# Saps a Rising



## hashbrown (Sep 2, 2013)

It's time to harvest Sassafras root and make yourself some tea!


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## Freyadog (Jan 27, 2010)

Hash brown, we have sassafras but have never done anything with it. Could you give some instruction on making tea.

Thanks
freyadog


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## hashbrown (Sep 2, 2013)

It's really easy and it depends on how strong you like it. I just dig and clean the root split it up with a hatchet and simmer it for maybe 25 minutes. It turns a really nice red color when its done add some honey or sugar and drink hot or cold. My Grandfather drank it for a couple of weeks every spring said it thinned his blood and purified the liver, now I don't know if thats the case but he lived to be 93 rolling his own and drinkin that white liquor that he made in the hollar. I ve drank it every spring now for probably 40 years it hasn't helped my looks any but I feel pretty good.


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## SouthCentralUS (Nov 11, 2012)

Tastes like root beer if you do it right.


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## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

A great southern tradition, the second half of a spring cleansing, very medicinal. A blood cleaner and thinner, and a potent anti-viral. It's also a diaphoretic, will help sweat out a fever.

The traditions goes&#8230; Poke Salet was eaten first and was followed by sassafras about 10 days later. Between the two plants the intestines, circulatory and lymphatic systems were cleansed. The first night with sassafras the tea was drunk cool, further cleaning the blood stream started by the poke. The second night is was drunk hot and then the person covered up with a quilt. This would cause a lot of perspiration (diaphoretic).

Women in the first trimester should use caution with sassafras, at least that's what the books say.



SouthCentralUS said:


> Tastes like root beer if you do it right.


A one time it was used in the production of rootbeer.


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## hashbrown (Sep 2, 2013)

Cotton said:


> A great southern tradition, the second half of a spring cleansing, very medicinal. A blood cleaner and thinner, and a potent anti-viral. It's also a diaphoretic, will help sweat out a fever.
> 
> The traditions goes&#8230; Poke Salet was eaten first and was followed by sassafras about 10 days later. Between the two plants the intestines, circulatory and lymphatic systems were cleansed. The first night with sassafras the tea was drunk cool, further cleaning the blood stream started by the poke. The second night is was drunk hot and then the person covered up with a quilt. This would cause a lot of perspiration (diaphoretic).
> 
> ...


I was hoping you would chime in here. It's supposed to fend off the evil eye as well, least that's what Granny always told me. We eat the young poke shoots when we catch the sucker fish in a couple of weeks. It is tradition for us.


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## hashbrown (Sep 2, 2013)

We catch and fry suckers, some of the family will go hunt up some Morel mushrooms and find some poke and we fry it all up on the creek bank. It is one of my most favorite things we do as a family. Some photos of last years creek side spring spring feast


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## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

Sassafras is an old medicine with native americans... It's also the Fil'e in Fil'e Gumbo!. For File the leaves are harvested during the full moon of august if I remember correctly. They are dried and powdered then used in soups and stew for the next year as a spice. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filé_powder Just run a google search... more info than anyone needs.


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## Freyadog (Jan 27, 2010)

can sassafras be chopped up and dried in the dehydrator?
also Thumper just informed me that he doesnt know which is sassafras until they leaf out. So how long do you have to dig them up or does it matter?


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## hashbrown (Sep 2, 2013)

Freyadog said:


> can sassafras be chopped up and dried in the dehydrator?
> also Thumper just informed me that he doesnt know which is sassafras until they leaf out. So how long do you have to dig them up or does it matter?


Bark looks like this you can always break a green limb off and smell it. Even if you had never smelled it before I would bet you would know what it was. Nothing in the woods here has near the strong smell.


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## Balls004 (Feb 28, 2015)

We harvest sassafras leaves for file every year. We just put batches of the leaves in the oven (gas oven) and the pilot light provides enough heat to dry them and then I vacuum seal them until ready to use. When you get ready just grind the leaves to whatever consistency you like. I like mine a little courser, but if you want to use it as a thickener, make it a powder. We eat lots of squirrel and andouille gumbo around our house!


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## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

Any time you harvest the root of a plant it’s best to harvest before or just as the tree begins to bud or as the plant begins to sprout. A general rule of thumb, not always the case but the usual.

Before a plant leaf’s out the potency/strength of the plant is in the root. If the root is what you’re after that is the time. That said I can think of 50 plants I would harvest in a pinch when not at their peak either root or leaf. Sassafras is one of them.

Hashbrown is right, once you’ve smelled sassafras there is no mistaking its roots or leaves. The roots tend to run deep, 18 to 24” inches around here.

Sassafras reproduces 2 ways, sexual reproduction, by seeds, sassafras trees are male or female like persimmon. It also reduces asexually, from the roots. The roots run out from a tree several feet and a new tree will sprout.

In my experience I see the second method most often. Here is an example of two “root” trees just to the right of the sweetgum. I know because I dug both up last year (getting into my hayfield). So, when I start digging up sassafras root many times I find several trees connected.


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## Balls004 (Feb 28, 2015)

I'm going to try the sassafras tea next year. We have a pretty good stand of them close by the house where our blackberry and blueberries are, and they keep coming up all around the berries from the sassafras stand close by. I'm going to let the sprouts stay up this year, and then I can just harvest the roots next year.

Thanks for the info, y'all.


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## sgtusmc98 (Sep 8, 2013)

I'm pretty sure sassafras is a carcinogen so you may want to be cautious with use. I say that with an unhealthy love for Copenhagen so I don't mean to be a hypocrite but many people haven't heard that. That info comes from my father who was a botanist for 40 years or so.


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## Balls004 (Feb 28, 2015)

sgtusmc98 said:


> I'm pretty sure sassafras is a carcinogen so you may want to be cautious with use. I say that with an unhealthy love for Copenhagen so I don't mean to be a hypocrite but many people haven't heard that. That info comes from my father who was a botanist for 40 years or so.


If all the other crap I've been exposed to over the last 50 years hasn't killed me yet, I think I'll take my chances with sassafras... :lalala:

Is there anything good left for us anymore other than a prayer?


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## camo2460 (Feb 10, 2013)

Balls004 said:


> If all the other crap I've been exposed to over the last 50 years hasn't killed me yet, I think I'll take my chances with sassafras... :lalala:
> 
> Is there anything good left for us anymore other than a prayer?


I've heard that too, and from what I learned scientists gave a Rat the equivalent of a 55 gal. drum of Safrol the active ingredients of Sassafras and the Rat died, well duh of course the Rat died. I would be willing to bet if a person were to drink that much Sassafras Tea, bad things would happen to them also. The key here is moderation, a Cup or two per day for a few weeks in the Spring won't hurt anyone. My Grandfather drank several cups a day for two to three weeks in the spring and he lived till he was 88yrs old.


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## Cotton (Oct 12, 2013)

sgtusmc98 said:


> I'm pretty sure sassafras is a carcinogen so you may want to be cautious with use. I say that with an unhealthy love for Copenhagen so I don't mean to be a hypocrite but many people haven't heard that. That info comes from my father who was a botanist for 40 years or so.


No insult to you or your father intended&#8230; just another view. It's been the government position for decades, in all the literature. I ask why&#8230; The story goes that way back when, there was a businessman who could import something from china really cheap. This cheap import would replace sassafras in root beer&#8230;

That's when the battle started and money won, at least as far as the government was concerned. There was more to it than that&#8230; here's and interesting article&#8230;

http://www.eattheweeds.com/root-beer-rat-killer/

_It's not smart or nice to lie about plants. It can get someone hurt. But the truth can sometimes be elusive, even with plants.

This week's featured video is about the sassafras. And of course when you mention the sassafras as among the edibles there is always someone who hopes to throw a bucket of informed reality on that notion by saying it will cause cancer. Oh really? The sassafras is a prime example that the truth can often be an excuse to do something else.

The oil in sassafras in high amounts can induce abortions. The oil in sassafras can be used to make a popular illegal drug. Now, could those be reasons to ban sassafras oil? Certainly, but those truths were not useable in the '50s and '60s. Abortion and dangerous drugs weren't talked about much. So the powers that be fell back on the old stand by: Cancer. They fed rats sassafras oil that was like us drinking water from a blasting fire hose. And guess what? The lab rats - who have to be the most cancer susceptible creatures alive - got liver cancer. The next step was easy: Assume people can get liver cancer from drinking root beer (If you drank some 9,000 gallons of it in a year.) The sassafras oil had to go.

The truth is the sassafras oil in the original root beer was 1/13 as cancer-causing as the alcohol in a can of regular beer. One thirteenth. That's not too life threatening&#8230; not exactly a significant carcinogen. Alcohol-filled chocolate cherries are more dangerous than that, but they ain't banned. Heck, the sugar in the root beer is more life threatening than the sassafras oil. However taken to its extreme limits sassafras oil might cause cancer in humans. That skinny truth was the excuse to get it banned. It was also the sole source of the cancer scare over sassafras.

That distortion has become medical dogma and most now sites sternly warn you to avoid "cancer-causing" sassafras. I'm sure that's good news for the Sassafras but it shouldn't dissuade us foragers now and then from enjoying one of the tasty trees of the forest._

My opinion&#8230; if you inject a lab rat with 9000 gallons of dirt a year, it'll get liver cancer and be declared a carcinogen. At least as long as somebody is going to get rich of that declaration&#8230; with respect to those with a different opinion. 

Sassafras is a wonderful medicine with several benefits, quite refreshing also. Is anyone of us going to main line sassafras tea through an IV and get liver cancer, not likely. Plantain is also on the FDA toxic plant list and its seeds are used to make Metamucil. Go figure!


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## sgtusmc98 (Sep 8, 2013)

I have no idea where they get the carcinogenic part from, I have heard of other cases similar to what camo2460 said with massive overdose. I believe it was with comfrey that was done. Things like medicines and herbs can get a bad name from the gov for control of product which is very frustrating. My father was a gov statistics follower so he could be off his rocker in reality, no offense taken.


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## hashbrown (Sep 2, 2013)

It actually took longer than I thought it would for this thread to get all dicked up. As for me and mine we will continue to use sassafras as a spring tonic and tradition.


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## tsrwivey (Dec 31, 2010)

hashbrown said:


> It actually took longer than I thought it would for this thread to get all dicked up. As for me and mine we will continue to use sassafras as a spring tonic and tradition.


I'm glad the information was brought up so I could hear Cotton & the others explain the situation.


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