Pine trees are very common in the countryside and are cultivated in most of our provinces, when we were children, we used to pick pine nuts in the pine forest for firewood, pine branches can be made into cut flowers for ornamentation, and pine needles are the leaves of pine trees. The leaf surface of the pine needle is very smooth, it glows when exposed to sunlight, and its leaf tip is very sharp, which looks like an embroidery needle at home, and if it is pricked, it will be very painful, so it is called "pine needle".
There are many types of pine needles in the mainland, including black pine needles, Simao pine needles, oil pine needles, Yunnan pine needles, etc. In the past, people did not know that pine needles had medicinal properties, so people in rural areas generally used the trunk of pine trees as planks, branches as firewood, and leaves as materials for combustion.
However, in recent years, the value of pine trees has been discovered, because pine needles are a precious Chinese medicinal material, with relatively high medicinal efficacy, let's take a look at it together.
Pine needles contain high amino acids, as well as a variety of trace elements required by the human body, for patients with diabetes, high blood pressure, hyperlipidemia, etc., can play a role in invigorating blood and driving away cold, improve the effect of the condition.
Pine needles are also rich in selenium, a nutrient that can enhance the body's physique, help delay the aging of the body, and to a certain extent, also have the effect of assisting in anti-cancer.
Pine needles are rich in glycine, which can help repair damaged cells for people suffering from stomach ulcers, help recover from stomach problems, and maintain stomach health.
For women in menopause, pine needles can also have a good conditioning effect, because pine needles can promote metabolism and relieve the uncomfortable symptoms of menopause.
In addition, regular soaking in water with pine needles can help treat chilblains, and can also improve traumatic infections, which has a good therapeutic effect on skin diseases. If you can chew pine needles soaked in water skiing, it can also help get rid of bad breath.
How to choose pine needles:
If you go to the field to collect pine needles, remind everyone to avoid collecting pine trees below 3 meters in height and less than 6 years in the growth period, because such pine trees are not yet mature, and the nutrients of immature pine trees are incomplete, and soaking in water and drinking is not beneficial to the body.
If it is convenient, you should choose a pine tree that is more than 3 meters long, in spring and summer you should choose the branches of a male tree, and in autumn and winter you can pick the branches and roots of a female tree, so that the pine tree has a high vitamin E content.
The specific brewing method of pine needle tea:
Pine needles are an oily plant that tends to stick to dirt, so wash them before boiling them and soak them in water for a few minutes.
Put the cleaned pine needles into a casserole, add 600ml of water, turn on high heat and boil, then turn to low heat and cook for about 15 minutes.
In addition to boiling water to drink, you can also soak in water to drink, put pine needles into a hot water bottle, pour in freshly boiled boiling water, cover and simmer for half an hour. Normally, pine needles can be brewed many times, and the taste will be a little different each time, but if you want it to be good for the body, you should not brew it too strongly.
However, it is worth reminding everyone that when you first start drinking pine needle tea, some people may feel that the taste of pine needle tea is a little astringent, if you want to relieve this astringency, you can boil pine needle tea for too long and try to cook it for 20 minutes. You can also add honey, maltose, lemon, rose, and jasmine to the pine needle tea in moderation, so that the pine needle tea brewed has a good taste and richer nutrients.
Although there are many benefits to soaking pine needles in water, there are also two precautions:
(1) Do not go to the wild to pick pine needles casually, because there may be various pollution in the environment, and there will be adverse health effects after taking it.
(2) People with high blood pressure should not stop taking antihypertensive drugs at will because pine needles have the effect of stabilizing blood pressure, which is not good for the condition and may even aggravate the condition.
Note: The picture comes from the Internet