Re: How to prepare Tillandsia aka Spanish Moss (tea)?

[Guest guest]

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> Does anyone know how to prepare 'Tillandsia usneoides',

aka 'Spanish Moss', as say, a tea, or the best way?

[...]

> The Tillandsia my parents asked me to remove (reduce) from their

propery is on the St. 's river, about half a mile from a small

two lane, neighborhood access road, which connects to a major,

heavily used 4 or 6 lane San /SR 13 road here, about 3 miles away

from their house, in Duval county/ville, just North of St.

s County. Do you think I should use this Tillandsia in making

tea to lower my glucose/cholesterol, or would it be also contaminated?

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Hi ,

I'm very interested in wild foods, so I appreciate this post. I

checked over on my wild food list and there's not much info there,

and no references to people actually eating it, except an anecdote

that someone uses it to imparts minerals in soups by putting it in

muslin cloth, and that it's often used in teas. Apparently it needs

to be cleaned somehow because of itchy bugs, but I don't have any

more info than that. I have some stainless steel infuser balls of

varying sizes that I would for something like that.

As far as potential contamination, your guess is as good as mine, but

3 miles seems pretty far away. Perhaps contacting a local university

outreach dept for scientific data on that sort of thing would be in

order? With all the threads we've had on this list about the

mainstream views on cholesterol being shams, I have little to say

about that topic other than advising you to completely ignore it. As

for glucose, not my specialty but as far as I understand it, just eat

lots of fat. As far as these herbal tweaks to the glucose system, I'm

clueless, but I've heard of cinnamon too. Good luck.

Mike

SE Pennsylvania