When I saw the first Nettles sprouting up near the chicken coop the other morning, I got a huge smile on my face to see these old friends returning after a long winter.
The arrival of spring is exhilarating. Everything is coming back to life. The songbirds are in full celebration each morning, the trees are budding out with blossoms, and the land is renewed with green sprouting up everywhere.
In the modern world, it’s easy to live a lifestyle disconnected from these natural cycles. Fortunately, there are some simple ways to get back in sync with nature’s rhythms and experience the health benefits of following seasonal patterns.
Winter is naturally a time of slowing down, resting, and cozying up indoors. However, it can also be a time of accumulating stagnation and heaviness in the body.
As spring comes, it offers a bounty of fresh plants and herbs to help cleanse the body and nourish us for the growing season ahead.
Read on to learn our favorite spring cleansing herbal allies to support you this season.
The Origin of the Spring Cleanse
On our homestead, we’ve been working to grow as much of our food as we can. Over the years, we’ve shifted to a more local, seasonally based diet – similar to what our ancestors would have eaten in a cold northern climate.
The eating is incredible in the summer and fall, with the garden in full abundance. But in winter, we don’t have a lot of variety since we’re eating simply and from the root cellar.
This winter, we experimented to see what it would feel like to eat a traditional diet from the land. We stored root veggies, squashes and onions, meat from our sheep and chickens, dairy from our cow, and canned, fermented, and frozen vegetables and fruit from our garden.
By the time spring arrived, we craved fresh bitter greens – which is just what our bodies needed to clear out the heaviness of winter.
Thankfully, nature provides exactly what we need with each season.
Some of the first spring greens to pop up are not only gently cleansing, but they’re also packed full of nutrients to replenish the body after a meager winter diet.
Herbs like Nettle, Dandelion, and Cleavers are some of the first fresh green herbs we see on our land in the spring. They are nourishing to the blood and cleansing to the lymphatic system. Using these nourishing, cleansing herbs, known as “alteratives,” is a great way to get a gentle, natural spring cleanse in our modern world.
What Are Alterative Herbs?
A healthy body naturally creates waste. It constantly removes and releases old cells, spent hormones, and metabolic byproducts.
Alterative herbs aid the body in breaking down this waste and opening the channels of elimination. Drying and cooling, alteratives help to drain dampness, cool trapped heat, and move congestion.*
Winter and a sedentary lifestyle can create a damp, hot tissue state. Classic signs of this are:
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Skin conditions
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Headaches
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Joint pain
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Occasional infections
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Poor digestion
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Weight gain
When these complaints crop up, you can try alterative herbs to support your body's innate pathways of detoxification.*
3 Great Alterative Herbs for Spring
Our three favorite gentle, nourishing alteratives for a spring cleanse are Burdock, Dandelion, and Nettle.
Burdock (Arctium lappa) root
Burdock root has traditionally been valued as a delicious spring food. It’s a mild but powerful alterative that supports your liver and kidneys in clearing waste.*
Very high in inulin, a prebiotic sugar, Burdock feeds beneficial microbes in your gut. That makes it powerfully restorative to your digestion.*
And because it helps move the lymph, herbalists have used Burdock for centuries to help the body recover from occasional infections and support clear skin.*
Burdock’s neutral temperature makes it helpful for all constitutions. It’s gently cooling without making cool constitutions too cold. It balances fluids and either moistens or dries tissues, depending on the body's needs.
Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale) leaf
Dandelion leaves are very bitter, and a bitter flavor in the mouth triggers the entire digestive system to start working. They are delicious as part of a fresh salad tossed with a vinaigrette.
As one of the most gentle yet potent diuretic herbs, Dandelion supports the kidneys and urinary tract.*
High in potassium, Dandelion is an excellent example of nature’s brilliant ability to give us exactly what we need, when we need it. Most diuretics deplete potassium as they drain excess fluids. But Dandelion is a powerful diuretic that also replaces potassium in the body.
Cooling and drying, Dandelion drains dampness, swelling, and waste.*
Nettles (Urtica dioica) leaf
The ultimate spring green, Nettles are delicious and highly nutritious, with far more Vitamin C per serving than spinach. You can steam Nettle leaves to neutralize their sting, then serve with butter or olive oil and salt.
Nettles also help support the healthy function of the kidneys and urinary tract, draining boggy tissues and replenishing depleted nutrients.*
Supportive to the liver, Nettles clean the blood, strengthen the capillaries, and support skin health.* They also offer support for seasonal allergies by promoting a healthy histamine response, and their astringent action helps tone the upper respiratory tract, easing runny noses.*
Nettles are cooling and drying. Their effect is gentle, nourishing, and strengthening.
Nourishing Spring Cleanse Tea Recipe
This is my personal favorite tea to drink in the late winter and early springtime. It’s perfectly balanced for all constitutions. It features those gently detoxifying and deeply nutritive herbs I crave during the “hunger gap” (the time between the end of winter before we have fresh food in the garden again). AND it actually tastes good! To be honest, most of us aren’t going to drink a cup of tea that doesn’t taste good, so this one has my stamp of approval.
You may be able to find fresh Burdock root and Ginger root in the grocery store. Fresh Nettles can be foraged in many areas in the spring. But this tea works great with dried herbs as well.
If you do forage these herbs, make sure you’re 100% positive of their identification before harvesting, and only pick herbs from areas free of pesticides, chemicals, and pet waste.
I don’t actually measure this when I’m making it at home, but here’s a general guideline for how to make this delicious tea:
Ingredients
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2 quarts fresh water
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½ a fresh Burdock root, sliced (1 Tbsp dried)
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1 Tbsp dried Marshmallow root
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Several sprigs fresh Nettle leaves (2 Tbsp dried)
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3-5 slices fresh Ginger root (a sprinkle of dried Ginger powder)
Instructions
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Put the water and Burdock root in a pot; gently simmer over medium-low heat for about 30 minutes or until liquid has reduced to half the original amount.
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Place the rest of your herbs in a tea pot, thermos, or a 1-quart canning jar.
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Remove the Burdock decoction from the stove; pour it over the other herbs, and steep, covered, for another 20-30 minutes. (Steeping in a thermos helps to keep it hot!)
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Strain and reheat if needed, then enjoy!
Drink a quart of this nourishing, cleansing tea daily during spring or anytime you need help clearing dampness and heat from the body.
Be sure to also stay hydrated, keep moving, and breathe deeply in the fresh spring air to support your spring cleanse.
Alterative Compound Spagyric Formula
Another way to get the benefits of alterative herbs is a spagyric extract.
Unlike regular tinctures, which lack nutrients like minerals, spagyrics contain the full mineral content of plants, thanks to the alchemical extraction methods used.
With Burdock root, Nettle leaf, and other trusted herbal allies, our mineral-rich Alterative Compound Spagyric Formula is perfect for supporting your spring cleanse.*
More Resources:
See our other blog posts for more information about spagyrics and alchemy:
You can also learn more about herbalism, alchemy, and spagyrics from the School of Evolutionary Herbalism. Burdock, Dandelion, and Nettles are each featured in the Materia Medica Monthly. Or, for a more advanced view, check out their in-depth, clinician-oriented Vitalist Herbal Practitioner Program.
*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.