*** This post originally had an error in the calculation, and have been corrected based on John’s comment ***
Saw discussion about native Americans treating Scurvy with Pine needles.
A quick search on the Internet gives you lots of sources claiming that Pine Needles have three times as much vitamin C as various citrus fruits. The type of Pine is rarely given but usually the white pine is referred to, the fruit is variously Oranges, or Lemons.
I tried to find a source, or even the source, for the threefold claim. Found some interesting stories, including reports of successfully treating scurvy, but I was skeptical of that threefold claim. Found wonderful letter from Richard Feynman to his mother where he reports that pine needle tea tastes of pine needles.
The vitamin content of common foods questions can be answered by the Google search engine itself, it has the USDA food content information available. as a result a suitable query will give rough nutritional guidance.
The nutritional need of a full grown man is just under 100mg vitamin C a day.
Oranges 0.45mg/g
Lemons 0.53mg/g
Limes 0.29mg/g
So eating an average Orange a day is about 80% of your vitamin C requirement.
Finding reliable data on the vitamin C content of Pine needles proved a lot harder, not least most of it is buried behind academias’ paywalls and I can’t be bothered to fight that for a trivial question.
USDA Forestry Service Research Note SE-124 “Seasonal changes in carbohydrates and ascorbic acid of white pine and possible relation to Tipburn sensitivity” found an Ascorbic acid range of 0.7 to 1.9mg/g
Results vary with assay technique, season, location, etc. Highest number is more than three times the average orange, you then have to extract the vitamin C, and whilst water soluble a long boiling will probably only extract a proportion of the available vitamin C and will start to degrade it. That said if most of the water you drank each day was boiled with pine needles, this could be a sufficient source of vitamin C alone.
Some sources refer to tea made with Pine needles and bark, and to flavinoids in the bark preserving vitamin C. I’m guessing much of the marketing hype around “bark extracts” is probably just hype. The chemicals involved are all Tannins, and as such likely to make your pine needle tea bitter. Both pine needles and the bark contain a whole host of chemicals, and whilst a lot of folk have drunk quite a bit, there are some questions over safety in pregnancy. So by all means try pine needle tea, but have realistic expectations, and avoid large amounts if pregnant.
As regards rescue by native Americans, I suspect if you are vitamin C deficient in such areas it is likely that you lacked the skills to get an adequate diet from the local area, whilst the tea probably helped, it may well be that the big contribution from the native Americans to folk in such a quandary was basic survival skills for the harsh north.
Curious fact, some citrus fruit have more vitamin C weight for weight in the peel than the fruit, good luck eating comparable amounts.
I do not know how old this article is, so I hope I’m not drudging up something old. Vitamin C breaks down quickly, whether heat, sun, time; most variances will break it down. So I do not boil my pine needles. I take a few at a time, rinse them well, nibble a bit to break them open, and then I let the pulp rest under my tongue. After several minutes I throw the pulp away. I’m very curious how much more vitamin C from pine needles I derive using this method.
I stumbled upon a video where a woman picks them and runs them in a high speed blender with water, then pours into a nutmilk bag and presses out the liquid. Don’t remember if she added spices, sweetener etc. I live in Florida so I don’t have access to these needles and can’t try it, otherwise I would b/c I like to experiment and these trees are GMO-free and organic. 😉
Great comment about chewing…I suppose also doing a raw apple cider vinegar soak of the needles after they are chopped and bruised could help to release the stuff. I’m not an expert, bit maybe soak them for a week or more? I would think that the Indians would have nibbled the needles (no need for gum to fix stinky breath when you have fresh pine!) and that this would be a great way to extract the vitamin c. Hot water drinks were probably somewhat of a luxury and tea being something early settlers were more accustomed to even if the potency of the hot beverage was less strong than the needles chewed raw.
Don’t know where you’re getting your info, but a typical orange is about 100g and contains about 50mg of vitamin C, so .5mg/g–not 4.5mg/g.
That puts white pine at a higher percentage on the low end of the spectrum you referenced and 4 times more on the high end.
I found your original soursce for the vitamin C content: https://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/rn/rn_se124.pdf
As far as I can see from the graph on page 3, the top level is 1.0 and not 1.9 mg ascorbic acid/g pine needles. Maybe you hit the wrong key, 9 is next to 0…
I googled “1 cup of pine needles how many grams” but received answer for pine nuts. It would be very interesting to know the answer, b/c you can run the needles in a high speed blender, with water, then filter the liquid and drink.
Look at Radulescu 2013 (Romanian article with English abstract), link here
http://www.revistafarmacia.ro/201306/art-12-radulescu%201158-1166.pdf
Douglas-fir shoots had ascorbic acid content as high as 275.1 mg/100g dried plant material. That is six times higher than the value for oranges you give.
But while this seems to provide some support for the health claims, I applaud your skepticism!
AA is degraded by heat, so I do wonder how much of the vitamin C is left when the needles are used to make a tea.
there’s an easy test you can do to find out! it’s called an Iodine/Starch titration, you can tell pretty close to the mg how much vitamin c it has. and yes I’ve tested it, and started saving money on OJ at the store. wish I could do the same for Vitamin A too!
Pray tell your method of extraction and administration. Would love to start saving money on vitamin C.
The reality here is that the native population up north had to have an adequate source of vitamin C winter to survive. They surely had no access to oranges..
I wonder if the native Amerindian would know what they used to do
The Choctaw Nation of Indians in the State of Alabama primarily in Mobile and Washington Counties use Pine Top Tea frequently.
The pine needles are gathered and then heated and steeped. Then drank as is.
It can be applied to sores or afflicted parts of the body or else it can be simply drank.
It heals a lot of things and some of centarians attributes Pine Needle Tea to their long lives.
Of course, the “Old Ones” by the mounds in our hills and “mountains” never tell anyone how old they are.
One man in our community said they were “old” when he was young. He’s probably about 80 now.
So assuming what he said is true then our oldest people are living a longer time. The intersteig fadt is that our people were largely undocumented prior to the 1820’s and 1830’s and therefore we really don’t know how old the “old ones” are who live in and around the old mounds.
I’m writing this in 2018. I’m almost 50 now so the “old ones” were old as long as I’ve been around and according to people from my parents generation also as long as they have been around.
I meant the 1920’s and 1930’s. Sorry for the typos.