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Can lettuce be used as medicine?
Wild lettuce is used for whooping cough, asthma, urinary tract problems, cough, trouble sleeping (insomnia), restlessness, excitability in children, painful menstrual periods, excessive sex drive in women (nymphomania), muscular or joint pains, poor circulation, swollen genitals in men (priapism), and as an opium …
What is the medicine in wild lettuce?
Lactucarium is a diuretic, laxative and sedative agent which relieves dyspnoea, and decreases gastrointestinal inflammation and uterus contractions. It has anticonvulsant and hypnotic effects as well. In addition, the lettuce contains traces of hyoscyamine, which is probably responsible for its sedative effects.
What is a alcohol tincture?
A tincture is typically an extract of plant or animal material dissolved in ethanol (ethyl alcohol). Solvent concentrations of 25–60\% are common, but may run as high as 90\%. In chemistry, a tincture is a solution that has ethanol as its solvent.
How do you make wild lettuce extract resin?
Wild Lettuce Extract/Resin
- Gather leaves.
- Put in a blender.
- Blend for just a few seconds. You don’t want to completely blend up the leaves.
- Pour the ground leaves into a pot.
- Add just enough water to cover.
- Put the pot on a stove at LOW heat.
- DO NOT LET THE MIXTURE BOIL!
- Heat for 30 minutes, stirring often.
Why does my homegrown lettuce taste bitter?
Most gardeners will tell you that bitter lettuce is the result of summer heat; lettuce is known as a cool season vegetable. Another answer to why does lettuce turn bitter is nutrition. Lettuce needs to grow fast. Without proper nutrients, growth becomes stunted and bitter tasting lettuce is the result.
How do you collect wild lettuce sap?
Harvest when flowers are in bloom, as by that point the wild lettuce will have had time to mature and build up the medicinal sap. Harvest the plant in sections to keep the sap in production, as pulling the plant out with the roots would seize any further production.
Is lettuce a sedative?
Lactuca sativa (lettuce), an annual herb which belongs to the Compositae family, is known for its medicinal value. Traditionally, lettuce has been suggested to have a sedative-hypnotic property [16].
How much lettuce SAP do you get from one plant?
The herbalist Michael Moore estimates that a single 4-foot tall plant should yield about 2-3 grams of dried sap, or about a single dose. One source suggests a dosage of 1.5 grams of dried sap brewed in a tea, or 0.25 grams of wild lettuce sap smoked in a pipe. The effects are supposed to be much more dramatic when smoked, thus the lower dosage.
How much lettuce SAP does it take to take ibuprofen?
The average adult in the US weighs about 80kg (~180lbs). Theoretically, they’d have to consume at least 30 mg per kg of body weight, or 2400 mg (2.4 g) of wild lettuce sap to experience the effects of ibuprofen. The herbalist Michael Moore estimates that a single 4-foot tall plant should yield about 2-3 grams of dried sap, or about a single dose.
What is the white sap on lettuce for?
The white sap is a little bitter and, interestingly, has a sleep-inducing compound. Ancient varieties actually contained a much greater amount of this sap, so much so that Romans served lettuce at the end of a meal to relax and encourage sleep.
What happens when you cut lettuce off the plant?
That same substance bleeds out of wild lettuce, when the plant is broken or cut. This milky sap can be made into an alcohol tincture (lactucarium), or the fresh leaves and flowering tops can be eaten in salad (minimally – a few leaves is plenty!), or dried to make it into tea, smoked, or taken in capsule form.