The Fascinating History of Dandelions

Summary

Stuff You Should Know — "The Fascinating History of Dandelions"

March 20, 2026 | Hosted by Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Josh and Chuck dive deep into the remarkable history, biology, and cultural significance of the dandelion. Far from being just a maligned weed, the dandelion is revealed as a plant with an ancient lineage, multifaceted uses in medicine, food, and even industry. The discussion moves from botanical science to folklore and from environmental impact to modern lawn culture, all delivered in the hosts' trademark playful, accessible style.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Surprising Status of Dandelions

• Dandelions weren’t always considered weeds. They were purposefully brought to North America by colonists for their valuable properties.
• "What is a weed other than an unloved plant?" — Chuck (01:50)
• Their current reputation as a lawn menace is a recent development, compared to their long standing value in history.

2. Biology & Unique Adaptations

• Dandelions are around 30 million years old and native to Atlantic Europe through Siberia (05:19).
• Notable botanical features:
  • The distinctive rosette of leaves and hollow stalks, usually around 8 inches tall.
  • The “pappus” — the parachute-like structure that disperses seeds by wind, creating a vortex thought to be "impossible" until studied (06:01).
  • “If you actually take a dandelion puffball... the puffball does not collapse. Isn’t that nuts?” — Chuck (07:10)
• Dandelions can have yellow, orange, white, or purpley-peach flowers.
• Flowers open and close daily—a phenomenon called “photonasty,” leading to the nickname "the shepherd's clock" (07:56).

3. Names & Etymology

• The English name "dandelion" comes from French "dent de lion" — "lion’s tooth," a reference to jagged leaves (14:41).
• The genus name, “Taraxicum”: possible roots in Greek ("disorder") or Arabic ("bitter herb")—a clue to its medicinal legacy (15:10).
• The seed heads are called “dandelion clocks,” as blowing the seeds was a childhood tradition—legend says the number of puffs represents the time (09:16).
• Regional nicknames connected to its diuretic effects:
  • France: “Pissenlit” (“pee in the night”) (18:28)
  • England: “Pissabed” (18:39)
  • (Jokingly) American Midwest: “pee pee weeds” (19:02)
• “It’s unfairly maligned.” — Josh (03:17)

4. Dispersal Myths & Fun Facts

• Common myth: dandelion seeds can travel up to 100 km (62 miles).
  • Actual finding: "Just 1 in 7,000 pappuses travels more than 1 km. 99.5% of all pappuses land just within 30 ft of the parent plant" (10:34).
  • “If you ever hear that a pappus can travel 100 km, you can be like, ‘That’s wrong. What you just said is wrong.’” — Chuck (10:47)
• Post-flowering adaptation: the flower stalk falls to the ground to shield seed heads and later springs back up (11:14).

5. Role in Ecosystems

• Dandelions are among the first flowers in spring, providing essential early food for pollinators: bees, butterflies, birds (16:02, 17:04).
• They flower and seed much of the year, helping sustain wildlife in periods of scarcity.

6. Culinary & Medicinal Uses Throughout History

• Dandelions are fully edible and considered a classic “pot herb”—a term Chuck likens to something hobbits would use (08:27).
• Historical references:
  • Used in Arabic medicine (10th–11th centuries) as a diuretic, written about by Razes and Avicenna (17:38).
  • “If you want to work something through your system and pee it out, dandelions is a good way to make that happen.” — Josh (18:43)
  • Sixteenth-century book “Garden of Health” details its value for various ailments and as a companion plant that ripens fruit faster through ethylene gas (19:33, 20:21).
  • John Gerard (1630s): dandelion “strengthens the weak stomach”—modern science backs its health benefits, especially for gut health (21:27).

Nutritional & Medicinal Properties

• More vitamin A than spinach, more vitamin C than tomatoes, plus lots of potassium, calcium, iron, flavonoids, triterpenes, sesquiterpenes, and more (21:27–21:49).

• Modern studies cited:

  • 2015 Canadian study: dandelion extract can block UVB radiation but can irritate the skin (22:07).
  • 2016 review: extract may stimulate pancreatic insulin production.
  • Liver health: slows progression of fibrosis, inactivates harmful cells, allows liver to repair itself (22:56).
  • 2012 study (University of Windsor): dandelion root extract may help induce cell death in certain cancer cells (23:50).
    • “It’s so... modern American... to take something that could actually help fight cancer and spray chemicals on it to kill it that cause cancer.” — Emily (Josh’s wife), (24:23)

• Chinese medicine (7th century CE) and other traditional sources have long used and documented dandelion's medicinal qualities (35:00).

7. Food and Traditions

• Native Americans used dandelion tonics, sometimes boiling with fatty meats (25:46).
• Dandelion root is a traditional “coffee” substitute; leaves used in salads (often with bacon, French-style “Salade des Pissenlit”), and in dandelion wine and beers (26:12, 27:50).
• During the Depression, dandelion dishes were appreciated as free, nutritious food (28:22).
• Dandelion wine featured in Ray Bradbury’s 1957 novel, emphasizing its place in folk life (27:24).

8. Dandelion as a Rubber Source

• Russian (Kazakh) dandelion produces lots of latex—enough to be trialed as a rubber source during WWII when natural rubber was scarce (32:16).
• “Dandelions are a source of natural rubber.” — Josh (32:02)
• Today, synthetic rubber and renewed access to natural rubber made dandelion rubber economically unviable, but future sustainability concerns are reawakening interest (35:43).
  • “If anything ever happened, like some kind of weird blight and the rubber trees were just... not a candidate anymore, you got dandelions kind of waiting on deck with their bat.” — Josh (36:16)

9. The Shift to "Weed"

• The American/European turn against dandelions is rooted in monoculture lawn aesthetics, beginning after WWII and bolstered by lawn chemical companies, suburban social pressure, and even the televised popularity of golf (36:16–38:26).
• Lawns became a conformity signal during the Cold War era; dandelions came to symbolize neglect or nonconformity (37:55).

10. Environmental & Practical Impact

• Dandelions are resilient: taproots can reach over 4 meters (~12 feet) deep, which allows regrowth even after cutting (40:09).
• Their presence in lawns is hard to prevent without resorting to intensive chemical sprays which damage pollinators and waste resources.
• Astonishing statistics:
  • Lawns use more irrigation than any crop in the U.S. despite only being 2% of the land (40:36).
  • Homeowners use up to 10 times more pesticides per acre on lawns than farmers use on crops (41:00).
• "Letting your grass grow longer shades out dandelions, so you can outcompete them naturally, without chemicals." — Chuck (43:42)
• Programs like Minnesota’s "Lawns to Legumes" incentivize planting wildflowers and pollinator-friendly plants in place of conventional lawns (44:08).

11. Dandelions as Ecosystem Engineers

• Taproots loosen and aerate compacted soil, bringing nutrients from deep underground closer to the surface for neighboring plants (45:18).
• They provide key ecosystem services, supporting plant diversity and healthy soils.

12. Final Reflections & Appreciation

• Dandelions can grant a child a wish, if not a fragrance (45:46).
• “Is there anything dandelions can’t do?” — Josh (45:33)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “What is a weed other than an unloved plant?” — Chuck (01:50)
• “If you ever hear that a pappus can travel 100 km, you can be like, ‘That’s wrong. What you just said is wrong.’” — Chuck (10:47)
• “It’s so... modern American... to take something that could actually help fight cancer and spray chemicals on it to kill it that cause cancer.” — Emily (via Josh) (24:23)
• “Dandelions are a source of natural rubber.” — Josh (32:02)
• “Is there anything dandelions can’t do?” — Chuck (45:33)
• “But they can grant a child a wish.” — Josh (45:46)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 01:50 — Introduction to dandelions’ poor reputation versus their deeper history and virtues.
• 03:14 — Listener mail shout-out; the hosts’ playful banter about dandelion nicknames.
• 04:23 — Overview of dandelion’s ancient history and roles as a medicinal, edible, and pollinator plant.
• 05:19 — Botanical description and spread of dandelions.
• 06:01 — How dandelion seeds (pappi) travel, and their intricate air vortex mechanism.
• 07:56 — Daily opening/closing cycle (“photonasty”), “shepherd’s clock” nickname, and culinary term “pot herb.”
• 09:16 — Dandelion clocks (seed heads) and the wishing tradition.
• 10:34 — Debunking seed travel myths.
• 14:41 — Etymology of “dandelion”; origins and folk names.
• 17:38 — Historical use as a diuretic; medicinal names and cultural legacy.
• 21:27 — Nutritional and medicinal benefits; modern scientific studies.
• 25:46 — Native American uses and culinary traditions.
• 32:02 — Dandelion as a source of natural rubber.
• 36:16 — How lawns and suburban monoculture led to the demonization of dandelions.
• 40:36 — The ecological and resource costs of maintaining dandelion-free lawns.
• 43:42 — Natural, non-chemical ways to manage dandelions and promote pollinators.
• 45:18 — Dandelion roots enrich soil and support surrounding plants.

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Tone and Style

The episode is infused with Josh and Chuck's characteristic blend of curiosity, humor, and approachable science. They pepper the episode with quirky asides (hobbits and potherbs, fake facts about "pee pee weeds"), playful ribbing, and a sense of wonder at nature’s ingenuity—especially the unappreciated dandelion.

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Resources, Takeaways, and Final Thoughts

Dandelions have transitioned from valued herb to vilified weed due largely to changing social and aesthetic norms, not because they lack value. They are marvels of biology, medicine, ecology, and culinary history—as the hosts hope to persuade even the most skeptical lawn lovers.

Takeaway:
Before reaching for herbicide, consider the remarkable history and ecological gifts of the dandelion—perhaps even make a wish with one instead.

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For more science, history, and irreverent wisdom, listen to Josh & Chuck on Stuff You Should Know.

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Transcript

[Josh Clark]

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[Chuck Bryant]

Unless you like to puff the little seeds off of dandelion heads, you probably don't think very highly of dandelions. They're weeds after all. But what is a weed other than an unloved plant? You know, you might have a different opinion of these teeth of the lions after hearing this episode. And come to think of it, I feel like we're really laying a bridge of understanding between humans and our garden pests with this playlist. So gratifying.

[Josh Clark]

Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartradio.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's Puffball Chuck. And there's Blow Ball Jerry. They like to call me Monk's Head. And this is stuff you should know. Did you get those references? Sure. Okay, well, we should probably explain them to everybody else because they probably think it's an in joke. But it's not at all. Number one, because we're about to share it with you. Number two, it's not really a joke. And number three, those are alternate names for dandelions.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. And we're going to be exalting the Dandelion. Probably say a lot of times how great we think it is.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Sorry if you hate dandelions.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. How it's unfairly maligned. And we want to thank Sarah Andrews from Idaho, because Sarah is a listener who sent this in.

[Chuck Bryant]

Nice. Very nice. Thanks a lot, Sarah. Every time I hear Idaho, I'm reminded of that silly T shirt that said Idaho Udaho. Do you remember that one?

[Josh Clark]

I never saw that one.

[Chuck Bryant]

What was that one? There was a company called, like, Dangerous T shirts or something like that. And they had, like. Man, they were killing it with the. The crazy T shirts. For a while in, like, the early

[Josh Clark]

2000s, was that, like, instead of saying coke, it would say, you know, poke or cocaine. Yeah, that kind of thing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Kind of. Sometimes more original than that. But, yeah, they were coveted for a little bit among people who liked Incubus and stuff like that.

[Josh Clark]

I couldn't name an Incubus song, so that's not me.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay, so let's get back to Dandelions. I don't know how we ever get off track. It's kind of strange, but it happens from time to time. And it just happened, Chuck. So let's stop it from happening right now.

[Josh Clark]

Right. Because dandelions, as you will see, have had a long, rich history that we're gonna talk about in depth as a medicinal plant, as an edible plant, as a wonderful pollinator, and it was recast as a villain, as a weed to get rid of. But you need only look at the history of the dandelion, the fact that it was brought to North America by colonists to kind of underscore the fact that we wanted the dandelion here.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right? And it's important to say that they brought it here on purpose. I saw somebody point out, like this, it wasn't. It didn't hitch a ride. It was, like, purposefully brought here. And the idea that dandelions suck is a really recent development, especially compared to how long people valued and prized dandelions. I just find that fascinating for sure.

[Josh Clark]

This thing is about 30 million years old. Native in sort of Atlantic Europe all the way to Siberia. And in the Northern Hemisphere, you're going to know a dandelion because between March and October, you're going to see these beautiful yellow flowers. You'll see some. What's called a rosette, which are these very short, level ground stems that grow in a circular pattern and then these little slender green hollow stalks, you know, 2 to 20 inches. But usually, at least around here, the dandelions are, I don't know, like, 8 inches.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that seems about right. That's my experience as well.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So one of the other really impressive things about the dandelion is if you look really closely at the flower, each individual petal has a little. What becomes the part of the puffball when the. When the flower seeds, it already is attached. And that thing is called a pappus. And at the bottom of the pappus is the seed. And the pappus itself is like this, like, parachute, essentially, that keeps the seed aloft. And research into. I saw pappae, but I like pappuses as the plural.

[Josh Clark]

Ooh, I love pappy.

[Chuck Bryant]

So it's found that there are actually phenomenal at keeping the seeds aloft. Like, they create a kind of vortex that, until it was seen, when they started testing papi, was thought to be impossible.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And that vortex not only makes it, you know, travel up and out and away in such a way that if it was shaped any differently, it wouldn't do that, but if that little thing lands on water, that same vortex is going to form a little air bubble around it and protect it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. One of my prized possessions is this dandelion puffball encased in resin, and it's like the real deal. And I've never understood how it worked, but it turns out that if you actually take a dandelion puffball and actually not just put water in it, but submerge it in water, the puffball does not. It doesn't collapse. Isn't that nuts?

[Josh Clark]

It's amazing.

[Chuck Bryant]

I. I think so, too. So that's just one of the many amazing things we're going to reveal today on Stuff youf Should Know.

[Josh Clark]

Did I wander into the wrong show?

[Chuck Bryant]

No. Well, we should tell everybody. It's 10am and we usually record at one, so I'm a much different person. At 10am You're a news anchor, apparently.

[Josh Clark]

So I mentioned yellow. They're not always yellow. They can be orange, they can be white, they can be kind of purpley peach. They open in the morning and close in the evening, which is given them the name the shepherd's clock. And they do that to preserve pollen and keep that pollen safe for the next day, which also makes it. And this is one of my favorite words, photo nasty.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, that's a great word.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Plants open and close with the setting and rising of the sun. It's called photo nasty.

[Chuck Bryant]

Huh. I saw like a time lapse. I actually wasn't a video. It was just a series of photos of the dandelion flower opening and closing over the course of the day. I found. I ran across a word from researching this that I'd never heard before that I absolutely love. Dandelions, like you said, are edible. They're used in cooking, they're culinary plant, which makes them a pot herb. One word, a pot herb. Isn't that awesome? What a great, homey, little, like, I just imagine, you know, hobbits using that word.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, hobbits. And my wife.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, does she call them potherbs? You've heard that before?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, yeah. She's. I mean, I told her we were talking about dandelions today, and she was just like, oh, are you going to talk about this, this, this, this, this, this?

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. She's like, oh, the famous potherb.

[Josh Clark]

It's also another kind of clock. You know, I already mentioned the shepherd's clock because the opening and closing at the sunrise and sunset. But those little seed heads, they're called dandelion clocks. And that is from the old. You know, you make a wish when you blow the dandelion and you scatter those seeds as sort of a long, rich childhood tradition. But apparently the number of puffs it takes to empty that thing is what time it is. So it can. I haven't tested this out. I don't know if this is rock solid science, but that's sort of a thing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hmm. That's pretty neat.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And one other thing about those pappuses and the seeds that are attached to them, there's a long standing, I guess, kind of urban legend, or maybe rural legend, that they can travel up to 100 kilometers, 62 miles. And that does not seem to be the case, even though you'll see that stat absolutely everywhere, including some legitimate places. But Kyle helped us with this, our British buddy, and he found that a 2003 study, which is the most recent you can find on this, is that just 1 in 7,000 Pappuses travels more than 1km. So just leave 100km out of the whole equation.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And Kyle told us that because he's from England. But for our North American listeners, we're talking 320 something feet if it's 100 kilometers and about three and a half feet for a meter.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And apparently 99.5% of all Pappuses land just within 30ft of the parent plant, which is also 10 meters. So yes, if you ever hear that a Pappas can travel 100km, you can be like, that's wrong. What you just said is wrong.

[Josh Clark]

I think like one did and they framed that. Maybe that's the one you have in amber.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it's like that first dollar bill you make as a business, you put it into amber. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

There's also a cool adaptation where after they flower, that little hollow stalk that the flower sits upon goes limp on the ground and is just sort of hiding there away from birds and stuff. And when they ripen up, they jump back up again and they're like, here we are.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's pretty cool. I think so too. Do you want to take a break and come back and talk about where they got their name?

[Josh Clark]

Let's do it.

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[Josh Clark]

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[Josh Clark]

Stuff you should know.

[Chuck Bryant]

So Chuck Dandelion. I've never stopped and considered why it was called that, but it turns out that whole that lion at the end is actually a giveaway for where the name came from. It's French for lion's tooth. Dent de lion. Pretty neat.

[Josh Clark]

I love that.

[Chuck Bryant]

The reason they call it that is it's a reference to the deeply serrated, jagged leaves. I guess somebody was like, that looks like a lion's tooth. And they lived in France and that's where they got the name Dandelion.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, and it's also, if you look at the botanical name, it really gives a good indication of what it was being used for back then. The genus name is taraxicum. And there are a couple of explanations here. I kind of like the second one. The first one is a Greek word for disorder, which is ataxia. But it also could have come from Arabic for bitter herb, which is tarak shagog. And then when you combine bitter herb with the species name, which is. How would you say that?

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't know.

[Josh Clark]

That is a word for monastery storeroom. So a bitter herb in a monastery storeroom, basically, is telling you, hey, we use this plant in a very productive way.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, the whole disorder thing is totally insensible, if you ask me.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I agree.

[Chuck Bryant]

So one of the other great things. So humans use dandelions, as we'll see, in a lot of different ways and have for a very long time. But the. The. Our animal friends love dandelions, too. Those flowers, even though they look kind of flimsy if you think about it, they're rich in nectar packed with it. So bees, butterflies, basically any kind of pollinators, love dandelions. Like you said. The reason the stalk falls to the ground after flowering and as the seed heads are developing, that's because birds love the little dandelion seeds. And one of the other things that's important about them, too, is they basically flower and seed almost around, like, the whole year, depending on where you live. So at times where there's not a lot of food sources for birds and pollinators, the dandelion's there to kind of keep them going through the, say, you know, late fall.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, yeah. And I think it's one of the first guys to get going in the spring, too, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

I believe so. Yep.

[Josh Clark]

So we're gonna get more in detail about, you know, how it's been eaten, but. Well, actually, let's save all that. Let's just tease it then and say it has long been eaten, is now being eaten again due to the sort of foraging movement happening in the culinary world.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's a great tease.

[Josh Clark]

I think that kind of kicked off in Covid when people are like, well, I can't go to the store. What can I eat that's in my backyard?

[Chuck Bryant]

I'll try dandelions. I've always wondered what they taste like.

[Josh Clark]

Bitter.

[Chuck Bryant]

So. Yeah. Nice. So I think we said probably a couple times that people have been using dandelions for all sorts of reasons, not just as pot herbs for a long time. One of the earlier mentions we can find was in the Arabic world, a couple of physicians named Razes and Avicenna both wrote about some of the properties of dandelions and dandelion roots back in the 10th and 11th centuries. And most of what they were talking about was its use as a diuretic. And medicinally speaking, that's probably the most famous property that dandelions have is they make you pee. And in fact, there's a couple of names that refer to that, depending on where you are. For dandelions that refer to the fact that they make you pee, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's right. In France, they're called. Apparently more than they're called the Dentileon. They're called the Pisinlet, which means pee pee in the night. And a folk name in England is

[Chuck Bryant]

episabed for the same reason.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And apparently it's all the potassium in there that's gonna stimulate urination. And because of that, diuretics are used for a lot of things medicinally now. And historically, if you wanna work something through your system and pee it out, dandelions is a good way to make that happen.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, and very famously, in the American Midwest, they're called pee pee weeds. Aw, that's totally made up, I should say.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, that's not true either.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I just made it up. Okay, I got you. I got you. Back for the. What was the lateral gene transfer gospel group that you got me with?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, geez, I don't even remember now. It was that, but I've only gotten you once. The score is Josh 3201.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man.

[Josh Clark]

There was a 16th century book too. What was the name of that one?

[Chuck Bryant]

People call it Garden of Health because the full title of it is containing the sundry rare and hidden virtues of all kinds of simples and plants together with the manner of how they are used and applied in medicine for the health of man's body against diverse diseases and infirmities most common against men gathered by the long experience and industry of William Langham, practitioner of physic. That's the actual title of that book, which is why there's like. Yeah, we're just going to call it Garden of Health.

[Josh Clark]

I mean, Garden of Health really says what that says.

[Chuck Bryant]

I know. He didn't need all that extra stuff. That's like the introduction. I think he put the introduction in the title.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, that's a little. Did it say the end at the end?

[Chuck Bryant]

Pretty much.

[Josh Clark]

This is from, like I said, the 16th century. And it talks a lot about, you know, all kinds of things they thought it could help back then. Toothaches, fevers, depression, even baldness. But they also talked about growing it alongside other vegetables and herbs in the garden. And you dug up this kind of cool fact. It's ethylene gas that they release. So if you actually grow dandelions or have dandelions growing near fruiting plants like tomatoes, they're going to ripen faster.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Isn't that neat?

[Josh Clark]

Super cool.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, we're going to cover a lot of actually pretty cool little benefits, I guess. That they provide. But let's keep going with the. The tradition of using them medicinally, shall we? Sure. There's a guy named John Gerard who wrote a book in the 1630s, and he's like, hey, I want to contribute to this too. I've found that dandelion strengthens the weak stomach. And which is important because actually, if you use the roots of a dandelion, it's a. It contains a lot of inulin, which is an important prebiotic for gut health. So John Gerard wasn't just whistling Dixie.

[Josh Clark]

No, not at all. It turns out they have more vitamin A than spinach, more vitamin C than tomatoes. They've got a ton. We already mentioned potassium, but also a lot of calcium, a lot of iron, and then a lot of words that I can barely pronounce that you found that it's packed with, starting with flavonoids. That's the only one I had heard of.

[Chuck Bryant]

It has triterpenes, sesquiterpenes, phenolic acid, sterols and coumarins. And they bestow things like antibacterial, antioxidant, anti inflammatory, hepatoprotective and antitumor properties. And you dug up a lot of ways that they actually help health, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So, I mean, we can talk all day about, like, the ways that people thought it would help you back in the, you know, 16th century, but people might poo poo, something like that. But there have been modern studies. I'll just give you a few examples. There was a study from 2015 in Canada that reported that dandelion extract can block ultraviolet UVB radiation.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's crazy.

[Josh Clark]

When applied to the skin, it can also irritate the skin. So don't necessarily just, like, take dandelions and, like, start rubbing them all over yourself at the pool. There was a 2016 review of studies from a university in Denmark that suggests that dandelion extracts actually stimulates pancreatic cells through produce insulin. So it could potentially help control blood sugar.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And what about. There was one on the liver too, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I said it was hepatoprotective, which means it helps the liver. And actually it goes in and like, just kicks butt in your liver. It slows the progression of fibrosis, which is scarring of the liver. And the extract actually inactivates the cells that cause fibrosis in the liver. And essentially your liver, as everybody knows, it can regenerate itself. Once the dandelion extract has gone in and stopped the fibrosis, the liver can heal so it's incredibly helpful with protecting the liver from damage. I mean, that's nuts. It's almost like it was designed to do that for the liver. It's that effective.

[Josh Clark]

I do want to mention the cancer one because Emily had a very funny, very Emily line. There was a 2020 man, why do I do that?

[Sponsor/Advertiser Voice]

Lately?

[Josh Clark]

20, 2012. I did that. I did that on TV.

[Chuck Bryant]

I do that a lot. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

What is happening?

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't know.

[Josh Clark]

It's a study from the University of Windsor in Canada about dandelion root extract can induce apoptosis, which is cell death in pancreatic and prostate cancer. In test tube. In their cells, in the test tubes, potentially preventing their spread. So this is something Emily knew. And this morning she was like, yeah, it's so like modern American, at the very least, to take something that could actually help fight cancer and spray chemicals on it to kill it that cause cancer.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right? Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And she stormed out of the room.

[Chuck Bryant]

Sometimes we have to learn the hard way, but it is reassuring that things seem to be coming full circle. You know what I mean?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I feel like people are getting a little more eyes open to stuff like that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. They're getting on board the dandelion train. So one thing about those studies that you. You said, like, they're. They're. They're essentially confirming to our modern tastes what the Chinese knew all the way back in 659 CE. People like Nicholas Culpepper knew in the 18th century, all these people wrote about this stuff and just how effective it was. And then now science is going in and saying these people were right and here's how it is effective. I think that's pretty cool. And in part because of that, the dandelion is being rehabilitated. But first, I think we need to mention, you said that it came by North America. I piped up on purpose, I think more than once even. I was so excited about that. And it's possible it was actually on the Mayflower. It arrived that early. And they think that because of plant migration, as we talked about before, the dandelion may have spread ahead of Europeans as they entered further and further into the North American continent. And so Native Americans that they encountered may have already been using dandelions in some of their medicines.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, absolutely. They were drinking it in tonics. They were boiling it with fatty meats, which sounds disgusting.

[Chuck Bryant]

It does.

[Sponsor/Advertiser Voice]

It really does.

[Josh Clark]

Fatty meats.

[Chuck Bryant]

Unless you're talking about something like collards with, like, ham hocks or something, that. That sounds okay. But in this Case, I imagine a pot of boiling water with a skin of fat just bubbling at the top and some dandelion leaves floating around in it.

[Josh Clark]

And we'll talk about more ways you can eat it. But it's long been used in cordials and beers, like the dandelion root. You can grind it up and use it as a coffee substitute, kind of like chicory. So people were using it for medicine, they were using it for old kinds of folk remedies and foods and things, largely because, again, it was everywhere. It grows in not very good soil. It's considered a perennial. Because they can live well, because, like you said, they're kind of growing year round, but they can live for more than 10 years if you don't mess with them.

[Chuck Bryant]

Isn't that neat?

[Josh Clark]

And kill them. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I think that's pretty cool, too. One of the other things I saw, there's a book called the Economical housewife from the 1850s that it might be the first recipe for dandelion wine. And people still make that today. And it's actually super easy. You just take some dandelion flowers, some water, eventually you add some sugar and some lemon, let it sit for a couple of weeks, strain it out, and then let it sit for another week and age, and you've got yourself some dandelion wine. And it sounds deliciously easy, or maybe easily delicious, one of the two. But I'd love to try it. Have you ever had dandelion wine or dandelion beer or anything like that?

[Josh Clark]

No, not at all. I mean, it's definitely a thing. Ray Bradbury had a novel called dandelion wine from 1957. So it's something that's been enjoyed all over the world. In France, they use it. Sometimes they'll take the leaves and blanch them and spread them with bread and butter. Like, if there's not a Brooklyn restaurant serving dandelion toast at this point, then what is happening in our world?

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't know. It sounds like fairy toast, like the Australians love, but with dandelion leaves instead.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it's also, you know, just a salad. A salad green component. And like we said, it is very bitter. But it's used in all kinds of salad. Sometimes it's the only kind of leaf used in a salad. Sometimes it can be mixed in with other things. But in France, they have one called the Salade des Pissonlit from that original name that's got bacon in it and dandelion leaves. It just, you know, sounds pretty good to me.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, apparently that was a common dish during the Depression in America too, because it was just cheap, you know. Yeah, and it sounds delicious too. I say we take a break and we come back and talk about another surprising use of Dandelion that I hadn't heard of until this. But you probably did because of Emily.

[Josh Clark]

No, I delighted her with that fact as well. So we'll be right back.

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[Josh Clark]

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[Josh Clark]

All right, so Josh said that he hadn't heard of this. Cool fact. I hadn't heard of it. Emily hadn't heard of it. And I think it may be the fact of the podcast, but dandelions are a source of natural rubber.

[Chuck Bryant]

Pretty cool, full stop. I would take issue with that. I think it has to do with the vortices over the Pappy or the fact that they're pot herbs. All right, this one's good. It's up there. Maybe they're all tied for first, I don't know.

[Josh Clark]

But hey, that means we got a good topic if there are several competitors.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And so not just any dandelion produces rubber or latex that can be turned into rubber. A specific type of dandelion. They figured out the Kazakh dandelion, which is native to the Eurasian steps. How'd you like that? It's also called the Russian dandelion here in the United States. That specific one puts out enough latex that it gave rubber trees a run for their money. During World War II, when. Which we've talked about many times, America and Britain were like, we need more rubber for the war effort. And the Japanese control essentially all of the rubber supply. We're at war with the Japanese, so we better come up with something else quick.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So they literally started screening like thousands and thousands of plants. And I guess they were like, hey, if the, if the rubber tree can grow rubber, there's got to be something else out there. The Soviets are the ones who said, try this Kazakh dandelion. And because of shortages during the wars, they said, here, here's a bunch of seeds. And they sent a bunch of those Kazakh seeds. The Soviet allies at the time, in the 1940s, and ultimately we used some of it. Russians, Americans and Germans did produce rubber from dandelions. It's very hearty. It can be susceptible to disease, though, depending what kind of disease, but also grows everywhere and serves as a pollinator and it doesn't deforest things. So the big problem, though, and I know everyone's like, oh, my God, is this the miracle we've all been hoping for with rubber? It just doesn't yield as much as the Russians said it did. And so it's not economically viable as long as the real rubber tree is around.

[Chuck Bryant]

They released some paper that. That overstated how much rubber can be gotten from the dandelion because they wanted to sound like big shots.

[Sponsor/Advertiser Voice]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So the reason why we didn't just keep going with dandelion rubber research in trying to figure out how to increase yields is because in the meantime, people figured out we could make synthetic rubber from petroleum. It was almost as good as natural rubber. It certainly was a good enough substitute. And we could just make batch after batch after batch rather than have to try to yield it from dandelions. So that fell to the wayside. And then by the time World War II ended, we had access to natural rubber supplies from the. From the Southeast. Southeast Asia, I should say. And so all that kind of put dandelion rubber on the back shelf. But in the, what, 80, almost 100 years. Jeez. Since World War II. I remember when that was like, just like. That was firmly like 40 to 50 years in the past. And it just keeps getting further and further away. It's really awful. But we've kind of figured out in the interim that synthetic rubber, it's useful, but there's nothing that can match natural rubber for, like, grip, heat, dissipation, all sorts of other properties. So we're starting to go back to look at sources for natural rubber, including ones that are more sustainable than the rubber trees, which require you basically deforest and then plant the rubber trees to create a plantation with dandelions. You don't have to do that stuff.

[Sponsor/Advertiser Voice]

No.

[Josh Clark]

You got a big field, you can have dandelions. And like I said, it grows in. It doesn't have to be great soil. You can grow it hydroponically without soil at all. You can grow it in the air, which is aeroponically. It's pretty amazing. And I think it's one of those things where, like, anytime you have a monoculture plant like that, like the rubber tree, it makes people a little bit nervous. Besides the deforestation, like, have anything ever happened, like some kind of weird blight and the rubber trees were just, you know, not a candidate anymore? You got dandelions kind of waiting on deck with their bat.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right. So it's kind of surprising that it went from this really prized plant in so many ways to a hated weed, especially in Europe and the United States. And you hit upon why it became a hidden weed. You use the word monoculture. And the largest monoculture here in the United States are people's lawns. And for part of the aesthetic of the lawn, you cannot have dandelions breaking up that perfect unbroken sea of green grass. You got a dandelion popping up, the whole thing's ruined. Basically, that's the way people think of dandelions and lawns these days, or have since about the 50s. Essentially, that beautiful yellow flower.

[Sponsor/Advertiser Voice]

Stomp it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right? Dig it up.

[Josh Clark]

But yeah, that's what happened. And we've gone over this before, but just sort of as a quick overview. This is the kind of thing that came over from England starting in the 17th century is when British aristocracy really started to get into these perfect sort of croquet. Croquet playing lawns, I guess, is what you would call them. And then in America, it was Post World War II when suburbanization really took hold. Lawnmowers really came into their own. Everyone was like, hey, we've got these great new chemicals that'll kill everything and make the grass grow really, really well. And it's just modern and tidy and good looking. And that really kind of transformed the United States. You know, like, keep up that lawn. Make a perfect green lawn if you want to keep your property value up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Everybody, right? That's a big one. And Kyle also dug up another reason too, that once the Cold War rolled around, conformity was equated with safety. So if you weren't keeping your lawn trimmed like everybody else, what's going on with you? You're making me feel a little bit nervous because you're not conforming. You must be a red spy hiding out in suburbia, basically. Right. And I think that's a really important kind of overlooked driver for things like perfectly manicured lawns and everybody having the same kind of thing.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And speaking of driver, the other I don't think we've ever mentioned contributor to this was in the 1950s. Golf started being televised in 1957. You got golf on television for the first time. And people look at Augusta national and these golf courses that were beautifully manicured and aesthetically pleasing to the eye. And they were like, hey, I need to get some of that in my front yard. Maybe I can practice chipping some balls around in my front yard.

[Chuck Bryant]

Also, if you're sitting there thinking, like, wow, I really love hearing these guys talk about grass, but I'd love to hear them have a dispute over it. You should go listen to How Our Grass Works episode. It's Actually a pretty good. It's a classic Stuff youf Should Know episode.

[Josh Clark]

It totally is. But anyway, all that preamble about, you know, us poo pooing lawns and why America did that brought us to this, which is weeds became enemy number one. And dandelions were maybe even near the top of that list.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. There's a lot of reasons why, for all the reasons that they're valuable, the pollinators and other kinds of plants, and that they can grow in marginal lands and basically everywhere is it makes them an enemy as a weed. If you're trying to create a monoculture lawn. Right. So they can regenerate from like a 1 inch section of root. Which means that if you cut a dandelion off at the. Even below ground level, it's like, good, you know, good try, pal. But it just sprouts right back up. You have to dig them up. And even after you dig them up, you might not get them. Because one of the things that I didn't know about dandelions is I knew they grew from a taproot. You have to get that tap root up or else it's just feudal.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

But that taproot can grow, depending on the age of the dandelion, over a dozen feet. Meters, four meters into the ground. Meters. Yeah. And that makes it really hard to get rid of. And so if you're like a groundskeeper for a golf course or something like that, you have to really keep up with the dandelions because they'll spread really fast and they're really hard to get rid of once you do start trying to get rid of them.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. I gotta say this last fact from Kyle, because it goes back to the lawns, but this really kind of drives it home about how not great a perfect green lawn is for our society. There was a study in 2005, residential lawns in the United States make up 2% of the land, but require more irrigation than any domestic agricultural crop.

[Chuck Bryant]

I've got one to piggyback that. The U.S. fish and Wildlife Service says that homeowners use up to 10 times more pesticides per acre than farmers use on their crops. So we're using this stuff, overusing it, and we're using it on stuff that's not productive land just to keep up with the Joneses, so they don't think we're communist spies.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. You know, I walk Gibson in the mornings, and there are. The only lawns that he ever, like, rubs his face in are the most perfect green ones. And I Know that it's because they have recently been sprayed and he smells it and is trying to rub all in that stuff and it drives me bonkers.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I would love to just let my lawn. And you. Me too. Just go to wildflowers, go to weeds, just mow it. You keep it mowed, but at a higher height. But yeah, you just let this stuff grow and we would be completely. We would stick out like a sore thrum from the rest of the neighborhood. So much so that our neighbors would be mad at us. That's how entrenched the idea of having a perfect lawn is still in the United States, depending on where you live.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, for sure. And like no one around there even does like permaculture and, you know, other other options besides just letting it grow wild and crazy.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, it's nuts. So we definitely draw a line. So we're like, okay, we'll keep up with the lawn, but don't touc the, you know, the shrubbery, the perennials, the garden, essentially. Right. But people will hire the same company to like treat their lawn with chemicals to spray their bushes and spray their gardens with chemicals to kill off the bugs. And then they have to go in and try to recreate this stuff that the bugs are doing for free. The services they're providing because you've killed off the bugs. It's. It's insane to me. So we definitely don't cotton to that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Speaking of bugs, there was a scientific review in 2019 that found that the global mass of insects is falling at a rate of about two and a half percent per year. And dandelions is a high, high on the list of pollinators. Caterpillars love munching on them, moths love munching on them, and all those bees and butterflies love doing their thing on them. So even, you know, I'm not trying to shame people, but let's say you do like your lawn and everything, even waiting in the spring, like longer to cut it, even cutting it higher, letting the dandelions grow up a little bit before you start whacking them down. Even that minimal amount will help out a little bit.

[Chuck Bryant]

What's interesting is a non chemical way I saw to treat your turf grass for dandelions is to let your grass grow longer than you have been, like cutting it at a higher mower height. Because as we talked about, dandelion leaves are so low growing that the grass will shade out and out compete the dandelions. So if you really do want to get rid of dandelions, but you don't want to use chemicals. That's a pretty good way to do it from what I've seen.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, totally. Some states have actual programs. There's one in Minnesota called Lawns to Legumes, which is a great title. They launched that in 2019, where they just basically incentivize people to say, get rid of that lawn, put in flowering plants, put in beds. You can have a rebate if you have a pollinator friendly native wildflower scene at your house.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I didn't look up the amount, but I would guess at a minimum, the rebate is worth a million dollars. That'd be my guess. You think so? There's a couple other things that I found that dandelions. I don't know if you looked at it or not that they. They kind of provide services to the plants growing around them, including grass. Because as we mentioned, those taproots, they grow really deep. And as they're growing deep, they're actually accessing nutrients that other plants around them, again, including grass, the roots of those plants can't reach because it's too deep. And it brings those nutrients up toward the surface. And as the dandelion dies off, the other plants get to get to eat those nutrients that they otherwise wouldn't have had access to. And those same roots also aerate and loosen compacted dirt too, which makes it easier for the plants around the dandelions to grow.

[Josh Clark]

Amazing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Is there anything dandelions can't do?

[Josh Clark]

I don't know. I mean, they're not super fragrant.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, that's true. They're pretty much useless in that sense.

[Josh Clark]

But they can grant a child a wish.

[Chuck Bryant]

They sure can, man. They sure can. I remember doing that so many times. I keep trying to do that with my dandelion puff head in resin, and it's not working.

[Josh Clark]

I don't have anything else, though. I'm kind of looking over the list here. I know we were kind of all over the place, but it's just sort of one of those episodes where it's like, well, here's a list of 100Amazing Things. And so sometimes those are a little tougher to organize. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

But they can be pretty fun too. I had fun. At least. How about you?

[Josh Clark]

I did too. And that rubber thing. Are you kidding me?

[Chuck Bryant]

No. Since neither one of us has anything else about dandelions, then we're gonna call it quits on this episode, which means we've just activated listener mail.

[Sponsor/Advertiser Voice]

You know, no listener mail today.

[Josh Clark]

Because what we're gonna do is I something we haven't done in a while is help, support and bring some attention to a great cause.

[Sponsor/Advertiser Voice]

Our friends from the Cooperative for Education,

[Josh Clark]

AKA Co ed, whose mission it is to break the cycle of poverty in Guatemala through education. And we've been working with them for 15 years and we got a new thing coming up with them, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes, we do. So first, let me just explain. Over $1.3 million in contributions have been made to coed thanks to our partnership with them. That stuff you should know for 15 years. That's, that's really good if you ask me.

[Sponsor/Advertiser Voice]

That's incredible.

[Chuck Bryant]

Which means that 160 kids have been given like a huge leg up to escape poverty and create like break intergenerational poverty and create literally like a new life for their entire family from that point on.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. You know, we went down there, I guess 15 years ago when they invited us very early on in stuff you should know as canon.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Sponsor/Advertiser Voice]

In our history.

[Josh Clark]

And we went down to Guatemala and those shows, we did some shows on that, that trip and that visit, we get to actually hear Jerry speak, which is pretty exciting.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And they're just great. We've been working with them ever since. And the fact that the Sufficient army has raised 1.3 million bucks for them over the past 15 years is going to be a real proud part of our legacy. But we have a call to action, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes. So you can join. We're starting a drive essentially right now.

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

You can join the cooperative, which is a program of theirs for $20 a month. And it you'll collectively sponsor a bunch of students in the Rise Youth Development Program, right?

[Josh Clark]

That's right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And so it's going to get spread out. You're going to be helping a bunch of kids at once so you can feel good like five times over with each, each monthly donation. And then in 2025, more than a 1100 students will be able to start school in rural Guatemala, which will be their biggest class ever. They need help to make that happen. Which is why we're saying join the cooperative.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. And as an incentive, if this is for you, if you set up your gift by Tuesday, December 3rd, then you are signed up for a chance to do a virtual hangout with Josh and I. We do this every year around the same time. It's always a lot of fun. We hang out with, with, I don't know, six or eight people all over the country and they get to just, you know, ask us questions and tell us that we're cool or dumb or whatever. It's your chance to really hand it to us if that's what you're after.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right? Yeah, hopefully don't do that. But sure. I mean, I guess if you've given to co ed and you deserve to do whatever you want to us.

[Josh Clark]

That's right. So just go to cooperativeforeducation.org that's the word. Cooperative F O R education.org SYSK and start giving now. A little bit goes a long way down there.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes. And in the meantime, while you're looking UP cooperative for education.orgSYSK, you can also send us an email. Send it off to stuffpodcastheartradio.com

[Josh Clark]

Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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[Josh Clark]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.