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The Fascinating History of Dandelions · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Unless you like to puff the little seeds off of
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: dandelion heads, you probably don't think very highly of dandelions.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: There are weeds, after all, but what is a weed
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: other than an unloved plant? You know, you might have
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: a different opinion of these teeth of the lions after
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: hearing this episode, and come to think of it, I
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: feel like we're really laying a bridge of understanding between
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: humans and our garden pest with this playlist, so gratifying cool.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Puffball Chuck, and there's Blowball Jerry, and I like to
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: call me Month's head. And this is stuff you should do.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Did you get those references?
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: Uh? Sure?
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Okay, Well we should probably explain them to everybody else
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: because they probably think it's an in joke. But it's
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: not at all. Number one, because we're about to share
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: it with you. Number two, it's not really a joke.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: And number three, those are alternate names for dandelions.
• 1:21
  Speaker 4: That's right, And we're going to be exalting the dandelion
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: probably say a lot of times how great we think
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: it is.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sorry if you hate dandelions.
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah, how it's unfairly maligned. And we want to thank
• 1:35
  Speaker 4: Sarah Andrews from Idaho because Sarah is a listener who's
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: senting this in.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Nice, very nice. Thanks a lot, Sarah. Every time I
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: hear Idaho, I'm reminded of that silly T shirt that
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: said Idaho Daho. Do you remember that one?
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: I never saw that one.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: What was that one? There was a company called like
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Dangerous T Shirts or something like that, and they had, like, man,
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: they were killing it with the crazy T shirts for
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: a while in like the early two thousands.
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: Was that like instead of Saint coch let's say, you know,
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: poke or cocaine.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that kind of thing.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, kind of sometimes more original than that, but yeah,
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: they were coveted for a little bit among people who
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: liked incubus and stuff like that.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: I couldn't name an incu of a song, so that's
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: not me.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, So let's get back to dandelions. I don't know
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: how we ever get off track. It's kind of strange,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: but it happens from time to time, and it just happened, chuck.
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: So let's stop it from happening right now.
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: Right because dandelions, as you will see, have had a long,
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: rich history that we're going to talk about in depth
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: as a medicinal plant, as an edible plant, as a
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: wonderful pollinator, and it was recast as a villains, as
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: a weed to get rid of. But you need only
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: look at the history of the dandelion, the fact that
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: it was brought to North America by colonists to kind
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: of underscore the fact that we wanted the dandelion here.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Right, And it's important to say that they brought it
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: here on purpose. I saw somebody point out like this,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: it wasn't it didn't hit your ride. It was like
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: purposely brought here. And the idea that dandelions suck is
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: a really recent development, especially compared to how long people
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: valued and prized dandelions. I just find that fascinating.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: This thing is about thirty million years old, native and
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: sort of Atlantic Europe all the way to Siberia and
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: in the northern Hemisphere. You're gonna know a dandelion because
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: between March and October you're going to see these beautiful
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: yellow flowers. You'll see some what's called a rosette, which
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: are these very short level ground stems that grow in
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: a circular pattern, and then these little slender, green, hollow stalks,
• 4:03
  Speaker 4: you know, two to twenty inches, but usually at least
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: around here the dandelions are i don't know, like eight inches.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that seems about right. That's my experience as well.
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: So one of the other really impressive things about the
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: dandelion is if you look really closely at the flower,
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: each individual pedal has a little what becomes the part
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: of the puffball. When the flower seeds, it already is attached,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: and that thing is called the papas and at the
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: bottom of the papist is the seed, and the papos
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: itself is like this like parachute essentially that keeps the
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: seed aloft. And research into I saw pepeye, but I
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: like paposes as the plural.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: Oh, I love peppy.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: So it's found that they're actually phenomenal at keeping the
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: seeds aloft. They create a kind of vortex that, until
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: it was seen when they started testing pappy was thought
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: to be impossible.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: And that vortex not only makes it, you know, travel
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: up and out and away in such a way that
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: if it was shaped any differently, it wouldn't do that.
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: But if that little thing lands on water, that same
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: vortex is going to form a little air bubble around
• 5:24
  Speaker 4: it and protect it.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. One of my prize possessions is this dandelion puffball
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: in caseed in resin, and it's like the real deal.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: And I've never understood how it worked, but it turns
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: out that if you actually take a dandelion puffball and
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: actually not just put water in it, but submerge it
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: in water, the puffball does not It doesn't collapse. Isn't
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: that nuts?
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: It's amazing.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: I think so too. So that's just one of the
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: many amazing things we're going to reveal today on stuff
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: you should know?
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: Did I wander into the wrong show?
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: Well, we should tell everybody it's ten am, and we
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: usually refer one. So I'm a much different person at
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: ten am.
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: You're a news anchor, apparently, So I mentioned yellow. They're
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: not always yellow. They can be orange, they can be white,
• 6:15
  Speaker 4: they can be kind of purply peach. They open in
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: the morning and close in the evening, which has given
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: them the name the Shepherd's Clock, and they do that
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: to preserve pollen and keep that pollen safe for the
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: next day, which also makes it and this is one
• 6:30
  Speaker 4: of my favorite words at photo nasty.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Oh that's a great word.
• 6:36
  Speaker 4: Yeah, plants open and close with the setting and rising
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: of the sun. Yeah, felt photo nasty.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: I saw like a time lapse. I actually was in
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: a video. It's just a series of photos of the
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: dandelion flower opening and closing over the course of the day.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: I found I ran across a word from researching this
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: that I'd never heard before that I absolutely love dandelion,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Like you said, are edible. They're used in cooking their
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: culinary plant, which makes them a potter herb. One word,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: a potterb. Isn't that awesome? What a great homey little
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: like I just imagine, you know, hobbits using that word.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, hobbits. And my wife, Oh does.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: She call it potterbs? You've heard that before?
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, she's I mean that's older. We're talking
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: about dandelions today, and she was just like, oh, are
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: you going to talk about this?
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: This, this, this, this, this all right?
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: She's like, oh, the famous potter.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: It's also another kind of clock, you know.
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: I already mentioned the shepherd's clock because of opening and
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: closing it at the sunrise and sunset. But those little
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: seed heads. They're called dandelion clocks, and that is from
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: the old uh you know, you make a wish when
• 7:44
  Speaker 4: you blow the dandelion and you scatter those seeds as
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: sort of a long rich childhood tradition. But apparently the
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: number of puffs it takes to empty that thing is
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: what time it is, so it can I haven't tested
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: this out. I don't know this is rock solid signs, but.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: That's a sort of a thing that's pretty neat.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: And one other thing about those paposes and the seeds
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: that are attached to them, there's a longstanding, I guess,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: kind of urban legend or maybe rural legend that they
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: can travel up to one hundred kilometers sixty two miles,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: and that does not seem to be the case, even
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: though you'll see that stat absolutely everywhere, including some legitimate places.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: But Kyle helped us with this, our British buddy, and
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: he found that a two thousand and three study, which
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: is the most recent you can find on this, is
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: that just one in seven thousand papases travels more than
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: one kilometer. So just leave one hundred kilometers out of
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: the whole equation.
• 8:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And Kyle told us that because he's from England.
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: But for our North American listeners, we're talking three hundred
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: and twenty something feet if it's one hundred kilometers in
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: about three and a half feet for a meter.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and apparently ninety nine and a half percent of
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: all papists land just within thirty feet of the parent plant,
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: which is also ten meters. So yes, if you ever
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: hear that a papist contain travel one hundred kilometers, you
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: can be like, that's wrong. What you just said is wrong.
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: I think like one did, and they framed that. Maybe
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: that's the one you have in amber.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like that first dollar bill you make as
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: a business, you put it into amber.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 9:29
  Speaker 4: There's also a cool adaptation where after they flower, that
• 9:33
  Speaker 4: little hollow stalk that the flower sits upon goes limp
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: on the ground and is just sort of hiding there
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: away from birds and stuff, And when they ripen up,
• 9:42
  Speaker 4: they jump back up again and they're like, here we are.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. I think so too. Do you want
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: to take a break and come back and talk about
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: where they got their name? Let's do it, so, Chuck Dandelion.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: I've never stopped and considered why it was called that,
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: But it turns out that whole that lion at the
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: end is actually a giveaway for where the name came from.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: It's French for lion's tooth, dent de leon pretty neat.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: I love that.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: The reason they call it that is it's a reference
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: to the deeply serrated jagged leaves. I guess somebody was like,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: that looks like a lion's tooth, and they lived in France,
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and that's where they got the name dandelion.
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: And it's also if you look at the botanical name,
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: it really gives a good indication of what it was
• 10:49
  Speaker 4: being used for back then. The genus name is Taraxicum,
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: and there are a couple of explanations here. I kind
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: of like the second one. The first one is a
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: Greek word for disorder, which is a taxia, but it's
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: also could have come from Arabic for bitter herb, which
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: is terraq chagogue. And then when you combine bitter herb
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: with the species name, which is how'd you say that,
• 11:16
  Speaker 4: I don't know? Aficionelle. That is a word for monastery
• 11:21
  Speaker 4: store room. So a bitter herb in a monastery storeroom
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: basically is telling you, hey, we use this plant in
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: a very productive way.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, The whole disorder thing is totally insensible if you
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: ask me.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: So one of the other great things so humans use
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: dandelions is we'll see in a lot of different ways
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: and have for a very long time. But our animal
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: friends love dandelions too. Those flowers, even though they look
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: kind of flimsy if you think about it, they're rich
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: in nectar packed with it. So bees, butterflies, basically any
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: kind of pollinators love dandelions. Like you said, the reason
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: the stalk falls to the ground after flowering and as
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: the seedheads are developing, that's because birds love the little
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: dandelion seeds. And one of the other things that's important
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: about them too is they they basically flower and seed
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: almost around the like the whole year, depending on where
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: you live. So at times where there's not a lot
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: of food sources for birds and pollinators, the dandelions there
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: to kind of keep them going through the same you know,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: late fall.
• 12:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think it's one of the first guys
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: to get going in the spring.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: Too, right, I believe.
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: So.
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: Yeah, So we're going to get more in detail about
• 12:45
  Speaker 4: you know, how it's been eaten. But well, actually, let's
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: let's save all that. Let's just let's just tease it
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: then and say it has long been eaten, is now
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: being eaten again due to the sort of foraging movement
• 13:00
  Speaker 4: happening in the culinary world.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: It's a great time.
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: I think that kind of kicked off in COVID when
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: people are like, well, it can't go to the store.
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: What can I eat that's in my backyard.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I'll try dandelions. I've always wondered what it tastes like.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: Bitter?
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: So yeah, nice. So I think we said probably a
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: couple of times that people have been using dandelions for
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: all sorts of reasons, not just as potterbs, for a
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: long time. One of the earlier mentions we can find
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: was in the Arabic world. A couple of physicians named
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: Rozi's and Avicenna both wrote about some of the properties
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: of dandelions and dandelion roots back in the tenth and
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: eleventh centuries, and most of what they were talking about
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: was its use as a diuretic and medicinally speaking, that's
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: probably the most famous property that dandelions have, as they
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: make you pee. And in fact, there's a couple of
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: names that refer to that, depending on where you are.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: For dandelions, that were to the fact that they make
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: you pee, right.
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: In France they're called the apparently more than they're called
• 14:05
  Speaker 4: the dentte leone, they're called the pisson lit, which means
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: you know, pepe in the night, and a folk name
• 14:12
  Speaker 4: in England.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: Is a pissipad for the same reason.
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and you know, apparently it's it's all the potassium
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: in there that's going to stimulate your nation. And you know,
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: because of that, diuretics are used for a lot of things,
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: and you know, medicinally now and historically, if you want
• 14:31
  Speaker 4: to work something through your system and pee it out,
• 14:33
  Speaker 4: dandelions is a good way to make that happen.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and very famously in the American Midwest they're called
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: peepee weeds. Oh that's that's totally made up.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: I should say, Oh, that's not true either.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: No, I just made it up.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: I got you. I got you back for the what
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: was the lateral gene transfer gospel group that you got
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: me with?
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: Oh geez, I don't even remember now it was that.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: But I've only gotten you once.
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: The score is Josh three thousand one. Oh man, there
• 15:07
  Speaker 4: was a sixteenth century book too. What was the name
• 15:09
  Speaker 4: of that one?
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: People call it Garden of Health because the full title
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: of it is containing the sundry, rare and hidden virtues
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: of all kinds of simples and plants, together with the
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: manner of how they are used and applied in medicine
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: for the health of man's body against diverse diseases and
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: infirmities most common against men, gathered by the long experience
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: and industry of William Langham, practitioner of physic That's the
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: actual title of that book, which is why there's like, yeah,
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: we're just going to call it Garden of Health.
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: I mean, Garden of Health really says what that says.
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: I know, he didn't need all that extra stuff. That's
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: like the introduction. I think he put the introduction in
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: the title.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that was a little did it say? The end?
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: At the end pretty much.
• 15:54
  Speaker 4: This is from, like I said, the sixteenth century, and
• 15:56
  Speaker 4: it talked a lot about, you know, all the kinds
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: of things they thought it could help back then, toothache,
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: fever's depression, even baldness. But they also talked about growing
• 16:07
  Speaker 4: it alongside other vegetables. And herbs in the garden, and
• 16:11
  Speaker 4: you duck up this kind of cool fact. It's ethylene
• 16:14
  Speaker 4: gas that they released. So if you actually grow dandelions
• 16:16
  Speaker 4: or have dandelions growing near fruiting plants like tomatoes, they're
• 16:20
  Speaker 4: going to ripen faster.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that neat super cool. Yeah, we're going to
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: cover a lot of actually pretty cool little benefits I
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: guess that they provide. But let's keep going with the
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: tradition of using them medicinally, shall we. Sure there's a
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: guy named John Girard who wrote a book in the
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: sixteen thirties and he's like, hey, I want to contribute
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: to this too. I've found that dandelion strengthens the weak stomach,
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: and which is important because actually, if you use the
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: roots of a dandelion, it contains a lot of inulin,
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: which is an important prebiotic for gut health. So John
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: Girard wasn't just whistling dixie.
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: No, not at all.
• 17:01
  Speaker 4: It turns out they have more vitamin A than spinach,
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: more vitamin C than tomatoes. They've got a ton we
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: already mentioned potassium, but also a lot of calcium, a
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: lot of iron, and then a lot of words that
• 17:15
  Speaker 4: I can barely pronounce that you found that it's packed
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: with starting with flavonoids, that's the only one I had
• 17:21
  Speaker 4: heard of.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Has triterpenes, sesquiterpenes, phenolic acid, sterols, and cumerants, and they
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: bestow things like antibacterial, antioxidant, anti inflammatory, hepadoprotective, and anti
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: tumor properties. And you dug up a lot of ways
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: that they actually help health.
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, So, I mean we can talk all day
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: about like the ways that people thought it would help
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: you back in the sixteenth century, but people might poo
• 17:48
  Speaker 4: poo something like that, But there have been modern studies.
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: I'll just give you a few examples. There was a
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: study from twenty fifteen in Canada that reported that dandelion
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: extract can block ultraviolet UVB radiations crazy when applied to
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: the skin, it can also irritate the skin. So don't
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: necessarily just like take dandelions and like start rubbing them
• 18:10
  Speaker 4: all over yourself at the pool. There was a twenty
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: sixteen review of studies from a university in Denmark that
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: suggests that dandelion extracts actually stimulates pancreatic cells to produce insulin,
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: so it could potentially help control blood sugar, right, and what.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: About there was one on the liver too, right.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I said it was Hepato protective, which means it
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: helps the liver. And actually it goes in and like
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: just kicks butt in your liver. It slows the progression
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: of fibrosis, which is scarring of the liver, and the
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: extract actually inactivates the cells that cause fibrosis in the
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: liver and essentially your liver, as everybody knows, it can
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: regenerate itself. Once the dandelion extract has gone in and
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: stopped the fibrosis, the liver can heal. So it's incredibly
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: helpful with protecting the liver from damage. I mean, that's nuts.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: It's almost like it was designed to do that for
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: the liver. It's that effective.
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: I do want to mention the cancer one because Emily
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: had a very funny, very Emily line. There was a
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty man, why do I do that lately? Twelve?
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: I did that. I did that a lot. Yeah, what
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: is happening?
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: It's a study from the University of Windsor in Canada
• 19:27
  Speaker 4: about dandelion root extract can induce apoptosis, which is cell death.
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: And pancreatic and prostate cancer and test tube and their
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: cells in the test tubes potentially preventing their spread. So
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: this is something Emily new and this morning she was like, yeah,
• 19:46
  Speaker 4: it's so like modern American at the very least, to
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: take something that could actually help fight cancer and sprayue
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: chemicals on it to kill it it cause cancer.
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and she stormed out of the room.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: Sometimes we have to learn the hard way, but it
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: is reassuring that things seem to be coming full circle,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean.
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I feel like people are getting a little more
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: eyes open to stuff like that.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're getting on board the dandelion train. So one
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: thing about those studies that you said, like, they're essentially
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: confirming to our modern tastes what the Chinese knew all
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: the way back in six point fifty nine CE, people
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: like Nicholas Culpepper knew in the eighteenth century. All these
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: people wrote about this stuff and just how effective it was.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: And then now science is going in and saying these
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: people were right, and here's how it is effective. I
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: think that's pretty cool. And in part because of that,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: the dandelion is being rehabilitated. But first I think we
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: need to mention you said that it came by North America.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: I piped up on purpose, I think more than once,
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: even I was so excited about that. And it's possible
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: it was actually on the Mayflower. It arrived that early.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: And they think that because of plant migration, as we
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: talked about before, the dandelion may have spread ahead of
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Europeans as they entered further and further into the North
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: American continent, and so Native Americans that they encountered may
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: have already been using dandelions in some of their medicines.
• 21:19
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, absolutely. They were drinking it in tonics. They
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: were boiling it with fatty meats, which it sounds disgusting.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: It does it really, unless you're talking about something like
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: collards with like hamhocks or something that sounds okay. But
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: in this case, I imagine a pot of boiling water with
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: a skin of fat just bubbling at the top and
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: some dandelion leaves floating around in it.
• 21:46
  Speaker 4: And we'll talk about you know, more ways you can
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: eat it, but it's long been used in like cordials
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: and beers, like the dandelion root. You can you know,
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: grind it up and use it as like a coffee substitute,
• 21:56
  Speaker 4: kind of like chicory. So you know, people were using
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: it for metal, they were using it for old kinds
• 22:01
  Speaker 4: of folk remedies and foods and things, largely because again
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: it was everywhere. It grows in not very good soil.
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: They can it's considered a perennial because they can live
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: well because like you said, they're kind of growing year round,
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: but they can live for more.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: Than ten years, and they don't mess with them and
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: kill them.
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think that's pretty cool too. One of
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: the other things I saw, there's a book called The
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Economical Housewife from the eighteen fifties that it might be
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: the first recipe for dandelion wine, and people still make
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: that today, and it's actually super easy. You just take
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: some dandelion flours, some water. Eventually you had some sugar
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: and some lemon, let it sit for a couple of weeks,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: strain it out, and then let it sit for another
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: week in age, and you've got yourself some dandelion wine.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: And it sounds deliciously easy or maybe easily delicious, one
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: of the two, but I'd love to try. Have you
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: ever had dandelion wine or dandelion beer or anything like that.
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: No, not at all. I mean, it's definitely a thing.
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: Ray Bradbury had a novel called Dandelion Wine from nineteen
• 23:04
  Speaker 4: fifty seven, so it's something that's been enjoyed all over
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: the world.
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: In France they use it.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: Sometimes they'll take the leaves and blanch them and spread
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: them with bread and butter. Like it sounds like if
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: there's not a Brooklyn restaurant serving dandelion toast at this point.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and what is happening in our life?
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It sounds like fairy toast like the
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Australians love, but with dandelion leaves instead.
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 23:31
  Speaker 4: It's also, you know, just a salad, a salad green component,
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: and like we said, it is very bitter, but it's
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: using all kinds of salad. Sometimes it's the only kind
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: of leaf using a salad. Sometimes it can be mixed
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: in with other things. But in France they have one
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: called the salad de pisson lits from that original name,
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: that's got bacon in it and dandelion leaves.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: It just you know, sounds pretty good to me.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Apparently that was a common dish during the depression
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: in America. Too, because it was just cheap, you know. Yeah,
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: and it sounds delicious too. I say, we take a
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: break and we come back and talk about another surprising
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: use of dandelion that I hadn't heard of until this,
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: but you probably did because of Emily.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: No.
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: I delighted her with that fact as well, So we'll
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: be right back, all right. So Josh said that he
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: hadn't heard of this cool fact. I hadn't heard of it.
• 24:50
  Speaker 4: Emily hadn't heard of it, and I think it may
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: be the fact of the podcast. But dandelions are a
• 24:57
  Speaker 4: source of natural rubber.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: Pretty cool, I would I would take issue with that.
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: I think it has to do with the vortices over
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: the pappy or the fact that they're potterbs. All right,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: this one's good. It's up there. Maybe they're all tied
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: for first. I don't know, but hey.
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: That means we've got a good topic if there are several,
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: right competitors.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so not just any dandelion produces rubber or
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: latex that can be turned into rubber. A specific type
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: of dandelion they figured out the Kazakh dandelion, which is
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: native to the Eurasian steps. How'd you like that it's
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: also called the Russian dandelion here in the United States.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: That specific one puts out enough latex that it gave
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: rubber trees a run for their money. During World War Two,
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: which we've talked about many times, America and Britain were like,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: we need more rubber for the war effort in the
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Japanese control. Essentially all of the rubbers apply at war
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: with the Japanese, so we better come up with something
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: else quick.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: So they literally started screening like thousands and thousands of plants,
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: and then I guess they're like, hey, if the rubber
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: tree can grow rubber, there's got to be something else
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: out there. The Soviets are the ones who said, try
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: this Kazakh dandelion, and because of shortages during the wars,
• 26:24
  Speaker 4: they said, here, here's a bunch of seeds, and they
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: send a bunch of those Kazakh seeds the Soviet allies
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: at the time in the nineteen forties, and ultimately we
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: use some of it. Russians, Americans, and Germans did produce
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: rubber from dandelions. It's very hearty. It can be susceptible
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: to disease, though, depending what kind of disease but also
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: grows everywhere and serves as a pollinator and it doesn't
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: deforce things. So the big problem though, and I nowhere
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: m's like, oh my god, is this the miracle we've
• 26:56
  Speaker 4: all been hoping for with rubber. It just doesn't yield
• 27:00
  Speaker 4: much as the Russian said it did, and so it's
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: not economically viable as long as the real rubber tree
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: is around.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: They released some paper that overstated how much rubber it
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: can be gotten from the dandelion because they wanted to
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: sound like big shots.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: So the reason why we didn't just keep going with
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: dandelion rubber research in trying to figure out how to
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: increase yields is because in the meantime, people figured out
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: we could make synthetic rubber from petroleum. It was almost
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: as good as natural rubber, and it certainly was a
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: good enough substitute, and we could just make batch after
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: batch after batch rather than have to try to yield
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: it from dandelion. So that fell to the wayside, and
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: then by the time World War two ended, we had
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: access to natural rubber supplies from the southeast Southeast Asia,
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: i should say, and so all that kind of put
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: dandelion rubber on the back shelf. But in the what
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: eighty almost a hundred years, jeez, since World War Two.
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: I remember when that was like just like that was
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: firmly like forty to fifty years in the past, and
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: it just keeps getting further and further away. It's really awful.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: But we've kind of figured out in the introim that
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: synthetic rubber it's useful, but there's nothing that can match
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: natural rubber for like grip, heat, dissipation, all sorts of
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: other properties. So we're starting to go back to look
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: at sources for natural rubber, including ones that are more
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: sustainable than the rubber trees, which require you basically DeForest
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: and then plant the rubber trees to create a plantation
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: with dandelions. You don't have to do that stuff.
• 28:42
  Speaker 4: Now you got a big field, you can have dandelions,
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: and like I said, it grows and it doesn't have.
• 28:47
  Speaker 3: To be great soil.
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: You can grow it hydroponically, without soil at all. You
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: can grow it in the air, which is aeroponically. It's
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: pretty amazing, and I think it's one of those things
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: where like anytime you have a monoculture plant like that,
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: like the rubber tree.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: It makes people a little bit nervous.
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: Besides the deporestation, like have anything ever happened like some
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: kind of weird blight, and the rubber trees were just,
• 29:11
  Speaker 4: you know, not a candidate anymore. You got dandelions kind
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: of waiting on deck with their bat right.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of surprising that it went from this
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: really prized plant in so many ways to a hated weed,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: especially in Europe and the United States. And you hit
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: upon why it became a hitted weed. You use the
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: word monoculture, and the largest monoculture here in the United
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: States are people's lawns. And for part of the esthetic
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: of the lawn, you cannot have dandelions breaking up that perfect,
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: unbroken sea of green grass. You got a dandelion popping up,
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: the whole thing's ruined. Basically, that's the way people think
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: of dandelions and lawns these days, or have since about
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: the fifties.
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: Essentially, that beautiful yellow flower, stop it right, dig it up.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: But yeah, that's what happened.
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: And we've gone over this before, but just sort of
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: as a quick overview, this is the kind of thing
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: that came over from England starting in the seventeenth century
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: is when British aristocracy really started to get into these
• 30:15
  Speaker 4: perfect sort of croquet croquet playing lawns, I guess is
• 30:20
  Speaker 4: what you would call them. And then in America it
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: was post World War Two when suburbanization really took hold.
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: Lawnmowers really came into their own. Everyone was like, Hey,
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: we've got these great new chemicals that'll kill everything except
• 30:39
  Speaker 4: and make the grass grow really really well, and it's
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: just modern and tidy and good looking, and that really
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: kind of transformed the United States, you know, like, keep
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: up that lawn, make a perfect green lawn if you
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: want to keep your property value over everybody.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Big one and Kyle also dug up another reason too
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: that once the Cold War rolled around, conformity was equated
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: with safety. So if you weren't keeping your lawn trim
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: like everybody else, what's going on with you? You're making
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: me feel a little bit nervous because you're not conforming.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: You must be a red spy hiding out in suburbia, basically, right,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: And I think that's a really important kind of overlooked
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: driver for things like perfectly manicured lawns and everybody having
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: the same kind of thing.
• 31:24
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And speaking of driver, the other I don't think
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: we've ever mentioned contributor to this nice was in the
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: nineteen fifties.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: Golf started being televised.
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: In nineteen fifty seven, you got golf on television for
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: the first time, and people look at Augusta National and
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: these golf courses that were beautifully manicured and aesthetically pleasing
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: to the eye, and they're like, hey, I need to
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: get some of that in my front yard. Maybe I
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: can practice chipping some balls around in my front yard.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Also, if you're sitting there thinking like, Wow, I
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: really love hearing these guys talk about grass, but I'd
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: love to hear them have a dispute over it, you
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: should go listen to How Our Grass Works episode. It's
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: actually a pretty good way. It's a classic stuff you
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: should know episode.
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: It totally is.
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: But anyway, all that preamble about you know, us poopa
• 32:13
  Speaker 4: and lawns and why America did that brought us to this,
• 32:16
  Speaker 4: which is weeds became enemy number one and dandelions were
• 32:22
  Speaker 4: maybe even near the top of that list.
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of reasons why. For all the
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: reasons that they're valuable, the pollinators and other kinds of plants,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: and that they can grow in marginal lands and basically
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: everywhere is it makes them an enemy as a weed
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: if you're trying to create a monoculture lawn, right. So,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: they can regenerate from like a one inch section of root,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: which means that if you cut a dandelion off at
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: the even below ground level, it's like good, you know, good,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: try pal, but it just sprouts right back up. You
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: have to dig them up, and even after you dig
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: them up, you might not get them because one of
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: the things that I didn't know about dandelions is I
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: knew they grew from a tap root. You have to
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: get that tap root up or else it's just feudile. Yeah,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: but that tap root can grow, depending on the age
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: of the dandelion, over a dozen feet meters four meters
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: into the ground meters.
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that makes.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: It really hard to get rid of. And so if
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: you're like a grounds keeper for a golf course or
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: something like that, you have to really keep up with
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: the dandelions because they'll spread really fast and they're really
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: hard to get rid of once you do start trying
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: to get rid of them.
• 33:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure, I got to say this last fact
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: from Kyle because it goes back to the lawns, but
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: this really kind of drives at home of about how
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: not great a perfect green lawn is for our society.
• 33:49
  Speaker 4: There's a study in two thousand and five residential lawns
• 33:51
  Speaker 4: in the United States make up two percent of the
• 33:53
  Speaker 4: land but require more irrigation than any domestic agricultural crop.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: I've got one to piggyback on that. Let's see the
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: US Fish and Wildlife Service says that homeowners use up
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: to ten times more pesticides per acre then farmers use
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: on their crops. So we're using this stuff over using it,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: and we're using it on stuff that's not productive land
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: just to keep up with the Joneses. So they don't
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: think we're communist spies.
• 34:21
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I walk Gibson in the mornings and
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: there are the only lawns that he ever like rubs
• 34:30
  Speaker 4: his face in are the most perfect green ones. And
• 34:33
  Speaker 4: I know that it's because they have recently been sprayed,
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: and he smells it and is trying to rub all
• 34:39
  Speaker 4: in that stuff, and it drives me bonkers.
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's a like I would love to just
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: let my lawn and use me too. Just go to
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: like wildflowers, go to weeds, you know, just mow it.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: You keep it mowed, but at a higher height. But yeah,
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: you just let this stuff grow and we would be
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: completely we would stick out like a sore thrum from
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: the rest of the neighborhood, so much of their neighbors
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: would be mad at us. That's how that's how entrenched.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: The idea of having a perfect lawn is still in
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: the United States, depending on where you live.
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, for sure, And like no one around there even
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: does like permaculture and you know, other options besides just
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: letting it grow wild and crazy.
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: No, it's it's nuts. So we definitely draw a line.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: So we're like, Okay, we'll keep up with the lawn,
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: but don't touch the you know, the shrubbery, the perennials,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: the garden essentially, right, But people will hire the same
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: company to like treat their lawn with chemicals, to spray
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: their bushes and spray their gardens with chemicals to kill
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: off the bugs. And then they have to go in
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: and try to recreate the stuff that the bugs are
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: doing for free, the services they're providing because you've killed
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: off the bugs it's it's insane to me, So we
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: definitely don't don't. We don't cot into that.
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there was speaking of bugs. It was a scientific
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: review in twenty nineteen that found that the global massive
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: insects is falling at a rate of about two and a.
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: Half percent per year.
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: And dandelions is a high high on the list of pollinators.
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: Caterpillars love munching on them, Moths loves munching on them,
• 36:19
  Speaker 4: and all those bees and butterflies love doing their thing
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: on them. So even you know, I'm not trying to
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: shame people, but let's say you do like your lawn
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: and everything, even waiting in the spring, like longer to
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: cut it, even cutting it higher, letting the dandelions grow
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: up a little bit before you start whacking them down.
• 36:38
  Speaker 4: Even that minimal amount will help out a little bit.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: What's interesting is a non chemical way I saw to
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: treat your turf grass for dandelions is to let your
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: grass grow longer than you have been like cutting it
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: at a higher mower height.
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, because as.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: We talked about, dandelion leaves are so low growing that
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: the grass will shade out and out compete the dandelions.
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: So if you really do want to get rid of dandelions,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: but you don't want to use chemicals. That's a pretty
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: good way to do it from what I've seen.
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: Some states have actual programs or just one in Minnesota
• 37:11
  Speaker 4: called Lawns to Legumes, which is a great title. They
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: launched that in twenty nineteen where they just basically incini
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: incentivized people to say, get rid of that lawn, put
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: in flowering plants, put in beds. You can have a
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: rebate if you have a pollinator friendly native wildflower scene
• 37:30
  Speaker 4: at your house.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I didn't look up the amount, but I would
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: guess at a minimum the rebate is worth a million dollars, right,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: that'd be my guess, you think. So, there's a couple
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: other things that I found that dandelions, I don't know
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: if you looked at it or not, that they kind
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: of provide services to the plants growing around them, including grass,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: because as we mentioned, those tap roots, they grow really deep,
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: and as they're growing deep, they're actually accessing nutrients that
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: other plants around them, again, including grass, the roots of
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: those plants can't reach because it's too deep, and it
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: brings those nutrients up toward the surface, and as the
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: dandelion dies off, the other plants to get to eat
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: those nutrients that they otherwise wouldn't have had access to.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: And those same roots also air rate and loose and
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: compacted dirt too, which makes it easier for the plants
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: around the dandelions to grow.
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: Amazing.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Is there anything dandelions can't do?
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 38:37
  Speaker 4: I mean, they're not super fragrant.
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: No, that's true. They're pretty much useless in that sun.
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: But they can grant a child of wish.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: They sure can, man, they sure can. I remember doing
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: that so many times. I keep trying to do that
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: with my dandelion puffhead in resin and it's not working.
• 38:57
  Speaker 4: I don't have anything else, so I'm kind of looking
• 38:58
  Speaker 4: over the list here, I kind of all over the place.
• 39:01
  Speaker 4: But it's just sort of one of those episodes where
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: it's like, well, here's a list of one hundred amazing things.
• 39:06
  Speaker 4: And so sometimes those are a little tougher to organize.
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but they can be pretty fun too. I had
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: fun at least.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: How about you and that rubber thing? Are you kidding?
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Since neither one of us has anything else about dandelions,
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: and we're going to call it quits on this episode,
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: which means we've just activated listener mail.
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: You know, no listener mail today.
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: Because what we're going to do with something we haven't
• 39:29
  Speaker 4: done in a while is help support and bring some
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: attention to a great cause, our friends from the Cooperative
• 39:36
  Speaker 4: for Education aka co ED, whose mission it is to
• 39:39
  Speaker 4: break the cycle of poverty and Guatemala through education. And
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: we've been working with them for fifteen years, and we
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: got a new thing coming up with them, right.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, we do. So first, let me just explain over
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: one point three million dollars and contributions have been made
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: to co ED thanks to our partnership with them at
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: stuff you should know for fifteen years. That's really good,
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: if you ask me, that's incredible, which means that one
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: hundred and sixty kids have been given like a huge
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: leg up to escape poverty and create like break intergenerational
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: poverty and create literally like a new life for their
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: entire family from that point on.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 40:17
  Speaker 4: You know, we went down there, I guess fifteen years
• 40:20
  Speaker 4: ago when they invited us very early on and stuff
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: you should know canon, yeah, in our history, and we
• 40:28
  Speaker 4: went down to Guatemala and those shows we did some
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: shows on that trip and that visit we get to
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: actually hear Jerry speak, which is pretty exciting. Yeah, and
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: they're just great that we've been working with them ever
• 40:37
  Speaker 4: since and the fact that the stuff you should know
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: Army has raised one point three million bucks for them
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: over the past fifteen years is going to be a
• 40:43
  Speaker 4: real proud part of our legacy. But we have a
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: call to action, right.
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, so you can joined we're starting a drive essentially,
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: right now, that's right. You can join the cooperative, which
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: is a program of theirs, for twenty dollars a month
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: and you'll collectively sponsor. There are a bunch of students
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: in the Rise Youth Development program, right, that's right, and
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: so it's going to get spread out. You're going to
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: be helping a bunch of kids at once, so you
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: can feel good like five times over with each each
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: monthly donation. And then in twenty twenty five, more than
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: eleven hundred students will be able to start school in
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: World Guatemala, which will be their biggest class ever. They
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: need help to make that happen, which is why we're
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: saying join the cooperative.
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: That's right, and as an incentive if this is for you.
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: If you set up your gift by Tuesday, December third,
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: then you are signed up for a chance to do
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: a virtual hangout with Josh and I. We do this
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: every year around the same time. It's always a lot
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: of fun. We hang out with I don't know, if
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: six or eight people all over the country and they
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: get to just you know, ask us questions and tell
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: us that we're cool or dumb or whatever.
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: It's your chance to really hand it to us if
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: that's what you're after.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, hopefully don't do that, but sure, I mean,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: I guess if you've given to co ED and you
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: deserve to do whatever you want to with, that's right.
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: So just go to Cooperative for Education dot org. That's
• 42:04
  Speaker 4: the word cooperative f o R education dot org slash
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: s y s k and start giving.
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: Now. A little bit goes a long way down there.
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: Yes, And in the meantime, while you're looking up Cooperative
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: for Education dot org slash s y s k, you
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: can also send us an email. Send it off to
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple podcasts,
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.