This article will be devoted to "weed", which the ignorant seek to get rid of, and those who know it cook soups, drink juice, and use decoction to wash their heads. Today's article will be devoted to nettles in the topic "nettles for health and beauty."
Nettle is a perennial herbaceous plant, densely planted with burning hairs, like leaves and stems. Many types of nettles are protected from herbivores by these burning hairs. Each hair is a large cell, similar to a medical ampoule. At the tip of this ampoule contains a salt of silicon, and even with a weak effect, the tip breaks, as it is very fragile, and the sharp tip pierces the skin, and all the salt enters the body of the living. This ampoule also contains histamine, choline and formic acid, which give a feeling of a sharp burn in the place touched by a person or an animal. These burns are absolutely harmless, although there are some types of nettle, the burns of which can lead to death.
Nettle is a dioecious plant, that is, only stamens are located on one plant, and on the other only pistillate flowers. Flowers are collected in axillary branched spikelets, inflorescences are long. Flowers are small and green. The nettle color starts at the end of May and lasts almost all summer. Fruit - nutlets, ovoid or elliptical, yellowish-gray in color. Nettle is divided into forty-forty-five species. As for the spread of nettle, it grows wherever it can, but it grows everywhere, up to asphalt. It grows near houses and roads, in forests, on the banks of rivers and ravines. It grows in big thickets.
When I was young, and the grandmother was still young, we always crushed nettles with her, then rubbed in dense gloves, so that the hairs would not prick and only after all they would give nettles to small goslings and chickens. Granny said that the nettles and geese will carry eggs more often from nettles, and the milk of the cow will become more delicious. Granny also cooked the nettle soup, the soup was very tasty, especially with sour cream. So, nettles are very useful in people in the application, both in food and in livestock feed, nettles are also used in medicine. Nettle is used to prepare various dishes, especially pies with nettles, which my grandma baked. Now she rarely pampers me with such masterpieces. Here is the salad recipe, which she often spoiled me. To make this salad you need to take a well washed young tiny nettle leaves and chop them, then add the green onions, parsley and dill - mix it with vegetable oil or sour cream. Salt, pepper - to taste.
Leaves of young nettles are used to prepare decoctions and infusions, increasing immunity, until the stop of internal bleeding, and from young inflorescences make tea and dry for the winter. Nettle extract helps with hair loss. The juice of fresh nettle is rubbed into the scalp for rapid hair growth and against falling out. With the same success you can use the infusion of nettle, you need to brew three tablespoons in a glass of boiling water, and after thirty minutes filter, then rinse the hair after each wash.
Nettle can compete on an equal footing with plants such as flax or cotton. In China nettle "ramie" in its qualities is equal to silk. This plant is most often used for the production of chlorophyll, which is used in the food, pharmaceutical, and perfumery industries. Nettle is very widely used in folk medicine. Due to the maintenance of vitamins C, K, B 2 in the nettle, immunity increases. Nettle also contains carotene, chlorophyll, salt of iron, potassium, calcium, sulfur, sugar and proteins, and a number of other useful substances.
Broth of nettle increases blood coagulability, raises hemoglobin, lowers blood sugar, acts as a diuretic. Nettle acts as a laxative, vitamin, expectorant, helps with constipation, suffocation, heart disease, asthma, bronchitis and various allergies.
For the best work of the cardiovascular system, drink a decoction of nettle with honey or sugar. Five tablespoons of chopped nettle, pour half a liter of water, boil over low heat and drink half a cup of four times a day, putting sugar or honey to taste.
When vomiting you should drink decoction of the roots of the nettle. One teaspoon of dried root cook five minutes in a glass of milk. A quarter of the glass is drunk immediately in a hot form, and then every two hours it is recommended to drink two tablespoons before recovery.
With contractile activity of the uterus, the broth of nettle also helps, the broth is drunk three to four times a day in a cooled form. For those who have little breast milk while feeding a child diluted juice of fresh nettles, brought to a boil, in a cooled form, drink three times a day for two teaspoons.
Despite all the useful properties of nettle, there are contraindications in it. Nettle in any form is forbidden to use during pregnancy, as the nettle can provoke premature birth.