Milk Thistle is a herb that nearly everyone has heard of, even those who aren’t interested in herbal medicines. Having become fashionable of late for its supposed ability to prevent hangovers, it’s available in every health food shop and chemist. However Milk Thistle has been used in folk, as well as official, medicine for thousands of years, primarily as a tonic for the liver and gallbladder but also as a more general aid to digestion and, as the name suggests, as a galactagogue or stimulant of nursing mothers’ milk.
Milk Thistle is a member of the Asteraceae, or daisy family, and is native to Mediterranean Europe and the Middle East though it can now be found growing wild in most of Europe and much of the world. Its beautiful spiny leaves are veined with white, said to be the milk of the Virgin Mary which explains one of it’s other common names, St. Mary’s Thistle. Its Latin binomial is Silybum marianum or Carduus marianum, depending on the source .
Today we primarily use the seed though in the past all parts of the plant were used either as food or medicine. Culpepper used decoctions of the root, the young leaves were boiled as a vegetable and the flower heads apparently eaten like artichokes.
Mrs Grieves includes the following wonderful quote in her Modern Herbal. “Westmacott, writing in 1694, says of this Thistle: ‘It is a Friend to the Liver and Blood: the prickles cut off, they were formerly used to be boiled in the Spring and eaten with other herbs; but as the World decays, so doth the Use of good old things and others more delicate and less virtuous brought in.'” Oh dear, what would they say of modern eating habits I wonder?!
Milk Thistle is one of the most important liver remedies we have due to its ability to both protect the liver from potential toxins and help regenerate healthy cells. It has been found useful in a variety of liver and gall bladder conditions such as cirrhosis, hepatitis, gall stones, fatty liver and poisoning. In fact it is still used today to treat poisoning from amanitas such as the death cap and the destroying angel.
Milk Thistle contains powerful anti-oxidants including silymarin flavonoids which protect liver cells from damage by any number of potential toxins such as pollution, alcohol, drugs and metabolic wastes. They not only increase resilience of liver cells but also stimulate protein synthesis which helps new healthy cells to be formed. This is why people like to take it before and after having a big night out, though of course it works much better when taken for a stretch of time rather than as a one off to counteract an evening’s indulgence!
Milk Thistle can help lower blood fats and improves the removal of fats from the system by stimulating the bile. It’s also very anti-inflammatory and has been used with success in inflamed skin conditions where liver congestion is thought to be a factor. It also helps protect the kidneys and has a beneficial action on the immune system.
Milk Thistle is generally considered rather bland in flavour, though some herbalists refer to it as sweet whilst others believe it to be slightly bitter. It is certainly not as bitter as many of our traditional western liver remedies making it more useful for those with a cold constitution or people who are depleted and in need of building as well as detoxification. It is moistening and Matthew Wood recommends it for people with dry constipation due to liver congestion and lack of bile. In such cases the stools will be hard and small (rabbit droppings!) or they may also be pale in colour due to lack of bile. They might also float rather than sinking which can indicate poor fat absorption.
There are a number of ways you can integrate Milk Thistle seed into your life. It can be taken in larger therapeutic doses for specific conditions, best to consult a herbalist or do lots of research in such cases, or it can be used in smaller amounts on a regular basis as a preventative and for general maintenance of good health.
The constituents in Milk Thistle don’t extract well in water so making teas and decoctions is not the best way to use them. Ideally a tincture or ground seeds is the way to go. If you are looking for a more complete nutritional and building medicine then you can’t beat the seeds and they are also useful for people who can’t tolerate alcohol as is often the case in those with compromised liver function.
I buy milk thistle seeds by the kilo and grind them in my blender, a couple of hundred grams at a time to maintain freshness. Make sure if you do this that you grind a little at a time to avoid overheating and damaging the seeds. I use 1 or 2 teaspoons a day in food, sprinkled on soups and salads or blended into smoothies. I’ve also been adding it to home made crackers with a bit of powdered Reishi extract, a perfect way to love your liver.
Milk Thistle Smoothie:
1/2 cup of oats
1 banana
1 dried fig
1 teaspoon ground milk thistle seeds
1/2 teaspoon vanilla powder
500ml Almond milk or other milk of choice
This makes a lovely breakfast drink which I’ve been having often recently.
There is a wealth of information available on Milk Thistle as its effects and constituents have been well studied so I’d urge you to find out more if you are interested. Despite my dislike of all the marketing hype of recent years, I do think this herb is so useful for our modern lives which are full of stress and environmental toxins, many of which can have interactions with each other. And any excuse to have a yummy smoothie is alright with me.
References:
Botanical illustration of Milk Thistle courtesy of Wikipedia
David Hoffman – Medical Herbalism
Matthew Wood – The Eathwise Herbal
Thomas Bartram – Bartram’s Encyclopaedia of Herbal Medicine
Mrs Grieves – A Modern Herbal
A.K. Tillotson – The One Earth Herbal Sourcebook
Thanks, great article, I especially loved the Westmacott quote… does this feeling ever change???
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I know, it did make me laugh when I read it!
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Hi Lucinda, I grew milk thistle from seed last year. It is a very beautiful and interesting plant. Bees and butterflies love it. The rabbits enjoyed it also……rabbits love milk thistle. I wish now that I had harvested the seeds. How foolish!! It is a joy to visit your blog and be reminded that my garden isn’t only for wildlife but also for me and my family. I have used milk thistle in the past……
Thank you so much for the information. Also for my potions….feel so much better…….blessings to you.
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I think that the plants that are best for wildlife are often the ones that are best for us too, I suppose because they are just as nature intended .
So glad you are feeling better. xxx
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hey lucinda!!!!
i wondered can you put seeds in blender with water and make seed milk out of it ? im really loving hemp milk at the moment !
how you doing love, long time no see ! xxx
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Hey Holly! How are you? I have’t tried doing milk thistle milk, it’s a great idea though!
I’m not sure how it would taste or if it would be that creamy as the seeds are very hard but I’ll give it a try with a small quantity and get back to you.
xxx
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Yum, I’m salivating over the smoothie recipe – sounds so delicious! I need to order some seeds ASAP so I can try it out, and I also love the idea of adding it to crackers! You must share your recipe for that too! (I’m guessing raw, right? As silymarin isn’t very heat stable?).
Thanks for the very informative and inspiring article!
Love,
D
P.S.: I’ve been adding oats to my smoothies too and really like it! I got the River Cottage Everyday cookbook as a birthday present and Hugh calls smoothies with oats “thickies’ which I for some reason like 🙂
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Hey Danielle, yes they were raw, I didn’t post the recipe because they were done in a dehydrator and I know many people don’t have one. Most things you can do in the oven on the lowest heat instead but I’m not sure if even that would be a bit hot for the milk thistle, what do you reckon?
Thickies, thats funny. I usually have an oaty smoothie/ thickie for breakfast every morning. Oats are the best 🙂
Love to you xxx
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Milk thistle is one of my twenty herbs to deepen my relationship with this year,Lucinda! xxxxx
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Hi Leslie,
I’ll look forward to hearing about your adventures with it.
I’m not sure I have room to grow any this year which is a shame… I got too carried away planting roses! xxx
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Good story!
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[…] Traditional Western Herbalism, The Book of Herbal Wisdom,A Modern Herbal, Culpeper’s Herbal, “The Marvellous Milk Thistle” and “Dandelion Medicine” at Whispering Earth, The Earthwise Herbal, Medical […]
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how can eat row milk thistle, skin is very hard does it want to remove skin or eat as it is pls help me. nimal
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It is not generally eaten raw due to its tough and prickly leaves. The seeds can be bought raw and ground for consumption. All the best.
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still i could not understand how can eat row milk seed with hard skin? NIMAL
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You have to grind it down first as I mention in the post. 🙂
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thanks lucinda i grind whole seeds 100grams now its brown colour power then i mixed every morning two spoons with breakfast oats its taste ok thanks
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What blenders do you all use? I am currently using a coffee grinder but it just does not get the milk thistle seeds fine enough.
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I have a high speed blender but I think you can get small ones that work well. Like the ‘wet and dry’ grinders that can be used for seeds and spices etc.
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Can you blend the leaves in a nutra bullet with a liquid and drank it?
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I haven’t tried it but I would imagine it wouldn’t work that well as the leaves are tough.
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Thank you for the article. I happen to live where I can harvest it if you had more detail. I’d like to see the book you got that quote from … nice and fresh 🙂
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The quote is from A Modern Herbal by Mrs Grieves. Most of the book is available online here:
https://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/mgmh.html
Depending on where you live the seeds are the part usually harvested so around now would be a good time.
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This is a nice article. I ordered some seeds yesterday. Meanwhile, the past week, I daily pull up some milk thistle, wash it well, cut it up into my high speed blender including the roots. Then I add whatever else I have on hand such as ginger, cranberries, blueberries, raspberries, banana, beets, beet greens, carrots, yams… with water and a little juice. It is very good although the roots don’t always get completely ground up. No problem at all with the thorny edges – no need to cut them off when blending.
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I have these growing all over the property! I think I will try this.
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I wonder if the oil of this plant has the same health benefits as the seeds
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Do you roast milk thistle seeds before griding?
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I don’t personally no.
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