Action4Canada - July 14, 2023


A4C Prepper Dan Vlog8 Plantain for Bug Bite relief


Episode Stats


Length

6 minutes

Words per minute

159.42477

Word count

1,031

Sentence count

78


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I talk about how to identify broadleaf plantain and what you can do with it to treat bug bites and stings. I also give you a quick and easy recipe to make a salve out of it.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 Well, it's another hot sunny day out. Wouldn't you know it, if you happen to be working outside,
00:00:16.800 you might get some nasty bug bites this time of year. Mosquito bites. How did those mosquitoes
00:00:22.960 ever get on the ark? Anyhow, we may never know the answer to that question. What about bee stings?
00:00:30.080 Hornets, that kind of stuff. But the chances are, if you're outside, a quick and easy remedy
00:00:36.680 might be found right near where you're working. And today I want to talk to you really quickly about
00:00:42.180 broadleaf plantain, what you can do with it. Now, if you're working outside and you get a mosquito
00:00:47.800 bite or a bee sting or whatever, look around and find a piece of plantain. Now, this is broadleaf
00:00:54.560 plantain. There is some narrowleaf plantain, but we don't get it much here in eastern Canada.
00:00:59.680 But I'm going to show you exactly how you can identify this in just a moment. We're going to
00:01:03.720 zoom in on that. But a piece of plantain like this, even a smaller piece, this may sound gross,
00:01:09.980 but really it's not. You put this in your mouth and chew it until it's all gummy. Take it out and
00:01:15.660 stick it exactly where you got your bug bite. Believe me, you'll get instant relief. The stinging will go
00:01:21.440 away. The swelling will go down. And just keep it on there for about five minutes. And you'll really
00:01:26.580 find instant relief. But there is something you can do for a longer lasting type thing. We're going
00:01:31.720 to make a salve with this. And I'm going to take you through the steps really quickly. So you'll show
00:01:36.880 you can do it. It's simple to do at home and you only need a couple of ingredients. So let's get down
00:01:42.460 at ground level and I'll show you exactly what the plantain looks like. So when identifying plantain,
00:01:49.440 you want to look for these broad leaves just like this. You'll see the lines, the deep lines going
00:01:54.820 through it. And when you pull on it, you'll see these strings that appear just like that. Here's a
00:02:03.100 couple of strings that pull out just with it like that. And sometimes because they're not a very deep
00:02:08.840 rooted plant, you'll find that the whole plant might come out. And that's okay. They do have
00:02:14.300 some deep roots. So the chances are that they will keep on growing. Now in this case, I have quite a bit
00:02:21.260 growing in different parts of my land. It grows fairly well in the shaded parts. So we're just going
00:02:28.420 to keep around and keep finding some here. And the next thing we're going to do once we have a required
00:02:35.560 amount. And because I'm going to make some extra batches here just to give away as gifts, I'm going
00:02:41.140 to fill my dehydrator. Now, if you don't have a dehydrator, I'm going to suggest that you go ahead
00:02:48.680 and check out the video that I made just recently on dehydrating. These leaves dry fairly easily and so
00:02:55.440 they can be dried in the oven or they can be dried in the dehydrator, which really is the preferred method.
00:03:00.160 So once the leaves are dry, it usually takes a few hours. All you got to do is just crumple them up
00:03:07.460 in a bowl, make sure that they're as fine as you can possibly be. Now, some people remove the stems.
00:03:13.740 I like to leave them because there are some nutrients in there and it doesn't usually take
00:03:18.120 them too long to dissolve and get all the nutrients in there anyhow. So just get them as fine as you can.
00:03:26.480 Then you're going to put them into a large jar. I'm using a larger jar here because I am making a bit
00:03:32.500 of a bigger batch and pour it in there. So you can see I'm not too, I am a little bit messy.
00:03:43.640 I use virgin olive oil and what you want to do is you want to just cover the top of them,
00:03:48.340 not excessively, but you want to have maybe a quarter inch of olive oil on top of the crushed
00:03:55.840 up plantain leaves. Mix them up a little bit and then I'm going to put this mixture into the oven
00:04:02.140 at about 175 degrees for about five hours. Once that's done, pull it out, let it cool just a tiny
00:04:10.400 little bit and then I'm going to pour it out and filter it. Pour that into a clean jar and then I'm
00:04:19.600 going to put that into another jar, sorry, into, as you can see on the stove there, into some hot water.
00:04:28.600 Then I'm going to cut some beeswax. Now I do this from memory, so I probably cut up about two and a
00:04:35.800 half to three ounces here of beeswax. I get this beeswax from my local farmer's market. That's a full
00:04:43.140 pound that I have there and I pay $16 for a full pound.
00:04:56.960 And I'm going to add this to my mixture until it's completely dissolved, stir it around.
00:05:02.540 And usually that takes about five minutes or so. I'm going to leave some on the spoon, put it in the
00:05:09.880 freezer for a couple of minutes, and then I'm just going to, by feel, make sure that it's kind of a
00:05:16.300 nice consistency. If it's too oily, I'm going to keep adding a little bit of beeswax. Once it's done,
00:05:23.760 pour it in your jars. It is very hot, so you want to be very careful. And then just let it cool
00:05:31.260 and put a lid on it.
00:05:39.800 And there you have it. Something quick and easy you can do with a weed. Plantain. The helpful little
00:05:45.340 weed. Cuts, bruises, scrapes, but especially little bug bites. I packaged some in some little jars that I
00:05:51.700 can give away. Bigger jars that I can have around the property. And it makes a nice little salve.
00:05:57.440 Cute little color as well. So, explore your property. You've got some valuable little weeds
00:06:03.480 hanging around your property. So, I hope you enjoyed this. Have a great day, and God bless you.
00:06:07.760 God bless you.