritos every now and then. good pot of chili but uh yeah probably some navy beans you know i really do like beans i'm a lagoon

fanatic i just you know growing up in the country we had beans and peas at every meal i'm not kidding i mean every single supper uh every single day of the year my grandmother had a pot of field peas and a pot of uh of butter beans going on the stove other times a year she might have done fresh, you know, sweet garden peas. There might have been black-eyed peas, you know, well, there were. Quite often we had black-eyed peas. Kidney beans, I mean, but always on the back of her stove was a pot of field peas and a pot of butter beans.

Two separate pots, okay? The filled peas would be peas with snaps. The butter beans would just be plain butter beans, but she'd add some cornmeal to it. That was really important to thicken the broth. And they were seasoned with fat back. there was never a single meal from birth to the point I could eat solid food right to the time she was she had a couple heart attacks and couldn't cook anymore and then it's when she taught me to cook when she was in her 80s and I guess I was in my mid 20s so there was not a single meal where that

Those two pots of peas and beans were not on the stove. And so for me, a supper, and it was always a pot of rice, okay? You know, we're from the eastern part of North Carolina where rice culture began. Supper was always going to be meat, beans, peas, rice, gravy, usually greens, mustard turnips, collards, you name it, corn, tomatoes. Those were ubiquitous. I mean, always. Okra. I mean, in season or out, we froze plenty of okra,

froze plenty of tomatoes, so we'd have it in the wintertime. Throughout the season, there'd be fresh cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, radishes on the table. We always had what they call crudette now, which we just called, you know, vegetables. You know, these huge plates and seconds and thirds. but those the filled peas and butter beans were the heart and foundation of every meal

I mean that was a constant we didn't know you know depending on what she had on hand we might have chicken we might have pork chops we might have country style steak it might be game it might be fish but the peas and beans were always there the rice was always there

usually some potatoes always corn bread every single meal corn bread. Oftentimes dinner rolls or biscuits too, if there were biscuits left over from breakfast. And we ate what people think of the huge feast of Thanksgiving. That was the regular supper on the farm. And leftovers would be had the next day for lunch. And the whole thing would start over again. And she would cook for not only, you know, a family of four kids with their kids, but cousins and aunts and uncles, great aunts and uncles farm hands, on a given day, she might have been cooking for 37, 47 people.

The dining room table would be full of family. The back porch would be farm hands with a, you know, sitting in a rocking chair with a plate in their lap and a glass of tea sitting beside them. And the front door was open and anybody was welcome to come in. If there were, the staples we had were certainly filled peas and butter. butter beans greens okra tomato rice potatoes and pork fat every meal everything was cooked with pork fat back you know her father raised hogs and he made phenomenal hams and bacon sausage you know my grandfather kept other livestock meat was

never in short supply and vegetables were always in abundance always in abundance. We kept three chest freezers and two upright freezers stocked all the time, plus a room full of canned goods, a pantry essentially. She would do tons of canning of vegetables, vegetables, make jams and jellies and pickles. Huge. I mean, the size of, you know, most people's kitchen. It was just lined wall to wall with shells full of canned goods. And cabinet, full of dry goods. I mean, you know, dried beans and rice and everything. A nice big spice cabinet because, you know, that's part of my tradition, part of my heritage. We're part of French. We, in Creole and Cajun and all that, we use a lot of herbs and spices. And my gosh, nobody ever went

hungry around there. That, I guess, the actual home place with the farm around it, there were other properties that my grandfather owned. That 38 acres produced more food per year. It probably produced enough food per year to feed the entire town. And my grandfather was just a genius when it came to farming. And my grandmother was just a genius when it came to cooking and storing food. And, you know, it's quite a legacy, quite a, quite a legacy. And, you know, I hope I, I hope I live up to it. I don't have a family to feed. God's never brought the right lady into my life. But someday I would love to have kids of my own,

and I'd love to actually hands-on, teach them everything I talk about to y'all. That's what I want more than anything else in life. But it may happen. It may not. Not my will but thine, exactly, you know. So I'll get you one bonus. One we'll throw in. It's ginger.

We've already talked about ginger under turmeric. Ginger is antiviral. And if you go back to my show on antiviral herbs, that's where I discussed it a lot. Ginger is also very good. It's very effective against nausea, especially emotion sickness or morning sickness. The fresh juice of ginger, though, is a powerful antiviral. You actually have to take the fresh root, throw it in the blender of the juicer, and press it. That's where it is, and it's most effective for what it can touch.

So it's really good for sore throats, like strep throat and such as that. But in any form, it's a good carminative, which means it helps subtle and upset stomach. Good for dyspepsia, which is, you know, burping and gas and all that. It's a stimulant. It actually increases the body temperature. So a tea made of ginger or actually just putting ginger in a hot bath can help break a fever. Good for colic, gastritis, and diarrhea. And I don't know about, I cannot speak for other dogs.

My border collie loves spice. This is the weirdest thing. He was about two when I found him. Somebody had abandoned him out in timber country. He's been with me now for about 15 years. So he's a very old dog. But when he was just come into the household, you know, and he was still unsure about things,

and I didn't know what he liked to eat or not, I had this craving for a hot, spicy, pickled sausage. So I just ran into a gas station and got one of those. I think it was like a Bahama Mama or one of the nasty, cheap, very bad for you, hot pickled sausages. But they're super hot and spicy, right? So I'm sitting there and I took a bite of it and I'm like, wow, that's pretty good. You know, I had a cold beer. And it was just very satisfying when you get that taste.

And he's looking at me. He's like, I want some of that. And I'm like, you don't want any of this. This is hot and spicy. Trust me, you don't want any of this. And he's, you know, adamant. So I gave him a little bite. His eyes got as big as saucers.

He started drooling, and he literally jumped on me and tried to take the rest of it away from me. Seriously, this dog, my border collie, loves spice. He loves cayenne pepper. He loves jalapeno and even habanero peppers. If I put hot, I love habanero sauce. I eat it quite a bit or a lot of things. If I put it on my food, he smells it and he wants the habanero sauce. He's crazy, I know.

He also loves ginger and cloves and such as that, those hot spices. Cinnamon. The dog goes crazy over cinnamon. When his appetite is low, because, I mean, he's at least 16, maybe 17 years old now. He's a very old dog, mostly blind, mostly deaf. He's always got a good appetite. But if it's a little off, a ginger snap cookie, we'll do the trick every time. I'll get a couple of ginger snaps.

I like him in the morning with coffee occasionally. You know, I'll just dip in my coffee and eat one. And he'll get up out of bed, he'll come over and he'll stare at me. He's like, I want a cookie. So I'll hand him a ginger snap. He'll take it and spit it out and look at it. And then he'll gobble it up. He does that with everything.

He always spits it out and looks at it. Like I'm trying to poison him or something. it will stimulate his appetite. And I can tell you when he's been sick, when he's been just really, I mean, I thought he was near the end. I mean, this is a very old dog. A ginger snap cookie brings his appetite back and puts the spark back in his eyes like nothing else. Now, these sunshine ginger snaps, which I usually buy, now I do sometimes bake my own gingerbreads and such as that. They not only have gingerbreads.

and clove in them but they also have cayenne pepper so I don't know if he's necessarily I think it's the combination and he just loves it given that and then you know maybe I'll go in and you know brown up some beef for lunch or you know some other meat and suddenly that dog has an appetite like he did when he was two or three years old every time it just it's like that ginger just brings him back to life and it's kind of strange because you know dr. Patrick Jones the great herbalist is also a veterinarian. And he keeps cayenne pepper on hand for dogs that are going

into shock. Dogs have been hit by a car. They're about die, you know, or not recovering well from surgery or for whatever reason. He said, you know, when their eyes are fading, their gums are getting pale, he just shoots a little cayenne pepper tincture into their throat or some hot sauce and then brings them right back. That seems to be what Ginger does from my dog buddy. It's absolutely amazing and I got to see it again last night. He was like moping around the house, you know. I mean, he seemed to be having a rough time and I was just sitting there eating a couple of ginger snaps and he came over to me. He started staring at me adamantly and I remembered. I was like, oh my gosh, I should have given him a cookie earlier. He loves him. He's a weird dog though. He actually, he loves onions and garlic and, you know, every single veterinarian says, never feed your dog. alliums because it can actually cause anemia if I don't put onions and or garlic or both in the meat that I'm cooking he doesn't want to eat it literally the dog was like crazy over meatloaf or you know ground beef with onions and I'm gonna put

in a burrito or something he has I don't know he is a very odd sense of taste and considering he's at least 16 or 17 years old apparently it hasn't done him any harm Neither is the chocolate that he enjoys. And, you know, I don't know. I'm not a veterinarian. I don't give advice. Golly Pete, but everything they say that will harm a dog certainly hasn't harmed him.

And he's outlived every single dog in the neighborhood that was around when he came into my life. So who knows? Who knows? I don't know. But I would grow ginger if you could. If you can, I grow it in pots. because it is a hot weather plant. It is tropical.

It comes from India. Put it in a sandy soil, give it full sun. It probably will not really sprout and get growing until you hit about 80 degrees. Well, actually until you hit about 90 degrees. I say 85 to 90 in a daily high. So I grow it in a sunny window. I grow it almost in like a mini greenhouse. when I'm in the mountains. Same with turmeric and galangal, they're all related. Excellent herbs.

If you live where it's hot and you have a sandy soil and it's kind of dry, well, it can actually handle some rain. I mean it's kind of tropical, but it doesn't want wet feet, that's for sure. You can probably grow ginger. Very pretty plant. Big, broad green leaves, almost like an Easter lily or something. nice pretty flower gorgeous plant this would be very at home in your your flower garden your POA or HOA is going to love it and ginger is great ginger is great to cook with ginger is great medicinally so it's turmeric so as galangle go for it so y'all I guess that's got to that's going to wrap it up for today have a good one 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 verbal medicine, and there is no governing body regulating herbless. 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 an herb has helped me. I cannot nor would I tell you to do the same. If you use an herb, anyone 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 to your own research, make your own choices, and not to blame me for anything ever. Thank you.