Yard Roots
The morning pot I boil for my own people — ginger, fever grass, sorrel and pimento, and the roots I refuse to put in it.
Read this before the recipe
Keep taking your medicine
Exactly the way your doctor gave it to you. Not one pill less, not one day skipped. Nothing in this pot replaces anything in that bottle — and if you ever hear a man in a video tell you different, close that video. That includes me.
And I will say the hard thing first, because you came to me about your back: this tea will not take your back pain away. Nothing in a cup does that. What it does is give you one warm thing you do for yourself every morning, the way my people always did.
Put this down entirely if you are
- Pregnant, trying for a baby, or nursing. Not one cup.
- A child. I am talking to grown people with grown problems.
- On dialysis, or living with kidney disease.
- On a blood thinner — warfarin, Eliquis, Xarelto, or a daily aspirin your doctor told you to take. Not because this is poison, but because your blood is already being managed by somebody, and roots move that needle.
- Living with liver trouble.
- Having any surgery in the next two weeks. And when you go, tell them you drink this — tell the doctor and the one who puts you to sleep, even if nobody asks.
The most important thing on this page
About the ice on your toe
In the video I showed you ice on the big toe, on the point they call Liver One. I have to add something to that, and I am adding it here because I did not say it there.
Or if your feet ever feel numb, or tingle, or you cannot feel a light touch on your toes — do not put ice on your foot. You can hurt the skin and never feel it happen. A sore on a diabetic foot is not a small thing, and it does not stay small.
Do the breathing part. Skip the ice. That goes for every video of mine you ever see.
The pot
What goes in it
Makes four small cups. You drink one.
- One thumb of fresh ginger root — the size of your thumb, not your fist.
- Two stalks of fresh fever grass, or two tablespoons dried.
- One tablespoon of dried sorrel — the red flower.
- Six pimento berries, whole.
- Half a lime.
- Four cups of cold water.
Nothing else
No sugar. No honey. No molasses. No rum.
At the market
Where you find these in America
Ginger
Any grocery store, vegetable side. Fresh root, never the powder — powder is far stronger than your eye can judge, and I want you judging with your eye.
Fever grass
Caribbean or Asian market, fresh, in stalks. No fresh? Two plain lemongrass tea bags. That is a substitution and I tell you plainly that it is one. Same plant, weaker pot.
Sorrel
Any Latin market — ask for flor de Jamaica. It sits with the dried chiles. Not a substitution: same flower, another name, two dollars.
Pimento
The spice aisle calls it allspice. Buy the whole berries, never the ground.
One rule for buying — it matters more than the price
If a bag has no ingredient list and no Latin name printed on it, leave it on the shelf. And do not buy a bottle of roots tonic already made: you cannot see what is in it, and back home that trade has no label, no date and nobody watching it.
The fire
How you boil it
4 cups cold water
│
▼
┌──────────────────────┐
│ HARD THINGS FIRST │ ginger, cut in coins
│ lid on · 20 min │ pimento berries, whole
└──────────────────────┘ low fire, never a hard boil
│
▼
┌──────────────────────┐
│ FIRE OFF │ fever grass
│ lid on · 5 min │ dried sorrel
└──────────────────────┘ boil these and the pot turns bitter
│
▼
strain · squeeze the lime · cool
│
▼
clean jar → icebox → 3 days, no more- Wash the ginger. You do not have to peel it. Cut it into coins.
- Ginger and pimento berries into the pot with four cups of cold water. Lid on.
- Bring it up, then turn the fire low — twenty minutes. Hard things go in first. That is how roots are done.
- Fire off. Now the fever grass and the sorrel. Lid back on, five minutes, no more. Boil the leaf and the flower long and the pot turns bitter and does you no good at all.
- Strain it. Squeeze the half lime in.
- Let it cool. Clean jar, into the icebox.
The cup
One cup a day. In the morning.
Not two. Not three. One thumb of ginger for the whole pot, not per cup. More is not better with roots. More is how people get hurt.
- The first three days, half a cup. You are learning what your body has to say about it, and half a cup asks the question quietly.
- Two hours away from your pills — especially a thyroid pill. Anything you swallow near it gets in its way.
- No sugar, honey or molasses. The old people sweetened theirs with molasses and I will not pretend otherwise. But molasses is sugar and honey is sugar, and I am talking to people with sugar trouble. Drink it plain, or with lime.
- No rum. Some put rum in their roots. Not this one. With metformin or a pressure pill, that is a bad night waiting to happen.
How long it keeps
Three days in the icebox, in a clean jar with a lid on it. That is all.
If it fizzes, if it smells sour, if it turns cloudy — throw it out and do not taste it first. Fizzing is not the roots waking up. Fizzing is fermenting, and that is alcohol and bacteria, not medicine.
Four weeks on, then two weeks off
That is how my grandmother did it and that is how you do it. And I tell you straight: I have no study behind that number. It is my caution, not a measurement.
What the old people did
And why I do not ask it of you
They boiled the roots twice — poured off the first water, put fresh water on the same roots, boiled it again, and mixed the two waters together. Then they bottled it and let it sit a month, and some of them buried the bottle in the ground to keep it cool.
That is the real way, and I am not asking it of you. A pot that sits and works for weeks is making alcohol and growing things your eye cannot see. Mine goes in the icebox.
The refusals
What is not in my pot, and why
Strong back
There is a root they call strong back. It is in almost every bottle of roots tonic anybody ever wrote down. I know it. My people know it. The man who cut cane all day swore by it, and his father before him. And I am still not sending you to buy it.
Four different plants wear that name. Four. The bag you buy on the internet does not tell you which one is inside — and nobody has ever tested a single one of them on one single human being. Not for backs. Not for anything.
I do not put a plant in my pot when I cannot name it. That is not me knowing less than the next man. That is me telling you what I do not know.
Chaney root and sarsaparilla
That is what makes a pot roots tea instead of just tea. Every bottle I ever saw had chaney root in it. I still keep them out of the cup I hand you, and I will tell you exactly why: they pull water out of a man. I am talking to people who already take a water pill and a pressure pill, whose kidneys already carry that load — and most of them were never told what shape their kidneys are in.
Do not add these yourself
- Licorice root — it raises pressure and drops your potassium. The one root that fights your medicine head on.
- Turmeric with black pepper — that exact pairing is in the write-ups of people who ended up with hurt livers.
- Senna, or anything sold to move your bowels. If a tea loosens your bowels, that is not it working.
- Honey, molasses, sugar. Rum.
And if you ever see these on a label, walk away
Aristolochia · contribo · duck flower · birthwort · tan pon rock
That one takes kidneys, and there is a warning on it from the government of this country. It gets sold under other people's names — which is how it reaches good people.
Straight talk
Why each thing is in my pot
I keep three things apart: what the old people say, what somebody actually tested on human beings, and what is only talk. Mix those three and I am no better than the men selling powder on the internet.
Ginger Zingiber officinale
Fever grass Cymbopogon citratus
Sorrel Hibiscus sabdariffa
Pimento & lime
Nothing tested for health, and I am not going to invent any. Pimento is here because it makes the pot smell like home — that is the whole reason and it is reason enough. Lime is taste, and it keeps your hand away from the sugar bowl.
Before your first cup
Stop and ask, if you take…
The one number to ask for
If you are over sixty and take a blood pressure pill, ask your doctor for one number: your kidney number, the eGFR. It is on a blood test you have probably already had. If nobody ever told you that number, do not start this tea until you know it.
I know most of these warnings say go see a doctor, and I know what that costs in this country. So here is the one that costs nothing: walk into the drugstore and ask the pharmacist. Bring your pill bottles and this page. He will check them against each other for free — no appointment, no bill. That is real, and you can do it this week.
Watch and stop
What to keep an eye on
The first two weeks
Check your pressure every morning. If the top number goes under 100, or you feel dizzy when you stand — sit down, stop the tea, call your doctor. Do not drive when you feel like that. If you check your sugar and it reads under 70, eat something with sugar in it right away and stop the tea.
Stop the tea and call somebody if
- You feel faint, or the room goes gray when you stand.
- You shake, break a cold sweat, get confused, or go suddenly hungry.
- You bleed easy or bruise from nothing.
- Your water turns dark, or your eyes or skin go yellow.
- You swell up, cramp, or your heart runs uneven.
- Your chest burns after the cup. That one is the ginger, and this pot is not for you.
- Hard pain up under your right ribs after eating. That can be a stone in the gallbladder, and ginger stirs that up.
If your numbers get better while you drink this, that is your medicine and this tea working together. It is not permission to stop the pill. Write the number down, carry it to your doctor, and let him decide about the pill. Never you. And never me.
One last thing
About that word, detox
You commented ROOTS because I said detox tea. Let me straighten that word out before you drink anything.
The old people called a pot like this a blood cleanser. That was their word for it. I am not telling you it cleans anything out of you. Your liver does that work all day and all night, and it does not need my pot and it does not need my permission. I am telling you what they called it — and then I am handing you the pot.
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