How To Make Dandelion Lemonade

Today it is impossible to escape the urgency to save the world. We are a generation from total collapse and catastrophe. Despite the need to recycle, reduce, and reuse; minimising carbon emissions seems impossible.

Today I found out, disposable chopsticks take the destruction of 20 million trees to produce annually. Birth control pills through waste water are changing the sex of fish and decimating their population. Prozac is making its way through the food chain and totally messing up the heads of the bird population. Hand soap full of tiny microbeads is killing the ocean. Bull frogs are bringing rare variants of fungi to the States where they are imported to be eaten. Cat litter is causing strip mining in certain areas of the world. Soy beans the perfect alternative to the ozone harming cow is actually causing the deforestation of the Amazon.

It just seems impossible to alter anything.

I spend a lot of my year maintaining a small section of river, managing some woods, growing and raising my own food and living a pretty balanced homestead life. Even I can’t stop the tide. Yet despite avoiding pesticides and making my own compost and living a balanced permaculture existence, I too have the finger pointed at me for not doing enough. We live in a world full of avenging green warriors, who order their books off Amazon and have very little understanding of how one good thing that needs championing is destroying another.

The biggest thing that tickles me about the modern day political environmentalist is their hatred for Dandelions. We spend millions shipping wild flowers and their seeds all over the world but can’t stand the ones that sprout up on our lawn for free. We even buy toxic chemicals to kill them. Use power to mow, strim and destroy them.

A strange flower, beautiful in colour that transforms into an alien blossom. As a child we picked these blossoms and blew on them and made wishes dreaming of a better future.

I blame the English; I should know they are my tribe. They taught us how important and impressive the lawn was. That square of green. The perfect symbol of showing how much better you are from your neighbour. The enemy to the lawn is the dandelion it arrives in Spring, a time when we have few natural flowers to enjoy.

The Dandelion means ‘the lions tooth’, they are vital early pollinators and sources of nectar to our bee population. A species in mortal crisis.

Raw dandelion greens contain high amounts of vitamins A, C, and K, and are moderate sources of calcium, potassium, iron, and manganese. Raw dandelion greens are 86% water, 9% carbohydrates, 3% protein, and 1% fat. A 100 gram (3+1⁄2oz) reference amount supplies 45 calories. (source Wikipedia)

They can be used to make a wide variety of foods and have been a part of our diet forever; until recently. You have a salad growing on every piece of green around you in North America and Europe for three months of the year. You can march for climate change but strangely still keep buying your avocados. To truly embrace your connection to the world try taking a closer look at it. The flower petals of the dandelion have a citrus flavour and can make wine or root beer. The roots roasted can make caffeine free coffee. You love your boxset of Downton Abbey that arrived shipped in all that packaging; well get this, dandelions then were seen as a delicacy and they used them mostly in salads and sandwiches.

You want to save the world and the oceans start in your back garden.

I have a recipe for you to follow.

Dandelion Lemonade

Stage 1. We are making 2 gallons of Lemonade and for that we need 4 quarts of dandelion. A quart is roughly 2 pint glasses. So we picked enough dandelions to fill 8 pint glasses. you don't need the storks or roots just the blossom.

Stage 2. Find someone to shove said Dandelions into a watertight container

Watch out for Dandelion Spiders they are seriously weird

Stage 3. Juice and pulp 10 lemons.

Stage 4. Add juice, pulp, zest to container, a funnel can help.

Stage 5. Add some sweetener, we are using some of the wild honey we still had left over from our bee adventures. So we melted the honeycomb down with a little water and added that to the mixture. You can use anything sweet you have to hand.

Stage 6. Fill the container with water

Stage 7. Then chill.

It makes a kind of iced tea mixture, lemony and slightly bitter, Dandelion Lemonade is a perfect natural remedy for headaches, back pain, depression, gastric pain or menstrual cramps.

But we must admit the addition of a little vodka or gin is a winner.

Leave it for a year and it will ferment into alcohol. All from that little bit of honey you added. You will have to open the container regularly to let off some air.

You want to save the world; save the oceans, live in it. Take from it but also put back into it. Farting cows will not destroy us. Learn how to make food from your surroundings, save on packaging and food air miles. Interact with the environment you live in; do it with a friend. If you want to save the world start by making dandelion lemonade. Once you have done that the rest will start to follow.

Thank you for reading my story.

This is for a challenge called 'Wave Makers'.

I publish my stuff independently for no other reason that I would rather these strange ideas that rattle around my head from time to time have a place to go.

My reach is decided by you so if you enjoyed this and think it could reach a little further I would love for you to share it.

If not that is also cool.

I have more strange musings here, Enjoy.

Have an awesome day.