Posted by dessbee on January 26, 2007, at 8:34:47
In reply to Re: Saffron - Anti depressant » dessbee, posted by ramsea on January 17, 2007, at 5:55:10
Hi Ramsea
Sorry, did not see your post until now. I would recommend making tea out of saffron. Dried saffron is easily crumbled/grounded and mixed with 50 ml hot water.
I did not know fresh saffron was available.
I beleive my calculation on 200 mg saffron was based on dried saffron. After the process of roasting, the stigmas of saffron have 1/5 of their original size/weight. So you would roughly need 1/2 - 1 gram of fresh saffron.Saffron needs to be roasted for preservation, so if your fresh saffron is old its chemicals might degrade.
Saffron is often adulterated due to its high price. Roasted saffron is quite easy to identify. Saffron should have a bitter taste of saffron's procrocetin and a distingished smell of safranal. The roasted stigmas should be bright red, dry and brittle. Saffron's crocin should color water golden. Oil content should be low, 0.4 - 1.3% essential oils.
According to some sites it is safe to use in the range up to 1500 mg of dried saffron.Many sites claim saffron is toxic.
http://www.florahealth.com/Flora/home/international/HealthInformation/Encyclopedias/Saffron.asp
But others claim that toxicity is overstated
"Saffron appears to have a very low order of toxicity. It is often said that very high doses of saffron can cause abortion and possible toxic symptoms, but there is no scientific documentation of these supposed effects. However, the so-called meadow saffron, Colchicum autumnale, is highly toxic, and sometimes people mistake one for the other. "
http://healthgate.partners.org/browsing/LearningCenter.asp?fileName=111801.xml&title=Saffron
poster:dessbee
thread:712513
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20070114/msgs/726638.html