Sassafras Elixir Recipes. Tea - from history. Indian, Colonial, European, Virginia.

 First Aid, Cures and Enjoyment

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Sassafras Recipes for One and All

From History

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As we find them. Posts to continue.

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I.  Recipes from the old days

Note that if you would like a little sweetener with your sassafras, or to help the medicine go down, avoid high fructose corn syrup. It is marketed freely, despite enough findings of likely mercury to ban it, if the FDA were consistent.  See ://www.celsias.com/article/hfcs/; see also ://www.highfructosecornsyrup.org/2009/02/sweetness-and-blight-why-is-fda.html/. Apparently it meets some standard of  "natural" - see ://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2009/feb/04/is-mercury-lurking-in-high-fructose-corn-syrup/ - whereas safrole does not?  But the FDA refuses to define "natural" - leading to the inconsistency. See ://www.foodnavigator-usa.com/Financial-Industry/Natural-will-remain-undefined-says-FDA

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Sassafras tea.*
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* A layman's disclaimer  Arguments against: see http://www.bccancer.bc.ca/PPI/UnconventionalTherapies/SassafrasTea.htm/ All hinges on whether that 1960's testing on rats (leading to the 1975 ban) who are themselves averse to sassafras and would never eat it, is valid as an indicator of cancer in people.  Debaters, start your root beer.  And note other sources that say the amount of carcinogen in sassafras is 1/14 of that in beer. See://www.florahealth.com/flora/home/Canada/HealthInformation/Encyclopedias/Sassafras.htm/ Why doesn't the FDA ban beer? Let's test the rats for beer the same way that sassafras was tested, except that is cruel. Idea is, see why we need testing to be consistent and reasonable?  FN 1

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 Modern recipes:  see ://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080608171520AAKjFKG/ = scroll down past the usual overview to someone's comment that describes uses in Virginia. 

• Use the root, not the leaves. The root has an outer bark on it, and you take that off and wash the root well. Get 3-4 roots that are 4-6 inches long. Chop in small pieces . Boil a gallon of water and drop in the pieces. Boil 15-20 minutes, or longer for stronger. Good also with honey.

• For using the leaves:  Boil water and pour over leaves and let steep for 20 minutes. Use 1 tsp dried leaves to 1 cup water.  Strain out the leaves before drinking. 

• Here is somebody's video - for watching. Note everybody smelling the root every chance they get. Visit ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxp0Nm-1qOc

Sassafras country. Around the reservoir.Note that in the video (no sound available) the people use a simple potato peeler to peel off the dark outside of the root, and use roots about a middle finger in diameter.

Not as big as a thumb.  They cut that into fingerlengths or less, and then pound them a bit with a meat tenderizer pounder until they are flatter and somewhat pulpy. Then they add the boiling water to make the tea.  That makes sense.  Speeds up the infusion if the root bits are softened down first. And they do keep smelling it all the time. Have to get some.

• This sassafras tea recipe uses a grater as well as a vegetable peeler, and explains about layers of the bark on the roots. Use spring roots, scrub and peel the outside darkest part, and use the under color.  Leaves are best picked in August, it says, and the file loses flavor over time, so keep going back to grind new ones for your gumbo. When  does fostering hospitality become a party. A natural party. Also an issue for alcohol. All in the dose, like anything else. See ://www.practicallyedible.com/edible.nsf/pages/sassafrass

Sassafras has been used for healing many diseases. Here, Spanish soldiers had become sick, and a French survivor of a Spanish attack on French Huguenots told of this Indian cure:

• Dig up sassafras root. Cut it in small pieces. Put as much as needed into water. Leave the root in the water until it takes on a good color. The patient then drinks it at breakfast and supper, without regard to quantity.  

This, from the Indians, noted in "A Role for Sassafras in the Search for the Lost Colony," by Philip F. McMullan, Jr.at ://www.lost-colony.com/Philpaper.pdf/  Lost Colony at 21. The Lost Colony treatise refers to another treatis, from 1574, by a Spanish Doctor Nicolas Monardes, on the uses of sassafras   "Joyfull newes out of the new founde worlde."  The Joyfull Newes was published in London in 1596. We are trying to find it. We are looking for the translation by John Frampton, who was an English merchant who spent much time in Spain. This Monardes information is at page 31 of Lost Colony.

II.  A Look to the Past

Get the flavor of the early uses in these fair use quotes, from Voyages of the English nation to America, Richard Hakluyt (very early, but what year? see://www.archive.org/stream/cu31924024759395/cu31924024759395_djvu.txt

moreouer, they told vs, 

that the vertue of that tree was, to heale any other disease : the 

tree is in their language called Ameda or Hanneda, this is 

thought to be the Sassafras tree. Our Captaine presently caused 

some of that drink to be made for his men to drink of it, but 

there was none durst tast of it, except one or two, who 

ventured the drinking of it, only to tast and proue it : the other 

seeing that did the like, and presently recouered their health 

and were deliuered of that sickenes, and what other disease 

soeuer, in such sorte, that there were some had bene diseased 

and troubled with the French Pockes foure or fiue 

remedy yeres, and with this drinke were cleane healed. 

.igainst the After this medicine was found and proued to be true 

French Pocks * 

We cannot find how to designate this page, so do a "find" for sassafras at that full text site, and it appears at about the first 25% spot on the sliding scroll har to the right of the text page.


We found the full text of another treatise, Plants and Plant Science in Latin America, at http://www.archive.org/stream/plantsandplantsc033403mbp/plantsandplantsc033403mbp_djvu.txt/  Do a "fiind" for sassafras, and each instance of it will be highlighted in the text. Find distilling the essential oil,

a Frenche man that had bene 
in those partes shewed me a pece of yt, and tolde me marvells 
of the vertues thereof, and howe many and variable diseases 
were healed with the water which was made of it, and I judged 
that, which nowe I doe finde to be true and have seene by 
experience. He tolde me that the Frenchemen which had bene 
in the Florida, at the time when they came into those partes had 
bene sicke the moste of them of grevous and variable diseases, 
and that the Indians did shewe them this tree, and the manner 
howe they shoulde vse yt, &c ; so they did, and were healed of 
many evillsj which surely bringeth admiration that one onely 
remedy shoulde worke so variable and marvelous effectes. The 
name of this tree, as the Indyans terme yt, is called Pauame, 
and the Frenchemen called it Sassafras. To be brefe, the 
Doctor Monardus bestoweth eleven leaves in describinge the 
sovereinties and excellent properties thereof. 

That looks like the circumstance of the use of the tea, above. People also ate for days nothing but a porridge of sassafras leaves.

much as in foure dayes wee had done against the same : 
we lodged vpon an Hand, where wee had nothing in the world to 
eate but pottage of Sassafras leaues, the like whereof for a meate 
was neuer used before as I thinke 

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III. Sassafras for health and well-being:  

For us, it takes a society to give any credence to benefiting people other than through drugs manufactured and  bottled.  One with some success in this area is the Center for Mind-Body Medicine, James. S. Gordon, M.D. The Center collects, researches, gets the word out about choices, by Organizing It.  Letter to editor, NYT 5/26/2009 page D4. See ://www.cmbm.org/

Have to see if that group has researched sassafras.

At one time, the sassafras was considered the miracle tree. All we need is dosing and preparation information. And Stimulus Payments for a new industry backed by sound research on reasonable dosing and preparation. Does a form of simple universal health care consist in a Sassafras in Every Yard?

Sassafras is indigenous to North America, and introduced to Europe by early explorers, in about 1584. The story of the earlly colonies and explorers, especially as they found sassafras uses of the Indians, and tried to track the fate of a lost colony in Virginia, is at the Lost Colony site, above. It describes the saga of a "lost" Virginia colony, that had disappeared - all 116 souls - by the time help returned from England. 


Enjoy the full histories and description - especially of the fragrance of the sassafras when the Indians engaged in the annual burn-back of the lower growths in the forests. Wafted with a sweet arome even out to the ships. Sassafras, like anything else, can be abused by excessive use, see page 22.


The explorers found them "effective and safe" when not in excess. even healing scurvy and other mariners; ailments from long shipboarding. So again we are not at a ban of sassafras, but dosing information and preparation, as with anything else.  Do you chew seventeen teabags in an hour for six hours? Probably not. If you did,  and long enough, probably you too would get a tumor somewhere.

IV.  SLOAN-KETTERING.  Let's get it straight from the horse's mouth.


Are you detached enough from Pharma to fund testing of sassafras without using rats? Or other allelopathic animals, if indeed you have to use animals at all.

The Horse's Mouth

We ask because we think that venerable Sloan-Kettering surely would support finding out if the test animals are in an allelopathic relationship to the substance being tested, before drawing conclusions of those poor critters get tumors.  See ://www.mskcc.org/mskcc/html/11790.cfm?Disclaimer_Redirect=%2Fmskcc%2Fhtml%2F69363.cfm/

We find nothing on questioning which animals are used for what substances. Surely there is someone out there who delved into why we use rodents for plant and drug testing without first finding out for sure if that substance is part of their normal diet. The idea of extrapolating as we do makes anybody sick.

And while you are at it, SK, please test beer against sassafras tea.  Thanks.  Start with the good Dr. Duke at ://www.florahealth.com/flora/home/Canada/HealthInformation/Encyclopedias/Sassafras.htm/
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FN 1 Dr. Duke has ideas. Ask Sloan Kettering to check it out.

Beer More Carcinogenic Than Sassafras Tea?