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Fenugreek - The Healing power of herbs – Ceres Esplan

Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum),Bird’s foot, Classical Greek clover, Greek Hay-seed.

The last of this forage crop’s popular names gives a clue to its most familiar use, for it is a most useful green, nitrogenous aid to the soil and is very widely cultivated.  Agricultural experts now recommend that farmers grow it both for its potential as a fodder plant and as a land enricher or, in other words, a natural fertiliser.

Fenugreek is rich in mineral elements and is useful as a human as well as an animal food.  This was clearly demonstrated when there was a craze in Britain, Europe and the USA for sprouting plants and eating their newly germinated seeds.

Fenugreek was then shown to be one of the easiest and pleasantest of all to grow.  It is generally thought to be good in salads and sandwiches.

It is another herb with an extremely high traditional reputation in medicine, for many different complaints.

It is supposed to stimulate the appetite, to provide a quietening and soothing drink, if its seeds are soaked to the point when they begin to swell and are then strained off.  This has also been suggested as a mucilaginous stomach soother.

The soaked seeds themselves are useful for external poulticing lotions which can be used for inflammations such as boils and abscesses.

If a tisane is made from the fresh seeds, or indeed from the fresh young shoots, the plant needs to be very fresh as so many of its virtues obviously lie in its vitamin and trace element content.  It can taste a little bitter, but this is easily masked by the addition of a little honey or brown sugar.

It is only very occasionally found truly wild in Britain and grows freely as a native plant on warm shores of the Mediterranean, as well as being cultivated in many countries throughout the world

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