How to Use Milk Thistle as an Herbal Snack

Milk thistle is a powerful detoxifying agent and overall liver tonic. It owes its medicinal potency to an active compound called sylmarin. Sylmarin helps combat the effects of free radicals in your liver, while enabling liver cell regeneration. Milk thistle is also a good source of nourishment as it contains many proteins and amino acids that are beneficial to your health. It works to lower cholesterol and prevent cancer. As an added bonus, milk thistle has anti-oxidant properties that are even more potent than Vitamin C and E.

Milk thistle seeds make a great snack, while serving as a potent, natural herbal tonic that your liver just loves! Here’s how to snack on milk thistle to promote and protect healthy liver function.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

1. Make your own trail mix with milk thistle seeds. Mix them with other healthy seeds (pumpkin, sunflower and flax seeds), some roughly chopped nuts (almonds, cashews and walnuts), dried fruit and raisins.

2. Grind a handful of milk thistle seeds into a fine powder in a coffee grinder or food processor. Sprinkle the powder on your salads, vegetables, soups and smoothies. The ground seeds are an excellent form in which to have your milk thistle seeds raw without the unpleasant taste.

3. Plant some milk thistle seeds in your herb garden. Snack on the young leaves or add them to your veggie salads.

4. Brew an herbal coffee from milk thistle seeds. Lightly roast half a cup of the seeds. Grind these to a fine powder. Brew in your coffee maker just as you would regular coffee.

5. Make your own healthy sprouts from your milk thistle seeds (see Resources below for eHow, How to Make Sprouted Nuts). Milk thistle seeds are chock full of nutritious goodness--sprouted milk thistle seeds are even more so. They not only provide an even higher proportion of nutrients, but the nutrients are in an even more digestible source.

6. Brew an herbal tea decoction and sip on it throughout the day. This delivers milk thistle’s herbal goodness directly into your bloodstream. Simmer a teaspoonful of milk thistle seeds in a cup of water for 30 minutes. Strain and serve.

7. Brave the bitter taste and snack on a spoon or two of milk thistle seeds when you're on the go.

Tips & Warnings

• As with any regular or alternative medication, it is important to tell your doctor or health care practitioner if you are taking milk thistle.
• Do not take milk thistle if you have a medical history of liver cirrhosis.

Resources

• How to Make Sprouted Nuts

[ep316]

on 9/8/2009 I plantes some in my garden this year. The seeds came from pine tree gardens, if I remember right. Big green very spiny plants, produce pink flowers, then fuzzy seed pods. I harvested by snipping the pods off with scissors and holding them with kitchen tongs while scraping out the seeds with sharp tweezers. I'ts a bit of work but a few plants make a lot of seeds. Haven't tried them yet.

[piratejenny23]

on 8/17/2009 I have gotten milk thistle seeds from some herb sellers on ebay. I also like to shop from nutsonline; they have organic ones. superpowersman...i don't think the author meant for you to go harvest them in the wild! but go to google images and search milk thistle seeds; there are plenty of photos.

[waco]

on 6/16/2008 where can i buy raw organic milk thistle seeds for sprouting?

[superpowersman]

on 5/25/2008 that's great, but what in the hell do milk thistle seeds look like? i mean, you have to make sure we are talking about the same part of the plant here, seriously. thanks a lot, you've just left us all in the complete ****ing dark.