Dandelion: diuretic and digestive

It is an excellent wild vegetable very abundant in meadows, of great nutritional value and with multiple properties

Dandelion: Taraxacum officinale

Everyone knows and appreciates dandelion salad in spring, but few know all its virtues and how to benefit from it throughout the year.

It is an excellent wild vegetable very abundant in meadows and of great nutritional value.
It contains:
- 3.5% protein
- vitamins: A, B1, B2, P, C
- minerals: calcium, phosphorus, iron, sodium, potassium, magnesium.

It is a remarkable depurative which drains the liver and kidneys, eliminates toxins, uric acid and cholesterol.
As a bitter tonic, it stimulates digestion.

It is therefore beneficial for everyone and provides great support for diabetics, rheumatism sufferers, renal insufficiency and in cases of skin problems or anaemia.

Everything in the dandelion can be consumed:

• The root: very nutritious and rich in inulin (a sugar assimilable by diabetics)
• The rosette of leaves
• The buds and flowers
• The stems

While the rosettes of young dandelions are among the first wild salads to offer themselves to us in spring, the flower buds can be added to salads or omelettes and prepared like capers.
The flowers themselves can make excellent jams or aperitif wine.

When dandelions are too tough to be eaten raw, add them to your vegetable soups, with the root or make gratins (blanched in boiling water beforehand).
Or also:

• Infusion of root harvested in autumn
• Tincture
• Decoction of flowers for visual disorders and to brighten the complexion;
• Dandelion ointment for skin suppleness and against wrinkles;
• but also Far with dandelions, capers of buds…

Throughout the year, the little yellow flower offers us its treasures of benefits for our health, it is up to us to know how to use it…