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Juniper
is a beautifully fragrant evergreen shrub that dominates prairies and
mountains. Uniquely, it is the most offensively prickly of all
evergreens. This berry yielding shrub once extensively used and
absolutely necessary, is now seldom mentioned. Every part of this
plant is and should be used. The wood yields a resin used to purify
and prolong the life of drinking water and offers a delicate
violet-like fragrance and taste. The wood is also used in barbecues
for flavor and to neutralize one of largest dietary sources of
carcinogens we suffer from today, burned meat. The potent berries are
used to flavor all kinds of meats, which reduce meat/fat oxidation up
to 78%! The roots are boiled into a thick dark-fuchsia dye. The
needle/twig tea and berry tea are devastating to bacteria's, viruses,
fungus's and parasites. This has got to be one of the most versatile
shrubs I have come across.
Three proofs of the medical claims of Juniper:
Traditional:
Juniper
has been used as a type of 'flush' to get rid of accumulated toxins,
but more importantly used in prevention. The presence of juniper is
most used to keep communicable diseases at bay.Scientific:
If
you can handle the terribly clever prickly needles you can harvest
the juniper berries. Juniper berries take 3 years to ripen. The first
year they are white and poisonous, they will just obliterate your
kidneys. The second year they are light blue and are still amazingly
harmful to the kidneys but on the third year they are ripe and dark
blue/black in color and are among the best kidney medicines nature
provides. They are an efficient diuretic, stimulant, and are an
extreme anti-microbial antiseptic.
The berry tea is simple. A
teaspoon to tablespoon of dried powdered ripe berries steeped in a cup
of hot water for 20 minutes with a very tight lid. Drunk in the
morning and evening. Though not safe for pregnant women, this tea
works relentlessly on solving kidney issues but its most remarkable
effect for modern days are its anti-fungal action against the
widespread overgrowth of Candida spp. It shows devastating
anti-microbial action against 16 species of bacteria, gram-positive
and gram-negative, 7 fungus's and a variety of viruses.
These beautiful attributes are largely due to these main compounds found in the
volatile oil extract
of the twigs needles and
berries: alpha-pinene
(29.17%) and beta-pinene (17.84%), sabinene (13.55%), limonene
(5.52%), and mircene (0.33%).
These compounds have
been extensively studied invitro and invivo. Even convincing human
studies using unusually low doses, exhibited effective anti-microbial
antiseptic actions.
Its
effects against antibiotic resistant strains of viruses and bacteria's are also note-worthy. This quality is attributed only to Alpha and
Beta Pinene.
Additional
amazing uses of Juniper:
This
plant is so effective at keeping sickness away that there are lofty
claims that have been proven of juniper boughs simply hanging in the
house to keep away the common colds and flues. Pots of the
needle/twig tea be brewed and drunk to be a sufficient substitute for
the flu shot. During the black plague in Europe, physicians were
instructed to hold a minimum of 10 berries in their mouth when near
infected patients, this is what kept the sickness away from them.
A
compound called Streptozotocin, which is found in the
berries is toxic to cells. This one compound belongs to a group of
alkylating agents that are called nitrosoureas, these block the
production of the DNA of cells but
when
combined with hundreds of other compounds that are found inside
juniper, Streptozotocin is suddenly only toxic to cancer cells mainly
of the pancreas.
Its
anti-microbial antiseptic actions are transferred to water via resin
drops. The resins are extracted from the wood and is dripped onto the
water vessel. They prevent the build-up of a number of
micro-organisms and keep water fresh for an extended period of time.
These resin-drops give the water a nice violet-like flavor that
makes it go down much easier.
It
has its place in the culinary arts as well! Aside from the fragrant
full flavor the berries give meat, they were used extensively to
preserve meats until the mass availability of nitrates. As I
mentioned above they reduce meat oxidation up to 78% and have been
proven to be far superior meat preservative than nitrates. To top it
all off the needle and twig tea is almost always a favorite out of
all evergreen flavors, especially with children.
The Doctrine of Signatures:
Every
plant has been created so that you know its one specific medicinal
use. The signature feature of juniper, the unique feature that separates this evergreen
from all other evergreens are its prickly needles.
Its
blatantly obvious, when you observe other evergreens all their
needles are soft and don't cause any amount of harm what-so-ever. On
tamarack they are remarkably soft, balsam fir and hemlocks are a
common bush-bedding, cedars are flat and soft, etc. However, when you
look at juniper they are very uncomfortable and painful. Harvesting
the berries leaves your hands with millions of tiny irritating holes
in them if you don't wear thick gloves. All walking trails go well
around juniper because of this brutal feature. When you observe other
insects, reptiles and animals and how they interact with this plant
you will find that they use it as protection, often making their
homes in the shrub. We are to do the same.
When we use this
plant to protect our bodies and our homes we seldom contract communicable diseases,
even anti-biotic resistant strains, and when we do the severity is
not worth mentioning.
Juniper has been created to protect you from communicable diseases, from the simplest to the most complex.
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