Wooly Burdock/ Burdock, Seittitakiainen/ Isotakiainen (Finnish), Arctium tomentosun/Arctium lappa (Latin), Gobo (Japanese), Niu Bang Zi (Chinese for burdock seed) … Every part of this plant is medicinal. I first discovered Gobo at age 19 when I lived in Japan and a sweet japanese woman named Yuko taught me to cook the Gobo root with carrots, sesame oil, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, brown sugar and black sesame seeds.This is a traditional Japanese dish called Kinpira. Later while studying herbs I learned that the root contains alot of inulin which feeds the good bacteria in our intestines. I also learned that the root is very useful to treat chronic skin problems and helps the kidneys, liver and gallbladder remove waste from the body. The root tastes somewhat sweet and is energetically cooling. And then when studying Chinese Medicine I learned that the fruit (Niu Bang Zi) is clears heat toxins and disperses heat from the exterior surface of the body and is so useful for treating painful sore inflamed throat. The cold slippery quality of the fruit also treats constipation that is due to heat accumulating in the intestines. I can testify that this plants works very well when used in these ways! Recently I have been inspired to work with burdock leaves as a poultice for pain. I read of this practice from herbslist Susun Weed. You place fresh burdock leaves in vinegar. I roll the leaves up so they fit better into the jar. Fill the jar with vinegar. To use the leaves as a poultice you remove a leaf from the jar and heat it up in the oven. When nice and warm you apply it to the area of the body where there is pain. Back pain, knee pain, elbow pain, joint pain. Leave on until it cools to room temperature and then apply another warm leaf. Do this for at least 20-30 minutes. You can do this a few times a day for several days. After using the poultice you can also apply an herbal pain relieving salve. Since burdock grows abundantly where people live, its definitely worth learning more about this amazing plant!
