The healing power of goat’s beard

It is a plant with long yellow-white plumes as flowers. This beautiful ornamental plant adorns many gardens, but what few people know is that you can eat the young shoots. In Italy, young goat’s beard shoots are eaten as a delicacy; it is cooked with eggs and cheese. In another part of Italy, goat’s beard shoots are added to soup. This plant also has medicinal uses. NB! This article is written from the personal view of the author and may contain information that is not scientifically substantiated and/or in line with the general view.

Goat’s beard / Source: Walter Siegmund, Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-2.5)

Contents:

• General information
• Distribution and growth location
• Naming
• Possible danger
• Edibility of goat’s beard
• Eating goat’s beard in Italy
• Traditional use goat beard
• Good for the kidneys
• Good for the skin
• Grow goat’s beard yourself

General information

Goat’s beard is a perennial plant that can grow two to three meters high in a relatively short time. There are male and female specimens, so if you want to grow effective seed you must have one plant of each sex. The plant is fertilized by insects.

Distribution and growth location

Goat’s beard blooms in May, June and July. It is a rare plant in the Netherlands. It occurs throughout the northern hemisphere, but mainly in mountainous areas. You can find this plant in the mountains up to an altitude of 1700 meters. In Europe you will find it in the wooded areas of the Austrian Alps, the French and Spanish Pyrenees and the Central Massif in France. In the forest it often grows in shady places. It also grows in moist valleys and along streams in the forest. You often find it on a humus-rich soil. Because goat’s beard is often used as an ornamental plant, it slowly naturalizes in places where it normally does not or rarely occurs.

Goat’s beard is a close relative of meadowsweet.

Naming

In science we use Latin names to avoid confusion. The Latin name of goat’s beard is Aruncus dioicus . The plant was given the name goat’s beard because the flowers resemble a goat’s goatee that has grown out of its claws. In Germany the plant is called Wald-Geißbart. In English-speaking areas the plant is called goat’s beard, buck’s beard or bride’s feathers.

Possible danger

The leaves of goat’s beard are eaten, but according to some scientists the leaves contain carcinogenic glycosides. It works like this: in 2011, Korean researchers examined ten components in the leaf. One of these substances showed a possible carcinogenic property against T cells, but this was only observed in a test tube test setup. Seven out of ten substances showed antioxidant activity, which means that they fight free radicals that can ultimately lead to cancer formation. It is therefore safe to say that the entire plant is unlikely to promote cancer.

Edibility of goat’s beard

The above paragraph shows that the buds, young leaves and shoots that are often eaten have a very small chance of having a cancer effect. These are the so-called hydrocyanic acid glycosides or cyanide glycosides. It is advisable to eat them only a few times a year; then you take good precautions against the possible danger that the scientists outline. The goat’s beard leaves can be used to make a tea. It is best to harvest and dry young leaves and stems for this.

Eating goat’s beard in Italy

The Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine contains an article published on May 4, 2007. It describes the following. In northern Italy, goat’s beard has been popular as a wild vegetable for centuries. It is cooked there together with sage, rosemary and oregano before being further cooked with eggs and cheese. The plant is also added raw to salads. It is also processed into a soup called pistic. Italy is a country where people love vegetables and where, compared to other countries such as the Netherlands, the population has a great knowledge of edible plants in the wild. This is a vegetarian recipe and that is no coincidence. Vegetarian food in Italy is very common. Relatively more people in Italy live according to a vegetarian diet than in the Netherlands.

Traditional use goat beard

The leaves of goat’s beard are used to staunch blood. In addition, they are a remedy for tonsilitis or tonsillitis. Furthermore, it is a means of detoxification; a tea is used for this. It is also a classic skin care product, especially in Asia. In Europe, goat’s beard is mainly used as a tonic for the stomach and as an antipyretic; the effect is similar to that of meadowsweet.

Good for the kidneys

Korean research from 2012 shows that goat’s beard is good for the kidneys. The research was done on rats and it turned out that the rats that received a methanolic extract of goat’s beard, which contains many antioxidants, had less kidney damage. Before the study, the rats had first been given kidney damage, for which there are scientific standards so that every scientist can repeat the study in the same way to confirm that goat beard extract is indeed good for the kidneys.

Good for the skin

In South Korea, goat’s beard has traditionally been used for cosmetic products aimed at skin care. A Korean research team from the Oriental Medicine Industry in South Korea saw that goat’s beard is indeed good for the skin. It prevents skin aging. Skin cells are irradiated with UV light, which causes the cells to age. But if the skin cells were treated with a goat beard-based cosmetic, the aging was a lot less

Grow goat’s beard yourself

Goat’s beard is a plant that you can buy in garden centers, but it might be much more fun to grow one yourself. The simplest form of propagation is division; this is preferably done in spring or autumn. In addition, you can collect the seed when it has fully matured. You can grow this seed in individual pots during the cold season until you find them large enough to place in the garden. These young seedlings can be planted in the garden all year round. It is a plant that should not be missing in the medicinal ornamental garden.