Clover : Edible and Medicinal Uses

 Edible and Medicinal Uses

Properties  Red Clover is edible and medicinal, the young leaves and new flowers are harvested, and are used in salads, soups, or as a pot herb. The sprouted seeds are edible in salads and have a crisp texture and robust flavor. A delicate sweet and medicinal tea is made from the fresh or dried flowers, it is alterative, antiscrofulous, antispasmodic, aperient, detergent, diuretic, expectorant, sedative and tonic. Red Clover has also shown anticancer activity, poultices of the herb have been used as local applications to cancerous growths. Internally, the Red Clover plant is used as an alternative medicine for skin complaints such as eczema and psoriasis, cancers of the breast, ovaries and lymphatic system, chronic degenerative diseases, gout, whooping cough and dry coughs. Red clover is now involved in research for a certain medicinal alkaloid ’slaframine’ which is often found in diseased clover, this substance has shown antidiabetic and anti-AIDS activity.

Lucky you-clovers are actually edible. And they’re found just about everywhere there’s an open grassy area. You can spot them by their distinctive trefoil leaflets. You can eat clovers raw, but they taste better boiled.

The leaves, flowers, seeds, and roots of clovers are all edible.

The young leaves, taken before the plant flowers, can be eaten raw in salads. As the plant matures, cooking the leaves is recommended. The dried leaves are said to add a slightly vanilla-like flavor to baked goods. In my own experience with clover leaves, I found them to be rather bitter (maybe I picked them at the wrong time). I stick to the flowers.

The roots should be eaten cooked.

The flowers and seeds are the parts of the clover that are of greatest interest to most foragers. The flowers are used raw in salads as well as sauteed, stir-fried, or fried as fritters. They are also popular for making teas and wines.

The flowers and seeds can be dried and ground into a flour.

Here are a few clover recipes:

• White clover snow (followed by a few clover honey recipes)
• A set of red clover recipes, including tea, lemonade, juice, pancakes, and biscuits.
• Red clover jelly
• This page of flower recipes includes a recipe for pickled clover.
• A few red clover wine recipes