What are the health benefits of eating Sumac and/or Thyme?!

What are the health benefits of eating Sumac and/or Thyme?

Unlike the Poison Sumac, the Staghorn Sumac is edible. One of the most delicious lemonades is made from the small red berries of the Staghorn Sumac.

Besides being used as a drink, the Sumac can be used as an herbal remedy also. The variety Rhus aromatica, or “Sweet Sumac” can be used to cure bed-wetting and other urinary disorders. The root bark is used in a tincture along with corn silk and horsetail. Sumac can also be made into a wine if left to ferment. Sumac lemonade can be made into a jelly, or other berries can be boiled in it to liven up their taste. The soft, green inner bark of the Sumac tree is sweet to suck on too. Sumac is a good source of vitamin C, so the health benefits of eating it are good too.

Thyme has a long history of use in natural medicine in connection with chest and respiratory problems including coughs, bronchitis, and chest congestion. Only recently, however, have researchers pinpointed some of the components in thyme that bring about its healing effects. The volatile oil components of thyme are now known to include carvacolo, borneol, geraniol, but most importantly, thymol.

Thymol - named after the herb itself - is the primary volatile oil constituent of thyme, and its health-supporting effects are well documented. In studies on aging in rats, thymol has been found to protect and significantly increase the percentage of healthy fats found in cell membranes and other cell structures. In particular, the amount of DHA (docosahexaenoic acid, an omega-3 fatty acid) in brain, kidney, and heart cell membranes was increased after dietary supplementation with thyme. In other studies looking more closely at changes in the brains cells themselves, researchers found that the maximum benefits of thyme occurred when the food was introduced very early in the lifecycle of the rats, but was less effective in offsetting the problems in brain cell aging when introduced late in the aging process.