Well, the snowdrops have already heralded the start of spring and I am always relieved when new signs of life start to arise. There is such mayhem going on on our gorgeous planet that I keep my fingers crossed every year. What a delight it is to watch the spring for another year.

I am just thinking about herbs that poke their heads up in spring, and some that come to mind are dandelion leaves (pu gong ying) and wild violet (zi hua di ding). How interesting that these both clear heat and fire toxin. Wild violets are very small and shy, and amaze me with their beauty when I come across them.

Home remedy for diabetes

Dandelion leaves on the other hand are anything but shy.

They are used in Chinese medicine to clear toxic heat, and are excellent for the breasts – for example they can really help mastitis. Dandelion leaves are also a wonderful home remedy for diabetes, and especially when the leaves are young and fresh, they can regulate blood sugar levels (as can cinnamon, one of the other magic herbs commonly used in Chinese herbal medicine).

I know someone who freezes the young fresh dandelion leaves for use later in the year since neither mature leaves nor dried leaves seem as effective as the young leaves to regulate blood sugar. We can put fresh young dandelion in salads, where the leaves provide that exquisite bitterness that has almost been bred out of our salad greens, and that is so good for our digestion. But if you like the bitter taste as I do, you have to avoid a sweet dressing, since that seems to neutralise it.

The use of fresh dandelion reminds me of the absolute superiority of those first shoots of spring. I remember reading in the writings of the dentist Weston A Price, about a rural mountain culture somewhere in Europe, where the butter made from cattle grazing the first grass of spring was specially prized and saved for those who really needed it, for example, women who’d just given birth. This butter is a rich dark golden yellow, and full of vitamins and minerals. In particular, we need the vitamin K2 these days it seems – I am only too aware of that, having broken my ankle and being diagnosed with osteopenia. Vitamin K2, it seems, is the magic ingredient that Weston Price, writing in 1945, called substance x, and which helps us to lay down bone in the right way. As a vegan for 4 years, I seem to have inadvertently failed to get enough K2, since it is found only in milk fat, animal fat and natto (which is a particularly challenging and slimy kind of fermented soybean), none of which I had been eating. There are two kinds of vitamin K2, menaquinone 7 from dairy fat, and menaquinone 4 from meat fat. I became vegan because of animal husbandry, so now I am very careful to only eat meat and dairy that is grass fed, organic and preferably local so that I can see it is well treated.

What a world we live in.

To find out more about studying Chinese herbs, click here.