Tag: Coffee

Dandelion Root Coffee

Dandelion Root Coffee

 

Author

 

  1. Find dandelions which should be easy. The best plants are at least two years old because big roots are the best. Autumn is a good time to harvest as they have been storing nutrition in the roots all summer.
  2. Dig up dandelion roots using a narrow trowel or you can use a shovel to loosen the roots. If there is not enough in your lawn, go to a country place where weed killers are not used. Best not to go to city parks as they often do use weed killers.
  3. Soak the roots in water to loosen the soil.
  4. Wash the dandelion roots to remove all of the soil; you can use a vegetable brush.
  5. Then rinse them well.
  6. Cut the roots off just below the tops. Save the flowers and leaves.

The leaves are nutritious; they can be steamed or small amounts added to a salad. The flowers can be made into dandelion syrup and pancakes.

 

  1. Rinse the roots well outside to get rid of most of the soil.
  2. Slice the roots into sections.
  3. Chop up the roots coarsely.
  4. Spread the chopped roots thinly on cookie sheet.
  5. Roast in at 275 degrees Fahrenheit for about 2 hours.*
  6. They are ready when the roots are dark brown the colour of coffee beans. Take care not to burn them.
  7.  Store roasted roots in an airtight container in a very cool place until you are ready to make dandelion coffee.
  8.  Grind them up in a coffee grinder and brew them just like you would with coffee grounds.
  9.  2 Tbsp of grounds for 3 cups off beverage.
  10.  Add the grounds to simmering water and simmer while covered for 7–15 minutes.
  11.  Serve with your choice of milk (almond, rice, soy, cows, goats) and sweetener of your choice.

* Alternatively you can dry roast the dandelion root after it is fully dry and chopped in a frying pan (cast iron pan is best) until it has become dark brown

Advertisement

7 Reasons to Cut Back on Coffee

7 Reasons to Cut Back on Coffee

Written by Randy Fritz, co-creator with Diana Herrington at Real Food for Life

Coffee is for Bugs not Your Body!

Caffeine is a natural insecticide that plants have been using to  protect themselves from insects for thousands of years!

That caffeine in your steaming cup of coffee has been put to much better use  in driving away or killing insects in your backyard, rather than  getting you going in the morning.

7 Reasons to Cut Down on Your Coffee or Caffeine Consumption 

1. Caffeine was developed as a poison.

Over millions of years, plants have developed various powerful compounds to  stop insects from stripping away every bit of greenery from the planet. Many  plants are obviously poisonous or extremely inedible to protect themselves.  Other examples of slightly toxic substances include oxalic acid in  leafy greens and capsaicin in chili peppers. When you consider the fact that we  consume 12,000 tons of caffeine a year, the amounts in these other foods are  miniscule in comparison. A good rule of thumb for health is to avoid or reduce  poisons.

2. Caffeine exhausts the adrenals.

Whereas a dose of caffeine in a small insect may stun or even kill it, in  humans it just gives us a little “buzz.” This stimulation is what many people  depend on to get themselves going with their morning coffee, but it is short  lived.

Since it really is just stimulation, an excitement of the nervous and  glandular system, it’s not producing any long term energy; and as soon as that  little high wears off, you are reaching for another shot.  Do this enough  times and your nervous and glandular system, particularly the adrenal gland, is  exhausted.  You have to keep increasing the “dose” to have energy and  eventually nothing works and you crash.

3.  Caffeine is addictive.

The fact that you can get caffeine withdrawal symptoms if you stop is an  obvious symptom of addiction. Most people don’t want to be addicted to  anything!

You probably think you don’t drink enough to be addicted, but research shows  you probably already are. Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine showed  that low to moderate caffeine intake (as little as one small cup of coffee per  day) can quickly produce withdrawal symptoms.

4.  Caffeine often comes with sugar and other health hazards. 

Raw coffee beans by themselves don’t taste good, so sweeteners are  usually  added. This is usually white sugar or some artificial chemical  that tastes  sweet.

Some people consider white sugar to also be a chemical poison.

At the very least, sugar is definitely a dumb carb and not a smart carb.  Other than the  simple sugars, it has no micronutrients like vitamins or  minerals to help your  body. Also it has a high glycemic index so it  goes quickly into the system,  creating insulin spikes and insulin  resistance, which eventually leads to  weight gain.

5.  Caffeine toxicity has been linked to, well, almost  everything.

The above four points are pretty well known. Caffeine toxicity, on the other  hand, doesn’t seem to be as commonly discussed. If you do a  medical search for  “caffeine toxicity” on Google Scholar, you get 44,000 entries.

Caffeine has been associated with studies in a lot of conditions  including:

  • irregular heartbeat
  • insomnia
  • psychosis
  • anorexia
  • sleeplessness
  • headaches
  • nervousness
  • irritability
  • depression
  • bedwetting
  • birth defects in rodents

6.  Caffeine is used as an insecticide.

Back to my original point. Over 20 years ago James Nathanson,  assistant  professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, reported in Science magazine of this  important function of caffeine. The study determined that  caffeine  combined with other insecticides increases their killing power. In one  test, a small dose of caffeine increased known pesticides potency by 10  times. Caffeine appears to produce the destructive effect by  suppressing certain enzymes in the insects’ nervous systems. In man, caffeine is  now classified by many scientists as a neurotoxin. That means it is definitely  not “good” for your nerves.

Do you think that maybe you have other pesticides in your system that  caffeine could react with?

7.  Coffee cups destroy the environment.

The world drinks 400 billion coffees a year. We toss away 100 million cups a  year which, if we are careful with our trash, ends up in landfills.

The paper in landfills, like all organic matter, decomposes without oxygen,  and thus produces methane which has 23 times the heat trapping power of CO2.

The plastic coating of the paper and the polystyrene coffee cup lid, after  its minutes-long use, will continue to exist for hundreds of years. Plastic  coffee cup lids contain the toxic substances styrene and benzene, which have  been documented as suspected carcinogens and neurotoxins. That’s also bad!

You Could Choose Worse!

If you are going to choose a drug, caffeine is certainly better than alcohol,  nicotine, cocaine or narcotics.  Narcotics used to be readily available in  the drugstore but new understanding has caused their restriction, so most people  have moved into caffeine and alcohol.

Coffee does some have specific uses: They would tend to be medicinal.  Caffeine, for example, is added to many cold and pain medications to increase  their speed and potency.  This decreases overall medicine use.

Coffee also has some great social benefits. The coffee shops around the world  seem to fulfill a universal urge to come together to talk and eat and drink. In  the crazy world we live in, coffee shops are often a tiny oasis of comfort and  calm. That being said, perhaps we could be drinking alternate beverages with  less caffeine.

You Could Choose Better: 5 Caffeine Alternatives

1. Green Tea

Green tea has one-half to one-sixth the caffeine of regular brewed coffee. It  has about half the caffeine as a Coke or Pepsi. Some specialty green teas have  even less caffeine than this.

What green tea has more of is all kinds of health benefits,  including prevention in cancer and  heart disease. Maybe this is why green  tea is the second most popular beverage in the world (after water) and the  most popular health beverage. Green tea is considered a critical element in  the development of the British middle class, women’s liberation, girl guides,  charity organizations, and the American Revolution.

2. Herbal Beverages

Other than in bars, it is now socially acceptable to drink herbal drinks in  public!  They are often called “herbal teas” although technically they are  not.

3.  Ice Cold Orange Juice or Lemon Water

Both will give you smart carbs with natural energy and will also reduce your  risk of heart disease. Most other fruit juices have additional health benefits.  Lemon water is also highly alkalizing. It will take a bit more time or energy to  have fresh juice but you won’t be spending time making coffee.

4.  Dandelion Coffee

The nice thing about this is that it can be absolutely free. Dandelion root  has a host of health benefits.

5.  Power Foods:  Pick One, Any One

There are whole foods that will give you the energy and clarity that you are  trying to get with coffee. They are probably in your kitchen right now. Below is  a list of great choices for breakfast or a snack. Take your pick from the list  and enjoy the energy and health benefits!

  • Apples: One of these per day will keep the doctor  away!
  • Bananas
  • Raspberries Contains the anti-carcinogenic  substance, ellagic acid.
  • Almonds
  • Walnuts: The crinkly  powerfood with the highest antioxidant activity of any nut.
  • Pumpkin Seeds: The alkalizing seed.
  • Quinoa: This nutty-flavored powerfood is pronounced  keen–wa.
  • Oatmeal  Much more health benefits than just fiber.

 

Demon Banishing Spell

Demon Banishing Spell

Whether the demon exists inside or out, this spell will drains its psychic powers.

Best time to cast:

Three nights before the New Moon

Items you will need:

  • A empty coffee can with a plastic lid
  • 1 pound of sea salt
  • A shovel

The Spell:

  1. Pour most of the seal salt into the coffee can and place the open can in the center of your basement.
  2. Sprinkle some salt in each corner of your basement.
  3. Envision the demon as a grayish cloud and see it being absorbed by the salt in the can. Say aloud: “Begone now, demon, let me be, No long can you torment me, I bind you for eternity and I shall evermore be free.
  4. On the New Moon put the lid on the coffee can and take it to a desolate place – a vacant lot, a desert, a gravel pit the town dump – away from water, trees people or animals. Don’t open the can. Bury it and say good riddance to the demon trapped inside.

The Automatic Drip Coffee Maker

The Automatic Drip Coffee Maker
 
The coffee maker is an essential part of my existence for most of the same reasons it is to other folks. I, like a good portion of the population, am not a morning person. The fact is, I don’t like anybody until I’ve had several cups of coffee. Having to wait for it makes me an unbearable grump. Fortunately, my coffee maker does the trick in three minutes flat. Its speed give me time to get my wits together before my loved ones–all morning folks, including the dogs–leap from their beds.
While the device always provided me with an indispensable service, using it for something other than brewing coffee never occurred to me until I had to consecrate my athame. My roommate at the time was having guests over for dinner and refused to let me use the stove. It didn’t matter that I needed an herbal infusion for a consecration. I begged. I pleaded. He didn’t care. He just went on cooking. Then he gave me one of those looks and muttered something about “…..on pain of death…..”
At the time, I thought he was a real jerk. But his obstinacy, as aggravating as it was, brought with it the richest of blessings. It jolted me into a creative mode. I grabbed a coffee filter, threw it in the filter cup and tossed in the herbs. I added the water and flipped the switch. Then I chanted the incantation loudly enough to rouse the neighbors. The results was a perfectly balanced brew that simply tingled with magickal essence.

 

The coffee maker not only saves time, but brews flawless infusions, decoctions, and washes. Here are a few tips for using it in magickal efforts:
 
*Do not use the same coffee maker to brew both ingestible teas and poisonous liquids. If you plan to use the device for brewing washes that list ingredients unsuitable for human consumption, obtain one solely for that purpose.
 
*Between magickal brewings, clean the pot and filter cup with hot soapy water and bleach.
 
*When brewing decoctions, place the root or bark material in a coffee filter, then close the filter securely by tying it with a string or a rubber band. After the brew cycle, place the pouch in the brew pot and leave it on the warming plate for approximately thirty minutes.
 
The incident with my roommater forever changed my magickal life. Yes, I discovered that using the coffee maker for magick saves times and aggravation. But more important, I realized the meaning of magick in its truest form and its relationship to technology. Magick equals creativity. Creativity equals life. This means that life–how we live it and what we do with it–is the rawest form of magick. The technological resources created by humankind have a magick all their own, and incorporating them into personal magick brings an increase of power to every spell performed. Denying that source of magick is tantamount to refusing magickal assistance and a hindrance to all efforts of enchantment. It all boils down to one thing. If it works, use it to your best advantage and be glad for the help.
 
“Everyday Magic”
Dorothy Morrison