Alfalfa (Medicago sativa)

Brief Description

Alfalfa is a perpetual the herb commonly found on the edges of fields, in low valleys and is widely cultivated by farmers for livestock feed. An erect, smooth stem grows from an elongated taproot to a height of a foot or more. Flowers are blue-to-purple during the summer months, finally creating the characteristic spirally coiled seed pods.

Alfalfa or lucerne was used by the Persians to feed their horses to make them look sleeker and feel stronger. The Arabs designated this common hay feed for livestock, "The Father of All Foods." Some modem herbalists have gone even further than this, characterizing alfalfa as being "the Big Daddy of 'em all" in terms of nutritional value, in view of that the plant is extremely rich in calcium that the ashes of its leaves are almost 99% pure calcium.

Prevents Hardening of the Arteries

This has been a discovery of late by researchers rather than traditional herbalists, amazingly enough. Clinical nutritionists have clearly verified that alfalfa meal, when fed to caged monkeys whose diets included high levels of cholesterol helped to prevent them from getting atherosclerosis and reduced the serum cholesterol levels.

Based on such medical findings, it's therefore strongly suggested that you should take 2 capsules of good quality alfalfa powder with every meal when too much cholesterol might be a problem for you. Thus, you need to check with your local health food store who carries alfalfa. A medical doctor, Henry G. Bieler, who for years treated many of the great film stars of Hollywood, recounted an episode with alfalfa in his bestseller.  

Food Is Your Best Medicine.

It seems while he was practicing in the rural areas of Idaho many years ago, he traveled a great distance to visit a farmer who was suffering from a very bad leg ulcer.

The open sore was discharging pus just above the ankle and the entire limb appeared to be dangerously close to having gangrene set in. Dr. Bieler inquired of the farmer and his wife if they had any alkaline vegetables around the house, but unfortunately, none were available.

Therefore, the only plant available that he could think of was alfalfa, of which they had plenty on hand. He persuaded the astonished wife to pick the tender young alfalfa shoots, chop them up very fine and combine them with equal parts of water and canned grapefruit juice. The patient was also given canned vegetables, whole grain bread and raw milk in the correct amounts. Eventually, the leg condition completely healed up with the farmer strictly adhering to this dietary regimen.

The rich chlorophyll the content found in alfalfa, and other green plants like it, was used by some doctors in major hospitals in the 1940s for treating infections resulting from surgical incisions, bedsores, and inner ear problems. Better still, though, would be fresh juice made from raw alfalfa sprouts whipped up in a blender or else run through a juicer.

About 4-6 oz. of the juice taken at one time and applied externally on any surface infection will be of considerable help. Moreover, the making your own sprouts to make your own sprouts, soak a teaspoon of alfalfa seeds in a quart of tepid water overnight.

Next morning, rinse the seeds thoroughly with tepid water and drain. Hence, you need to place them in a jar tightly covered with damp cheesecloth. Then store in a dark place. After twice a day, rinse the sprouting seeds and drain them well, returning them to the dark after each rinse.

After four to five days, you should place the sprouts in the sunlight for a few hours to green them. After that store in the refrigerator. Also, use alfalfa sprouts instead of lettuce, since they are far more nutritious. Control Aid in Diabetes found that alfalfa extracts with a lot of manganese improved the condition of a diabetic who failed to respond to insulin.

It is believed that 2 capsules twice or three times daily might be worth trying in instances such as this. Highly Nutritional Powdered alfalfa contains vitamins A, B-1, B-6, B-12, C, E, and K-1, niacin, pantothenic acid, biotin, folic acid, etc., as well as many essential and nonessential amino acids. Moreover, it contains 15 - 25% proteins, major minerals and trace elements like calcium, phosphorus, manganese, iron, zinc, and copper, together with many naturally occurring sugars (sucrose, fructose, etc.)