Eliminate bloating and water retention with Alfalfa Leaf - the "Father of all Foods." This excellent source of nutrients will help boost a sluggish appetite, relieve constipation and the swelling  that often accompanies rheumatism and arthritis.  It is most helpful in treating kidney and urinary tract infection and will help detoxify the body, especially the liver.

 

Beneficial Uses:
Alfalfa is a good laxative and natural diuretic that promotes urine flow and is often used to treat urinary tract infections and eliminate excess retained water.

Alfalfa contains phytoestrogens, and the herb has had some estrogenic activity in women whose own sex hormone production has declined; thus Alfalfa has helped many women with the discomforts of menopausal symptoms, particularly hot flashes. The Vitamin K2 found in Alfalfa may also partially prevent bone loss caused by estrogen deficiency.

 

History:
Remains of Alfalfa more than six thousand years old were discovered in Persia, with the oldest writings about Alfalfa arising from Turkey about 1300 B.C).  The plant is said to have been domesticated near Turkmenistan, Iran, Turkey, the Caucasus regions and other regions in Asia Minor.  Alfalfa reached Mediterranean Europe by way of the Greeks, who planted it as early as

490 B.C.   Since the Medes of ancient Persia were credited as being the first to cultivate the plant,

it was given its botanical name, Medicago sativa, which is translated from Latin, meaning, "sowed by the Medians."   The word, Alfalfa, is said to be derived from from Arabic, Persian and Kashmiri words meaning "best horse fodder" and "horse power," since Alfalfa was so important to the early Babylonian cultures, Persians, Greeks and Romans because of its importance as fodder for horses used in war.  Alfalfa was being cultivated in England by the sixteenth century, where it was used to soothe and strengthen the body, and arrived in the American Colonies by 1736, where it was used mainly to treat upset stomach.  Native Americans employed ground Alfalfa seeds to thicken and enrich their diets and ate the leaves as tasty greens. The Eclectics, physicians who used herbal therapies in nineteenth-century America, used Alfalfa as a tonic for indigestion, dyspepsia, anemia, loss of appetite and poor assimilation of nutrients.  These physicians also recommended the alfalfa plant to stimulate lactation in nursing mothers, and the seeds were made into a poultice for the treatment of boils and insect bites.   Alfalfa is a perennial plant that can be cultivated almost anywhere, even in dry regions, and thrives as a crop in light, well-drained-to-dry, neutral-to-alkaline soil in sun.  Bushy Alfalfa may reach about three feet in height with roots that may extend to thirty feet into the soil, allowing exceptional access to a quantity of nutrients: rutin, silicon, zinc, calcium, copper, choline, folate, iron, magnesium, manganese, potassium, phosphorus, saponins, alpha-carotene, beta carotene (useful against both heart disease), as well as B-vitamins and vitamins A, D, E and K.  Alfalfa leaves contain eight essential amino acids and are a good source of chlorophyll, and they also contain triterpene saponins (sojasapogenol A-E aglycones medicagenic acid, hederagenin), flavones, isoflavones (formononetin glycosides, genistein, daidzein, biochanin A, coumestrol), lutein, sigmasterol, spinasterol, cyanogenic glycosides, sterols and coumarin derivatives (coumestrol, 3'-methoxy coumestrol, lucernol, sativol, trifol, medicagol).