Ginko, Gingko, or Ginkgo Biloba -However you spell it, it's Amazing!

fall is just around the corner as we film this episode and that's why i couldn't wait to take this opportunity to tell you to get ready because in the next month or two you're going to see this glorious tree and ones just like it all over the world come to life with exactly the perfect timing for you to do some foraging especially those of you who live in an urban environment this episode is for you because we're going to be talking today about one of the oldest trees in the entire world some dating back still alive right now that are said to be over 4 000 years old i can't wait to tell you about the edible and medicinal qualities of ginkgo biloba don't go away [Music] today happens to be one of the hottest and most humid days of the year here in tennessee however i wanted to share this with you because before it gets chilly outside you're going to be needing to watch for this wonderful little phenomenon that's going to be in your area if you live anywhere in the world almost now between growing zones two and nine which is a pretty wide range and especially those of you who live in an urban environment one of the most common ornamental and beautiful trees that you're going to see planted along streets and in parking lots like we find ourselves today the ginkgo biloba tree or ginkgo biloba depending on where you're from it has these phenomenal leaves that are unlike any other tree so they're very easy to spot and they grow just a little bit different in the architecture of the whole tree itself they are one of the oldest if not the oldest tree in the entire history of the world there are those that are alive in china right now which is where this originated we all believe that are at least 12 to 1400 years old and there are a couple that people claim are even over 4 000 years old these have an incredible long life span and there are so many fossils all over the world that you can find of this beautiful ginkgo leaf now the biloba or the biloba that you've heard is often for the bilobes that you see on them here's one of the young leaves right here you see how it has two bi lobes a two lobed leaf you're going to see a variation some of them have a deep low a deep groove in them like that others are completely fan shaped like this big one you see here but they all have kind of a ribbony looking edge they flutter in the wind beautifully and look like lace and um they turn the most beautiful brilliant lemon bright yellow in the in the fall which is right around the corner now what i love is that you're going to see almost an ombre take place where it stays green here right at the base and then turns more and more yellow as you go out so you'll see this fan effect of even the colors that shoot through this until the whole entire tree is this glorious brilliant yellow brighter than almost any other yellow trees that you're going to see turn color in the fall this leaf is a phenomenal medicinal that you can pick just like you see it right now and make a fresh tea out of it or you could make an extract out of it to make it even more potent but you can make a tea out of this and drink it on a daily basis and it is extremely helpful as an anti-inflammatory but also for your brain specifically for the cognitive functions because all those little tiny capillaries in your body think of their they're all throughout you but specifically it affects your brain and helps with memory and cognitive functions because it opens up those capillaries in your brain and helps you to remember things well so here's your first good tip of the episode and that is if you have a test or somebody is going to be quizzing you on some important details in the next couple of hours i would strongly recommend you take some ginkgo baloba right before that about two hours before that test and it's going to help open up the capillaries in your brain and help you remember as best as you can in that test that's coming up it's also helpful in your eyes if you have poor vision it helps with the capillaries open up and have oxygen get to your eyeballs if you have ringing in the ears or tinnitus it helps get oxygen all the way out there to relieve some of that ringing in your ears because of the capillaries that now have the oxygen they need in your eardrums also if you're somebody that has really poor circulation like after you've exercised and you notice your fingers and and your toes are almost numb well this is going to help get that blood and oxygen pumped all the way out to your farthest extremities so athletes love it for that those are just a few of the things just a few of the properties that i'm remembering off the top of my head to tell you today that are all wrapped up in making a tea or an extract out of these wonderful leaves now the easy way to do that is simply come out about this time of year or all the way up until they're starting to turn yellow harvest a good batch of these and after just a little rinse off under the water lay them out flat on your dehydrator and keep it under 115 degrees because that'll help them dry out quickly just really within about eight to ten hours they'll be nice and crispy dry but they will retain their medicinal qualities so that's really how i keep them and then store them in dry jars i've kept them as full leaf version or i have just ground them up at that point another thing let me just say if you are making tea with the fresh leaves you'll want about two tablespoons for a good strong cup of tea two tablespoons you'll only need half of that if you have dried them so that's why i'm kind of in favor of take some home dry them up throw them in the cabinet and when you're needing to remember things well or on a daily basis if you'd like to have the properties that are going to help you continually you can make just with one tablespoon of dried ginkgo biloba leaves in a hot cup of water let it steep five to ten minutes and you're going to have a wonderful and very healthy drink all right now to the controversial part of the episode because i know i'll have just as many naysayers as those of you who cheer me on about this part but a couple of years ago before i had read the warnings i had someone say hey i've got ginkgo trees in my backyard and he mentioned that some of them are men and some of them are women they're male and female trees the male trees actually develop little tiny cones they're not very big they're just maybe that size just little tiny cones and the female trees are the ones that are going to cover themselves about this time of year in these wonderful nut-like seeds you see that and just as they are ready to harvest yes i said harvest they're going to drop to the ground now this is what you have heard of before probably and you're going to quickly point out to me and that is as soon as they start falling to the ground and as soon as they all are ripe enough to fall very quickly after that they're going to start smelling exactly like dog vomit or dog poop that's the most closely resembled smell that you're going to recognize and so if you have ever walked down a sidewalk in an urban area and smelled dog poop but you didn't see any it probably is a ginko tree you might want to look up and see see if you're standing under one of these the tree itself does not smell and they don't smell at all like this in fact as they fall to the ground they don't really smell but once they get really ripe and strong that's when they start smelling now i've picked some up here and they're in all stages and none of the ones i picked up because it's a little bit too early for that none of these smell bad at all but they're going to start in that beautiful gentle barely green stage in fact uh the name ginkgo i believe means silver apricot and that's because they look a lot like silvery apricots however they don't smell like them at all or taste like them at all but they're going to drop and look like little silvery green apricots and then they'll darken into looking almost like a raisin you can see the purpley hue of this with kind of a silvery coating on it it looks like a giant raisin you can pick them up off the ground anywhere in that span of difference and what i want you to see is that tucked inside of them see here's a green one that has already opened but tucked inside of that soon to be smelly flesh around the outside is a wonderful little nut now it's in a hard shell and so what you're going to be doing is taking a little basket full of these home with you just like i've collected here today you're going to lay them out and preferably rinse them off but you're going to need to hurry and get the flesh off of them before it disintegrates and and ends up smelling a lot like what we mentioned before you're going to want to give them a chance to be redeemed before you get to that point now let me say this many people pick them up because they are still delicious meat of the seeds even after the flesh that's around them starts smelling like dog poo the way that you need to plan for that is always carry with you like i do in the glove box of my car some gloves because if you can put on some disposable gloves it makes it very easy to pick them up without them getting on your skin it will very much taint the smell of your skin very quickly so you don't want anything that you're going to carry home and can't dispose of quickly that might get that smell on it so put on your gloves collect whatever that you're going to pick up and like i said none of these smelled so i just picked them up with my bare hands but as you process them do put those gloves on you're going to appreciate it later so that your hands don't smell at all you will either stomp on them that's what some people do to get the fleshy part just kind of stomped off or you can run them under underwater and with your gloved hands go ahead and get that fleshy stuff off the outside of them what you're going to have is this wonderful little nut-like seed right here and inside of that is what is supreme this little seed is going to clean up beautifully with very little effort but once you've cleaned them i'm going to tell you how to prepare them let me make you promise to not navigate away from this episode though until you hear my warnings afterward so here we go to prepare them i'm going to tell you if you lived in an asian country you could easily collect these and use them in all kinds of recipes but there are those who have warned that we need to be careful about the amount that we consume and how we consume them so i will say to be on the safe side we are told don't eat them raw now the couple of years ago when i was when i was told about them for the first time with my friend who had those trees i ate dozens of them raw without being cooked and broke all the rules and i'm telling you they were delicious and nothing happened to me but i will tell you to be safe follow the rules and i'll post both trains of thought about eating these below this episode so i want you to follow the links do your own research but back to how to prepare them you're going to want to the easiest way i think and the most delicious is just by roasting them you're going to take a little handful of these and just throw them in a little cast iron pot or a frying pan you don't need oil but some people do like to put in a little tablespoon of oil with about a handful of these i just throw them in with no oil at all put them in the frying pan but make sure you put the lid on because they have this tendency as they heat up they're going to get almost uh pressurized and they kind of pop so if you don't have a lid on you might get popped with one of these and it might scare you a bit so put the lid on wait for just a few minutes it takes about five minutes and you just give them a little quick shove every now and then to kind of stir them around in there but they'll actually sound a little bit like popcorn on a lesser scale where they crack open and bursting out inside is going to be this lovely gloriously green little nut it's fleshy it's soft it's chewy it's nutty it has a delicious flavor and very addictive so i wanted to warn you now be careful you can't eat too many of these but once they have popped open and you just take out take off that shell you're going to just sprinkle some sea salt the best sea salt you've got over the top of them and they are ready to eat you will enjoy them entirely now depending on who you listen to you're going to hear all about the medicinal and and healthful properties of them but there are also a lot of warnings there are what's called ginkgo toxins and you don't want to be uh one of those who suffers from them if you eat too many of these potentially within the next 12 hours after eating them you can actually come down with some severe vomiting and diarrhea and even some people have blacked out if they've eaten too many so you want to be very careful the recommendation is that especially for small children remember this especially for small children you want them to eat no more than five to seven of these per day five to seven for children and for adults i've heard anywhere between 10 and 40 are safe to eat in one day and you also should not eat them every day for a long period of time another warning i have read about often for folks that are very allergic to like poison ivy they say that this can potentially have the same effect on your skin so if by chance you find yourself as one of those who is very allergic to poison ivy and the like you might want to wear gloves even if you don't need to for the smell just wear the gloves anyway to keep your skin from touching those seeds now eating the nuts will not have that same effect so don't worry about that if you're allergic to poison ivy keep those warnings in mind and there are many more with all the scientific terms that you'll see and what i post below this but i do think it's important for you to know this is an entirely edible delicacy it is absolutely delicious you'll want to count them out so you don't eat too many because they will be so scrumptious my mouth is watering just thinking about it right now so once again the nuts themselves are full of vitamin a and b and c and protein and potassium they're they're a very nutritious seed to eat so i want you to know that there are good things about them i've heard people say well because they smell bad it must mean we're not supposed to eat them and i have to say i kindly disagree but even if you don't want to take the risk on eating the wonderful little fruit of the tree at least promise me that you will the next time you see one pluck five or ten leaves take them home and make a wonderful delicious tea you will hear so many testimonials of what it did for people who were everything from athletes or starting into a bit of dementia and this kind of backed up their system backed them up a little bit from that edge of dementia that they were suffering with there are so many good things that it can do for you to drink the tea or the extract from ginkgo biloba now intentionally i'm going to tell you ahead of time i'm not going to be answering your questions if you ask me well what is the proper dosage for me to take because i am not a health care professional and i am not an expert on this and if i were to diagnose your specific issue or tell you how much you should take i could really be in trouble so do your own research and ask who you need to i do think that dr berg has good advice and i will post a link to one of his videos talking about it down below this to just help you know the good and the bad about this particular tree all right i haven't even begun to to tell you all of the wonderful things and the phenomenal history and amazing way this tree has been throughout history but i hope you'll take the time to do just a little bit of research and enjoy the links that i post down below this tell us what you have made from it before tell us your experiences and i want to just encourage you do not be afraid to learn more and learn how the very things that are growing around us are often going to be vital to our health in the days to come thank you for being with us today we loved being with you and we'll see you next time until then god bless you and would you make it a point to go out and intentionally be a blessing to someone else today bye for now [Music] before you go i would love to share just a quick word of scripture with you this is out of the holy bible in the new testament it's the book of philippians it's actually a letter from paul to the philippians and in chapter 4 verses 4 through 6 it says this rejoice in the lord always again i will say rejoice let your reasonableness be known to all the lord is at hand don't be anxious about anything but in prayer in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to god and the peace of god which surpasses all understanding will guard your heart and your mind in christ jesus now go spread the word [Music] [Applause] you

Channel: PREPSTEADERS

Views: 42,993

Rating: 4.9466414 out of 5

Keywords: Survival, Homesteading, Prepping, Preppers, prepsteaders, wisdom creek, Foraging, Ginko, Gingko, Ginkgo, Biloba, Nuts

Id: VYWKU3n895w

Length: 19min 53sec (1193 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 06 2020