Nettles & Oatstraw Infusion… a Healthy Sweet Tea Alternative

Here in South Carolina, sweet iced tea is part of our way of life, but all that caffeine and sugar may not love you! If you love iced tea but want to avoid caffeine and sugar, drinking Nettles & Oatstraw Infusion is a delicious alternative you might like to try. I learned about drinking Nourishing Herbal Infusions and the Wise Woman Tradition from an herbalist named Susun Weed, and it’s about the best thing I’ve ever found for improving my general nutrition, energy, strength, mood, memory and sense of well-being. 

What is an infusion? An infusion is tea made with a large amount of loose herb that steeps for hours rather than minutes. The longer steeping time allows the water to extract all the minerals from the herbs, and the herbs used to make infusions are mineral rich herbs like nettles, oatstraw, red clover, red raspberry, horsetail, Comfrey and Linden, NOT aromatic herbs like peppermint and chamomile. Herbal Infusions are mineral tonics, not just a tasty drink. 

To make Nettles and Oatstraw Infusion, weigh ½ oz of dried nettle leaves and a ½ oz of dried oatstraw, put in a quart mason jar, fill the jar with boiling water, close with a 2-part mason jar lid, steep four to eight hours on your kitchen counter, strain out the herb matter, and drink the quart of strained liquid daily. If you’re used to Southern Sweet Tea and you need to add a little honey to your strained infusion, you can! You can refrigerate it and drink it cold, on ice, just like Mom’s iced tea! If you prefer room temp or hot, you can drink it at whatever temperature suits you! 

Nettles is one of the most mineral rich plants on the planet, providing abundant amounts of calcium, iron, potassium, selenium, zinc, Vitamin A, all the B vitamins except B-12, tons of chlorophyll, and it has antihistamine actions. My clients who start drinking Nettles Infusions for energy or hair growth often say that their allergy symptoms are much better or gone when the next allergy season rolls around. Clients often tell me they are thinking clearer, and their skin is glowing after drinking the infusions for a month. the antihistamine properties of nettle can be mildly drying, so mixing it with oatstraw, which is moisturizing, is a perfect complement!

Oatstraw is one of the most magnesium rich plants on the planet, so combining nettles and oatstraw provides us with calcium and magnesium, coming from plants instead of limestone, the source of most encapsulated calcium supplements. Oatstraw contains a lot of mucilage, which moisturizes our mucous membrane tissue, lubricating our esophageal lining, stomach lining, intestinal lining, vaginal tissue, urinary tract, pretty much everything from mouth to rectum. Since inflammation dries out our internal linings, oatstraw keeps our insides lubricated. Oatstraw also feeds and repairs nerves, so whether you have nerve damage from an injury or your nerves are frayed from chronic stress, oastraw to the rescue! 

Benefits of drinking Nettles and Oatstraw Infusions are more energy, better sleep, stronger and faster growing and shinier hair and fingernails, more stamina, less allergy symptoms, better lung function, calm and clear thinking, easier bowel movements, optimism and a general sense of “well-being.” 

You can find the herbs to make Nettles & Oatstraw Infusions at Pure on Main, your neighborhood wellness center, across the street from the Hyatt on North Main Street. Pure on Main offers Massage Therapy, Colon Hydrotherapy, Ionic Foot Detox and Wellness Consultations with an Herbalist, me, Julia Fuller.

A consultation with me is an in-depth, two-hour appointment. I use a number of “information gathering” tools to read what the body has to say to us. These include Iridology, Face Tongue and Nail Analysis, Body Chemistry Analysis using urine to test sugars, salts and pH, and Muscle Testing for food sensitivities. Iridology is helpful because a map of the body’s organs shows up in the iris, giving us information about what’s going on inside the body…the face, tongue and nails also act as maps to read the internal organs. Once we have a roadmap of what the body needs to get or get rid of, we can use herbs to help with those jobs! Drinking the nourishing herbal infusions is a remedy I recommend to almost all my clients, so go ahead and get started drinking Nettles & Oatstraw Infusions now!