Silybum marianum

Known as Our Lady’s thistle, Mary’s thistle, holy thistle and wild artichoke, milk thistle is Native to southern Europe, southern Russia, Asia minor and northern Africa, but is commonly found in North and South America and south Australia.

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To Grow, Or Not To Grow?

Milk thistle is a delicious vegetable and a medicinal herb. But before you grow it, there are a few things to keep in mind.

In cooler climates, millk thistle is an annual that usually grows to around 4 feet. In warmer climates, where it’s a biannual it can grow up to 10 feet and can be more like a bush. Milk thistle is a fast growing plant that is usually treated like a weed, because of its spines and thorns, and it’s tendency to become invasive. Each purple flower of the milk thistle produces about 190 shiny, black seeds that can survive in the ground for up to 9 years. Each seed, similar to a dandelion seed, has a feathery tuft that helps it to catch the wind and be spread far and wide.

Ranchers, and others who raise grazing livestock are not fans of milk thistle. Eating large amounts of milk thistle can kill cattle and other livestock.

To keep the seeds from taking root all over my yard, and my neighborhood, I employ a couple of strategies. First of all, I really don’t use milk thistle medicinally very often. I make a few bars of soap at harvest time with ground and boiled seed for acne and rosasia. I like to harvest enough stalk to can a couple batches. So I only grow 1 or 2 plants each year. I cut all but a couple of the flowers as they come on, and steam them for a dinner side. When it’s about time for the flowers to go to seed, usually late July, I cover the flowers with a nylon sock to catch the seeds.

Milk Thistle in History

Milk thistle has a long, documented medicinal history. Pliny the Elder wrote, in Roman times, of the powerful effects of milk thistle. The Greek physician, Dioscoriodes, wrote a book covering the medicinal uses of about 600 medicinal herbs and plants, noting the treatment of snake bites with milk thistle.

In the Middle Ages milk thistle was used to treat conditions of the liver, in much the same way we do today. In the 16th century, John Gerard wrote of the effectiveness of milk thistle as a treatment for depression and emotional distress in his book, Anatomie of Plants.

Nicolas Culpeper, a 17th century physician and herbalist praised milk thistle for its ability to unblock the liver and cure fibrous.

In the 1800’s, milk thistle was used for treating irregular menstruation, varicose veigns, kidney and liver complaints and spleen problems.

In traditional Chinese medicine it was used for liver protection, bile production and protection against oxidative exposure from radiation.

Milk Thistle, It’s What’s for Dinner!

There are seemingly endless ways to use milk thistle culinarily.

• The leaves of the plant can be used in a salad, or cooked and used like spinach.
• The ground seeds can be added to soups, or used in hot cereal. They can be used as a coffee or tea substitute.

Add one tablespoon of milk thistle seeds that have been ground or crushed in a mortar and steep in 3 cups of boiling water for about 20 min. Strain and enjoy!

• The plant’s young stalks and shoots can be boiled and used like kale or cabbage. Raw stalks can be used to quench thirst. To cut the bitter taste, stalks should be peeled.
• Milk thistle’s strong roots, which are similar to carrots or salsify, can be cut into thin sticks or slices and used in salads. The roots can be roasted or boiled and can be dried and ground into a flour that can be used to thicken soups.
• Steamed or boiled, the flowers can be eaten and if they are harvested at the right time they are similar to artichokes.

The stalks of milk thistle are delicious pickled and canned.

Cut and peel the thistle stalk. Rinse the stalks off, being sure to rinse out the hollow inside. Cut the tender pieces into lengths that will fit into your jars. The less tender pieces can be cut into shorter lengths to make rings. Discard the pieces that are too tough. Note: Don’t judge a stalk by it’s size. Stalks with a large diameter can be more tender than a thin one from the next plant.
Sterilize your equiptment, and heat a brine of 1 part vinegar to 1 part water, with 2 tablespoons of salt per cup of water. Once you’ve packed your jars with thistle stalks, add 1-2 tablespoons of dill seed, or a couple heads of dill weed, and garlic, minced or whole clove, to your own taste. Fill the jars with the brine leaving 1/2 inch headspace.
Water bath can for 10 minutes.

• Start timer after the water has come to a boil.
• Remove the rings from the jars once they have cooled. If the jar isn’t sealed properly, or unseals due to storage temperature or contamination, the ring can hold the lid down and allow it to reseal with spoiled food inside. If the lid unseals with out the ring, it will not easily reseal, allowing you to easily see that the food should be thrown out.

Medicinal Uses

Ranging from a liver, kidney and over all detoxifier, a treatment for depression, a milk production stimulant and a treatment for skin complaints, the medicinal claims for milk weed are many and varying.

Before we get too far into this part, please understand that I am not recommending or advising the treatment of any condition with the use of milk thistle. DO NOT take my word for fact. Do your own research!

Warning

According to the Mayo Clinic, using milk thistle can interfere with a few drugs:

Interactions

Possible interactions include:

“* Cytochrome P450 2C9 (CYP2C9) substrates. Taking milk thistle might affect this enzyme and drugs it processes, such as diazepam (Valium), warfarin (Coumadin, Jantoven) and others.

• Diabetes medications. Milk thistle might lower blood sugar in people who have type 2 diabetes. Taking milk thistle with diabetes drugs might cause additive effects. Closely monitor your blood sugar levels.
• Metronidazole (Flagyl). Milk thistle might reduce the effectiveness of this antibiotic. Avoid using milk thistle and metronidazole together.
• Simeprevir (Olysio). Taking milk thistle with this hepatitis C medication might increase the concentrations of the drug in your blood plasma. Avoid using milk thistle and simeprevir together.
• Sirolimus (Rapamune). Taking milk thistle with this immunosuppressant might change the way your body processes the medication.”

Milk Thistle for Cancer Patients

Silymarin are antioxidants extracted from the seeds of the milk thistle. Promising studies and clinical trials are showing the medicinal potential of silymarin.

A report published by the National Cancer Institute reveals some advantages of using milk thistle while undergoing cancer treatment.

• ”A randomized clinical trial in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia found that silymarin decreased the harmful effects of chemotherapy on the liver without working against the cancer treatment. The children taking silymarin needed fewer chemotherapy dose reductions because of side effects than the children who did not take milk thistle.
• A randomized clinical trial in men who had surgery to remove their prostate found that a combination of silymarin and selenium improved quality of life, decreased cholesterol, and increased the amount of selenium in the blood.
• A randomized clinical trial studied 30 patients with head and neck cancer who received radiation therapy. The study found that those who took silymarin for 6 weeks had markedly lower rates of radiation-related mucositis compared to those who did not.
• A nonrandomized observational study in women with breast cancer who had surgery and radiation therapy found that a silymarin-based cream helped prevent patients from having skin reactions to radiation therapy.
• A phase I clinical trial in 3 patients with advanced liver cancer and poor liver function aimed to find out the maximum dose of silybin phosphatidylcholine that patients can safely handle. One patient showed some improvement in liver function and signs of inflammation.
• A number of clinical trials have studied milk thistle or silymarin in the treatment of patients with hepatitis, cirrhosis, or disorders of the bile ducts. These trials have used a wide range of doses with mixed results. In a trial of biologic therapy for patients with chronic hepatitis, patients taking silymarin had fewer symptoms and a better quality of life compared to patients not taking silymarin. The beneficial effects of silymarin shown in some studies suggest it might play a role in preventing hepatitis and/or liver cancer, but no clinical trials have studied the use of silymarin for prevention.
• Silymarin has been found to increase the effectiveness of iron chelation therapy, which removes extra iron in the blood of patients who have had many blood transfusions.”

Sunscreen

The Department of Dermatology, The University of Alabama at Birmingham published a study supporting the use of silymarin from milk thistle seed as an effective sunscreen.

Bone Health

Studies performed by Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur Campus, 50300 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. and Department of Food and Nutrition, Hallym University, Chuncheon, Kore show the use of milk thistle can aid in the healing of bones.

Milk thistle can also prevent bone loss due to estrogen deficiency, according to a report published by the U.S. National Library of Medicine.

Acne and Rosacea

When someone in my circle is dealing with an acne or rosacea flare up, I use a basic skin or face cream and add crushed milk thistle seeed. I also like to add crushed milk thistle seed to soap for any skin complaints we’re having.

While You’re Hiking

This summer, when you’re out on a hike or a foraging expedition, keep your eye out for milk thistle. Use your knife (you do have a knife, right?) to cut and peel the stalk. Take it home and pickle it, stir fry it, throw it in some soup, or have it for a crispy snack.

Have a wonderful week!