Milk thistle is a biennial plant : in the first year of life its appearance resembles that of chicory and dandelion, with long and jagged leaves.
Milk thistle is also known as wild artichoke . There are many types of thistle, most of which are cultivated: milk thistle is the variety of this vegetable that grows wild and wild.
It is easily distinguishable because its leaves are equipped with thorns and veined with white. From the second year it appears instead with a long stem over 50 cm high with magenta red flowers with thin petals and surrounded by a sort of collar bristling with thorns.
Milk thistle: dosage and use in recipes
For its purifying qualities, milk thistle is available in herbal medicine in the form of infusions, tea, herbal teas, tablets and mother tincture. The seeds of dried milk thistle are usually used, especially for decoction of tea and infusions, but if you are lucky enough to live in areas where the milk thistle grows spontaneously, or if you grow it in your own garden, you can use it all the plant, both for infusions and as an edible vegetable.
The mother tincture can be diluted in water, to the extent of 30 drops per glass .
Milk thistle is often used in detoxifying liver diets, in cases of post-alcohol dependence, tobacco, as a result of prolonged pharmacological treatment, or drug addiction.
Herbal preparations can contain the whole plant or only the seeds: in both cases they can be used in tisaniere, leaving a teaspoon of preparation for ten minutes to infuse.
The fresh plant of milk thistle can be eaten both raw and cooked . The taste is reminiscent of the bitter and pungent artichoke . The stem and leaves must be cleaned very well: the thorns are numerous. The most tender and edible part of the stem is the internal part: it is therefore necessary to remove a first layer of bark.
The leaves, on the other hand, once thoroughly cleaned from the thorns, can be eaten raw in salads . The thistle blooms in spring, but the best time to harvest the plants and prepare them is from November to February : the taste is softened and the parts become less leathery if they have suffered a winter frost.
The properties of milk thistle
Milk thistle is an esteemed officinal plant, thanks to its phytotherapeutic properties. The phytocomplex of which it is composed, similarine, has remarkable hepatoprotective properties .
It is a tonic and regenerating liver, both anatomically and physiologically. The liver is the great purifier of the body: in fact, through it the chemical compounds that are introduced through nutrition, respiration, and medication are stationed.
In popular culture, precisely because of its ability to support the liver in its purifying function, milk thistle was associated with detoxification from poisonous mushrooms.
It also stimulates the emptying of the gall bladder, an organ that works in concert with the liver itself.
