The Burr With Health Benefits

In traditional Western herbal practice, burdock earned a reputation as a blood cleansing herb.

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Burdock has ambushed trousers with its burrs for centuries, while most of us overlook the fact that beneath the soil lies one of traditional medicine’s most enduring roots.

With its dinner-plate leaves and those clingy little hitchhikers, it is routinely dismissed as a weed, remarkable for a plant that has travelled from medieval apothecaries to Japanese kitchens to modern wellness shelves.

Burdock in Japanese Cooking

Historically, it has been both supper and salve. In Japan, the long, earthy root has long been a culinary staple, sautéed or braised into dishes that celebrate its gentle sweetness and satisfying crunch. In parts of Europe, young leaves were tossed into spring salads. Indigenous communities in North America dried the roots over fire and stored them as food for leaner seasons.

Burdock Helps Declare True Love

The 17th-century herbalist Nicholas Culpeper declared burdock so common that even “little boys” knew it, largely because they enjoyed hurling the burrs at one another. But Culpeper also assigned it to Venus, the planet of love and beauty. In an era when astrology and medicine were close friends, burdock was thought to soothe, protect and restore. Folk traditions suggested that if you tossed a burr at your beloved’s skirt and it stuck, true love had declared itself. If it fell off, well, perhaps reconsider.

A Blood Cleanser Filled with Antioxidants

Modern interest in burdock has focused more on its chemistry. The root contains fibre known as inulin, along with plant compounds that act as antioxidants. Antioxidants are credited with helping the body manage oxidative stress and inflammation, both of which are implicated in everything from aching joints to troublesome skin.