Sassafras - International, Historical Uses; Industry Opportunity

Safrole is also consumed in China, Chinese Sassafras

Sassafras has a revered place in many cultures.

Hospitality: In 1884, Ellen Emerson of Boston published a work of myths of "aborigines" (the term as used), from Hindustan, America, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and China.* See the role of sassafras for hospitality world-wide. See  also ://www.erowid.org/archive/rhodium/chemistry/3base/safrole.plants/fafopo/sassafras_oil.html

Long history: from the Cretacean Period

Good uses: It once was seen as Plague cure: see "The Tree With Red Mittens," in the Missouri Conservationist at mdc.mo.gov/conmag/2000/02/50. See how it was used in early Virginia at nps.gov/archive/fora/hariotpart3. It is a tonic, a pick-me-up, an essential for tasty root beer, sarsaparilla, tea and more. See henriettesherbal.com/archives/best/1996/sarsaparilla for sarsaparilla from sassafras

Native Americans and Westerns thrived on it. Its age gives it a venerable place in evolution. See Joseph McCabe, 1910-1920, at arthurwendover.com/arthurs/science/evolution.

Other effects useful to some, deplored by others: Safrole has been known to cause abortion. With appropriate dosage, can it be a natural birth control method, and private? As with any ingestible, its effect depends on dosage. See thedance.com/herbs/sassafras. Safrole is used as an abortifacient for heifers, so its capacity in that function is no news here.

And yet: Safrole is banned, with all its good uses,
While other substances such as aspartame are not,
Even though a more direct impact on disease or ill effect seems clear.
Is ban then required, or could we simply limit the use?
Is it worse than, example, aspartame?
Aspartame reviews.

There are studies against safrole's use: as here,
Sassafras Carcinogen factors, at fax.libs.uga.edu/E98xR3xE5x1884/1f/indian_myths.txt at p. 141; and beta.blogger.com/bs.uga.edu/E98xR3xE5x1884/1f/indian_myths at p. 565.

For more on sassafras used for hospitality and rural cures, and edibles, see recipes for candy, jelly, tea. Here are recipes for sassafras tea, mead, "quarreling," and candy: www.southernhumorists.com/sassafras. A good chew will improve your breath. Yes, yours, says Wildman Steve at econetwork.net/%7Ewildmansteve/Plants.Folder/Sassafras.

A promoter of file gumbo, describes it in: generalhorticulture.tamu.edu/prof/Recipes/File-Sassafras/file.
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* Photo, see China Road Ways

Sassafras in Georgia - Moravians and Clipper Ships

Sassafras from Georgia
to Europe in The Great Clipper Ships.

Transporting Sassafras to Make People's Fortunes

The Moravians in Georgia depended on sassafras for health. They made a beer from it, to their great benefit. Where they could not drink the water, or where legs and feet became swollen, the brew was the thing. See the historic account at ://www.fullbooks.com/The-Moravians-in-Georgia-1735-1740-by2.html/ "Palatable and healthful." Is that our root beer, or the old, good kind? Here is a preliminary draft paper on uses of plants from the new world, including sassafras, not sure of the subsequent status of the research - see ://wfr.eduhistory/Events/Moravians/papers/wilsonconferencedraft.doc/

Early missionaries arrived and promptly arranged for trade in sassafras, see  Our Todays and Yesterdays, at  ://www.glynngen.com/mdc/oty/page1.htm/ , at text page 8 - scroll down. The trade in sassafras was also important for the Spaniards arriving - they also believed in its great medicinal value and gathered the root for tea-making. Perhaps the tea's benefits derived from boiling the water, but vast quantities of the roots were sent to Spain for use - sounds like there is more to it than boiling water. See the glynngen site.

The Indians called what is now Cumberland Island, Georgia, "Missoe" meaning sassafras. The Spanish named it San Pedro. After the English took over the Spanish control of the island in 1686 or so, the English took back to England several prominant Indians for show.  An Englishman, Cumberland, gave one of the elder Indians a gold watch. The Indian asked, upon return, if the island could be renamed for the Englishman who gave him the gold watch - ergo, Cumberland. See page 59 of the glynngen site.

Dr. Samuel Nunez, who escaped with his family from the Inquisition in Lisbon, settled among the English in Georgia, and lists sassafras among the remedies he used to purify the blood.  See Harvard Medical Alumni article from 1961 by a Dr. Weinstein, at ://underthemagnoliatree.net/Samuel_Nunez.html/.

On we go. How can we devalue sassafras so? The island of St. Simons also is known for its sassafras, among a wide variety of trees there. Page 114, below the 1806 entries, glynngen.

Once established, the sassafras spreads by its underground runners. Cut it down, use it up, and it grows right back again. It can grow so densely that strong measures are required in rebuttal. Difficult to cultivate intentionally. Runners in all directions from the big trees' roots. Then shoot up everywhere, each seeking sun. Turn your head away for one season, and watch out. Mow it back. Go, Don.

Transplanting is difficult. Like people, we do better with connectors.

Sassafras then protects its turf. It puts off chemicals that discourage other plants from competing in its range. No others allowed in its shadow. Like us, keep out the competition.

This allelopathy- the built-in rejector - is a highly developed defense as to those who would eat it. The allelopathic chemicals keep the rodent-beavers from eating the whole tree. They will only eat the twigs, leaving the tree free to produce for another year. Look up other allelopathic defenses - using chemicals to repel. All part of nature. See davesgarden.com/terms/go for more species that do this, and a good definition. As to beavers, their dams go up, the trees live for another season, beavers and dams happy.

Fast forward to the FDA: ignoring allelopathy, and usinge rodents as a baseline for whether people would get cancer from sassafras, when rodents are naturally averse? On that basis, take away all safrole.

File is ok - so go make your own.
See home-made file gumbo powder at www.nolacuisine.com/2005/08/16/file-powder.

Was a relative of the sassafras found in Tutankhamen's tomb? Looking for that reference.We see that essential oils were found in trace, but that sassafras seems to be native to the Americas. Safrole is an essential oil, used in fragrances, but not for Tut.

Tutankhamen, Roadside Pub Teaser, Poland

Drive past this Tut for a mile or so and find the second one, with the sign to the pub.















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Interest broadening now to nettles:

• Nettle tea is good,

Read about nettle tea and other herbal remedies
At forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/herbal/msg0815470719656.html?18.

• Restoring hair loss? If it does that cure,

Does that make steepy nettle tea a drug
So that the FDA can ban it, too,
Big Merck Attack.

If you also want your rootbeer back, see www.assateague.com/sass. --Sassafras leaves, uses.

What Did Sassafras Do To Deserve the Ban

What Did Sassafras Do to Deserve the Ban

Less Carcinogenic,
Or at least,
No More Than
Your Common Kitchen Herbs and Spices

And less carcinogenic than beer beer.

Bans: Why do some substances simply get placed behind the counter, like sudafed, while others, like sassafras, get banned entirely? www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070320191048.

Sassafras is not unique.

Food substances do have high-dose problems.
Safrole, even the darling of pumpkin pie and eggnot, nutmeg.
See www.erowid.org/plants/nutmeg/nutmeg_info3 for plant doses.

But people have been sensible and benefiting anyway for years from access to plant materials.

Sassafras remedies may show promise - see www.heart-disease-bypass-surgery.com/data/articles/104

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Summary of the ban:
Safrole in sassafras was banned (the 60's),
See www.roundrockjournal.com for a photo and rootbeer blog.
The FDA labeling this food
As an "additive" instead of a food,
So it could regulate it through the back door.
Get it both ways -
Label it as a "drug" if it claims cures,
Because supposedly only a drug can claim a cure;
And so it could regulate even more.
Next thing: chicken soup a drug.

Find a label back again - the Label Wars.
Highly selective, lobby-sycophants.
For sycophant, see dictionary.reference.com/wordoftheday/archive/2004/01/04.

Squelch info so corps can continue making cash
On their concocted -raising prescriptions, if any?
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* Counter argument: See some notes on the contraindications of herbs at www.planetherbs.com/articles/Bentley%20contraindications."Within Sassafras there is a chemical called safrole. Safrole is a very common plant chemical, found in Mace, Nutmeg, basil, black pepper, Rosemary, Dill, Black tea, Dang Gui, Tamarind, Cinnamon, witch hazel, Asian wild ginger, and many other plants.

"Someone did a study demonstrating that this substance was carcinogenic in rats. Dr. James Duke reports that even if this same carcinogenicity were applicable to humans, a cup of sassafras tea would be 1/14 as carcinogenic as a cup of beer."

One Person's Morality? Another's Choice. Choose Safrole? Beats Pork Fat.

Who labeled sassafras worse than pork fat?

Eat your pork fat and have a good time. But don't touch the root beer.

The cultural choices we make.

Pork fat rules. We hear.

But an educated dose of safrole is out. Who says? What were the real reasons for banning safrole from our root beer, our hospitality teas.





"WARNING
Use of sassafras oil has caused abortion in pregnant women Research in the 1960's showed that safrole, a principal constituent of oil of sassafras, caused liver cancer in mice, and the US Food and Drug Administration outlawed the sale of flavorings (including oil of sassafras) containing it. Today's rootbeer is made with synthetic flavorings or oil of sassafras from which the safrole has been removed. Apparently filè powder does not contain enough safrole to be dangerous, and it is available commercially."

Maybe that knowledge must be kept under wraps.
Why? If it has been used so in history,
Provide information on the brew
So people need not rely on others to act.
A backyard solution for those who seek?
Their business then. Why not now?

Rationale: Maybe an overdose will cause illness.
It made rats sick.
But of course. Rats are averse to it - naturally.
Correlate with people?

Even where overdose is harmful,
Why ban? Why not provide information on the brew?
A plant misunderstood -
Its safrole, sassafras oil, banned by the FDA
But based on 20-day testing on rats.
Please tell the FDA
So it will tailor its testing methods
To the needs and inclinations of the testees.
That rules in everything else, so also here.
Just free the poor rats from sassafras.
They will sicken from sassafras every time.*

Granted, it is a plant with a downside if abused.
Like tobacco, or cough medicines.
It can be more than a pick-me up:
See www.chow.com/stories/10129; "Your Sassafras Has Been Neutered."
Is not the conclusion to regulate it, not ban.

It does take regulation;
Here is how to keep its stands of new shoots at bay:
Head right in and mow once in a while.
Go, Don.
Because the sassafras, like all of us, gets wild.
Huge overdose brings harm, expectedly.

Just set proper dosage and use labels for people,
And release the ban.
If cigarettes are sold with warnings, **
Why not lowly sassafras in root beer, too?
See www.planetherbs.com/articles/Bentley for Notes on Herb Contraindications.

To lift the ban, we need to conform here:
Need lobbyists for sassafras.

Need to promise career enhancements to them,
And look the other way when the FDA people own stock
In the enterprises they regulate, like Pharma,
If the FDA will just lift the ban.
That's how it is done.

Sad part.
Because there is a ban,
And government agencies must be acting
In the public interest, ha (see Sassafras Tree).

And that cup of sassafras is 1/14 as carcinogenic
As cup of beer. The Duke study. Dr. James Duke.

People will believe the ban is justified
Just because it is out there,
And not ask for backup information.
See www.mdc.mo.gov/conmag/2000/02/50. for The Tree With Red Mittens.
The two-lobed leaves in fall look just like that.