What is Sassafras Good for with Matthew Hunter

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Once beloved in root beer and medicine cabinets, sassafras was later banned as dangerous. So... is it poison or a powerful plant ally?

In this episode, we’re diving into the wild and winding story of Sassafras albidum—a tree deeply rooted in Southern culture, traditional herbalism, and kitchen magic. From thickening gumbo to flavoring root beer (before it was pulled from shelves in the 1970s), sassafras has played many roles—and stirred up plenty of controversy.

Herbalist Matthew Hunter joins me today to shine a light on this misunderstood tree. He shares his favorite ways to work with sassafras, including his recipe for homemade sassafras root beer (yes, it’s safe—and yes, it’s delicious!). You can download a beautifully-illustrated recipe card from the section below.

Matthew also brings a refreshingly unique perspective. Unlike many herbalists who’ve loved plants since childhood, he started his herbal journey with zero interest in the plant world. He just wanted to “get it over with”—but somewhere along the way, the plants worked their magic. Now he’s a devoted advocate for his local flora and an inspiring teacher in his own right.

If you’ve ever wondered about what is sassafras good for, its past, its potential, or how to use it today, this episode is for you.

By the end of this episode, you’ll know:

► How to identify sassafras trees, both by sight and by smell

► The history of sassafras use in the United States (and a surprising reason why it went out of fashion!)

► Nine medicinal and culinary gifts of sassafras

► Why a cup of hot sassafras tea is so great on a hot summer day

► Tips for propagating sassafras trees – and why harvesting them can actually help more trees grow!

► and so much more…

For those of you who don’t know him, Matthew Hunter is the founder of Legacy Wilderness Academy, a school dedicated to teaching Southerners how to harvest clean food and natural medicine from local wild plants. Matthew has been foraging for over ten years and is the creator of several online foraging courses, including Medicinal Plants of the Southeast, and The Southerner’s Guide to Foraging. He’s currently on a mission to film every major edible and medicinal plant in the Southeastern US. Matthew leads foraging walks in his local area in northeast Louisiana where he lives with his wife, daughter and son.  

I’m delighted to share our conversation with you today!

Click here to access the audio-only page.

-- TIMESTAMPS -- for What is Sassafras Good for

• 01:07 - Student spotlight
• 03:07 - Introduction to Matthew Hunter
• 04:40 - Matthew’s plant path
• 19:46 - Sassafras safety and history
• 26:36 - What is Sassafras Good for? Medicinal benefits of sassafras
• 36:38 - Harvesting sassafras root bark and propagating sassafras
• 40:23 - Sassafras Root Beer recipe
• 45:22 - Matthew asks Rosalee a question
• 48:13 - Matthew’s current herbal projects
• 56:33 - What Matthew wishes he’d known when he first started learning about the plants
• 1:05:24 - Herbal tidbit

Get Your Free Recipe!

Connect with Matthew

• Website | LegacyWildernessAcademy.com
• YouTube| Legacy Wilderness Academy

Transcript of the 'What is Sassafras Good for with Matthew Hunter' Video

Rosalee de la Forêt:
Hello and welcome to the Herbs with Rosalee Podcast, a show exploring how herbs heal as
medicine, as food and through nature connection. I’m your host, Rosalee de la Forêt. I created
this Channel to share trusted herbal wisdom so that you can get the best results when
relying on herbs for your health. I love offering up practical knowledge to help you dive deeper
into the world of medicinal plants and seasonal living.

Each episode of the Herbs with Rosalee Podcast is shared on YouTube, as well as your favorite
podcast app. Also, to get my best herbal tips as well as fun bonuses, be sure to sign up for my weekly herbal newsletter below.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

This week’s Student Spotlight is on Sarah Hour in Vermont, the traditional land of the Abenaki. Sarah has taken several courses with us and recently joined our Podcast Circle. She brings curiosity, creativity and heart to all of her studies. In the Herbal Energetics Course, she’s explored herbs like ashwagandha, violet and even moringa with this thoughtfulness and initiative, blending sensory observation, traditional and her personal experience. Her reflections embody the spirit of herbalism, grounded, collaborative and full of wonder. 

To honor her contributions, Mountain Rose Herbs is sending Sarah a $50 gift certificate to stock up on their incredible selection of sustainably sourced herbal supplies. Mountain Rose Herbs is my go-to for high-quality organic spices, herbal remedies and even hard to find botanicals. They ship all over the US and have a massive selection of products to fuel your herbal adventures. Thank you so much, Mountain Rose Herbs, for supporting our amazing students.

If you’d like to explore Mountain Rose Herbs offering and support this show in the process, you can find the special link here.

Hey, it’s Rosalee. You know, creating this podcast has been one of the most rewarding parts of my herbal work, and if you found something meaningful here, whether it’s a new perspective, a favorite recipe or just a sense of calm, I want to let you know there’s a good way to go even deeper. It’s called the “Podcast Circle.” Inside, you’ll get access to live classes taught by some of my favorite herbal teachers, behind-the-scenes updates, and a beautiful library of herbal resources that we’ve gathered over the years. But more than that, it’s a space to connect with fellow plant lovers who care about the same things you do. Truly, your membership helps make this podcast possible. It’s how we keep the episodes coming and the herbal goodness flowing. So, if you’re ready to be part of something more, something rooted in connection, head over to herbalpodcastcircle.com. I’d love to see you there. 

I’m so excited to introduce today’s guest to you. Matthew has that sweet Southern charm, paired with this deep passion for sharing his love of plants with the world. We actually ended up chatting at length before and after this episode, and he is absolutely the kind of person that you’d want to go on a plant walk with or share a cup of tea with on a regular basis. Once the cameras were rolling, I loved hearing about his journey into the plant world, and the fascinating insights he shared about sassafras. It’s a plant that’s often misunderstood, but Matthew makes it feels so approachable, alive, and full of possibility.

For those of you who don’t already know him, Matthew Hunter is the founder of Legacy Wilderness Academy, a school dedicated to teaching Southerners how to harvest clean food and natural medicine from local wild plants. Matthew has been foraging for over ten years and is the creator of several online foraging courses, including Medicinal Plants of the Southeast, and The Southerner’s Guide to Foraging. He’s currently on a mission to film every major edible and medicinal plant in the Southeastern US. Matthew leads foraging walks in his local area in northeast Louisiana where he lives with his wife, daughter and son. 

Matthew, I’m so thrilled to have you on the show. Thanks for being here. 

Matthew Hunter:

Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I’m really excited too. We’ve already had a little bit of a chat before I hit record, and after a while, it was like, “Oh yeah, we should probably hit record for everybody,” but I felt like I could just chat with you for another hour just for fun, so thanks for that. Thanks for being on the show. I’m excited. I’ve been watching your YouTube videos, so I have that thing where it’s like I kind of know you, but I don’t really, so I’m looking forward to getting to know you a bit better. I’d love to start about hearing work from you and the story of what has brought you to the plants and to us today. 

Matthew Hunter:

Sure! I have a kind of funny story of how I got into plants. I actually got into plants because I didn’t think they were interesting and I’ll explain-

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Okay. That’s the first time I’ve heard that one. 

Matthew Hunter:

I know-

Rosalee de la Forêt:

You know you’re on an herbal podcast, right? 

Matthew Hunter:

I know it’s funny. I got into plants. I was really into—when I turned about 17, I was probably a senior in high school—I got this really wild idea that I wanted to live off the land and I got really into the idea of survival skills. It’s funny because people who know me now, they think of me as an outdoorsman—at least, I would hope they do. I don’t know. But growing up, I was an indoor kid all the way–TV, video games, everything. But something happened when I hit my high school where I was like I want to go outside. I started fantasizing about living in the—living off the land, becoming a mountain man, and everything like that, which eventually, I did do some long wilderness trips and started getting out there a lot more. 

At one point, I made this mental list like, “What would it take to live off the land?” What skills—it’s like “What skills would I need to pretty much live away from society just out in a tent or in the woods?” As I put together that list mentally, you have things like you have to know how to build a shelter. You have to know how to start a fire and navigate with a map and compass, and things like that. The conclusion I came to was the most difficult skills to learn would probably be like how to put food on the table. I wanted to do whatever was the most difficult skill, I wanted to do that first to get it out of the way. My mentality was like, “This is going to be like a multiyear process. This is going to take a long time, but if I start with the most difficult thing first, then it’s almost like everything is downhill from there.” 

I need to learn how to feed myself if I’m going to be doing out, way remote, backcountry travel and stuff. I made a list of “How do you live off the land?” You have to be able to hunt, fish, trap, and forage. I figured fishing would be the easiest to learn, not that there’s nothing to learn, but you can learn how to fish in an afternoon to some degree. Then I figured hunting and trapping, I would want to learn animal track and sign because that’s like the foundation. You’re not going to be able to really be a great hunter if you can’t track. You won’t be able to trap anything if you’re not a tracker first. Then there’s foraging. I said, okay. The two most difficult skills, probably they would take me the longest amount of time to learn were animal track and sign, and foraging. Out of those two, I’ll be 100% honest, foraging sounded like the most tedious, mind-numbing thing to learn. I had no interest in plants at all, so I started—but I got serious. I was like, okay, if I start with this, then everything will be downhill from here. 

Up until that point, and even until really, today, I don’t know if I had ever ran across a person—you grow up hearing Native Americans were hunter gatherers and that’s about all, like that’s really all you know. No one had ever really told me, “You could eat this,” other than picking blackberries or something. I started thinking, “What did people eat? What did people use for soap? What did people use for medicine?” I just started asking myself that. As I started learning the plants, I started buying books and learning them. I had really almost no interest in it at first, but then once I started reading, and I was like, “People used to eat acorns? Oh, interesting.” Not only do people eat them. They were like a major food that sustained the civilization, virtually. Then you’re just like, “Wow! That’s amazing! How come no one has ever told me that before?” Then some other like dandelion. You read about dandelion and you hear that like, “You mean people brought it here on the Mayflower on purpose? You mean it probably saved people’s lives from nutritional deficiency and it’s packed full of vitamins?” You read about purslane or something. It’s a hated weed that’s high in omega-3 fatty acids. It was plant after plant after plant. Every time you read about a plant, you’re just like, “Why have I never heard of this? What is going on? How come I’ve lived my whole life and literally, no one knows about these plants growing right under our feet?” 

That’s when I got—I caught the “foraging bug” and just started really getting into it. For many years, I practiced and studied wilderness survival skills with plants always being kind of at the forefront, or right there alongside all the other things I was learning. I was always interested in plants. When I first started my business, I actually wanted to teach about wilderness survival, but after teaching both foraging and survival, something about the plant—I just love plant people. I love—people who want to learn about plants are very different than the people who want to learn about survival.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s true.

Matthew Hunter:

I really just enjoy the community. I could talk about plants all day now, so it’s been a huge transformation.  

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Oh, my gosh. That’s such a great story, Matthew. I can relate to it so much because I actually got into plants through wilderness stuff and Tom Brown. 

Matthew Hunter:

Yeah. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I started with Frank and Karen Sherwood. It was kind of my first entry way, but I immediately was drawn to the plants. I’d been somewhat interested in them, but I was also like you. I grew up indoors playing video games, watching TV and reading books. I’m a voracious reader. For me, I was like, “I will never have the patience to learn track,” like tracking and field stuff like that. “I must find a partner who’s the tracker.” When I met Xavier, my husband, he was French, and he was a tracker, and I was like, “Thank you. I’ll take him.” It's a funny similarity. I was like, “That’s really important to learn, tracking, but I’m not going to do it. But the plants captured me.

Matthew Hunter:

I still—I never have got around to learning tracking. It’s funny you mentioned video games. I didn’t know if I was going to say this because I don’t know if people might think this is a little weird. Now, I have to bring it up because you’ll think it’s really funny. You said you played video games. Have you ever played Skyrim or Oblivion? You know those games? You know what I’m talking about?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I don’t know. 

Matthew Hunter:

They’re fantasy games. People who are watching it, probably if they’re younger, if they’re below 30 or 40 probably have—know what I’m talking about. That game I used to play a lot in high school. I don’t game really anymore, but in that game, you can actually harvest plants. You walk around, you harvest different plants, and as you get better, you learn the uses of the plants. You can make potions and stuff. So you’ll think this is funny. When I was about 17, I was addicted to the game. I played it a lot. I noticed that I would—because it’s a pretty legit game. I would learn how to identify a certain plant, where it grew and its uses. I’m not kidding you. I could go and I’d find it, harvest it and know what to use it for. It dawned on me one day how stupid it was that I could literally identify plants in a game, know their habitat, know their uses, but in real life, I was like, “I’m doing this in virtual reality land. Why am I not doing this in real life?” Sometimes I have to throw that story in. It was partly due to video games that I got into foraging. I think it’s funny. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah, that is funny. Apparently, there’s a game out there called “Wildcraft.” Somebody who is younger and not into plants asked me, and they were like, “Do you think wildcrafting became popular because of the game, Wildcraft?” Like the video game, Wildcraft. I was like, “No,” but maybe there’s something to that though. Maybe there are more people out there like you who are like, “That was my entry way.” 

Matthew Hunter:

I know there are people who are watching this who play Skyrim who are just like, “I see that. I could see that.” 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Awesome! Well, that’s how you got started with the plants, and then how did that take off? There’s an interest there, and then you said you were thinking, “I’m going to teach wilderness skills or foraging.” You decided like the plant people community. I’d just love to hear a little bit more about what that was like getting started, and maybe even how you decided to do a YouTube Channel. 

Matthew Hunter:

I have a really good friend of mine that I met at a wilderness survival school. This probably would have been around, I guess, 2017. I remember talking about it with him. We would say stuff like, “I want to be a survival instructor,” because we saw these survival instructors who were doing it full-time. Back then, that was like saying you wanted to be a rockstar. It’s like everybody wants to do that, sure, but how do you actually do it? I really had a desire to teach because I guess I’m just kind of a natural teacher in the sense that I have to force myself to shut up when I’m around people because I’ll just talk about plants the whole time. I started doing little plant walks when I was in my early twenties with friends and stuff. 

One day, I guess someone was telling me—someone from my church was saying, “You need to look at this home school. There’s this classical home school online school and you should teach.” Someone else told me about it, the same exact day separately. They both told me about it. I was like, “Okay. I’m going to look into this,” so I started—I connected with them and I started teaching even though I have no degree. I have no college training. It was so funny they even let me teach, but I guess I wrote a good résumé. I don’t know. 

They let me teach and I came up with—I think it was a 24-week course. It was a pretty massive undertaking. It was from May to October, I think. We went through Thomas—I don’t know how to say his last name—Thomas Elpel’s, Botany in a Day. I think I made them buy one of Samuel Thayer’s books. I forget which books we had in that original course. I started teaching and it just started working out. Around that same time, I had met a friend who—she makes a living—I guess it’s changed as time went on, but at the time, she was a professional musician. She had created an online course teaching people how to basically market their musical abilities and how to go full-time with that. She really was probably responsible for me starting a business because she was like, “Man, you need to do this. Matthew, people would love this. There are people who would buy what you’re giving, what you’re doing.” She kind of got into my head, like I guess people would pay for it, sure. 

So, that’s how I started. I first started doing high school students for a couple of years, and then I was like, “This is pretty good. I can do this,” and I started making my own courses. I started doing YouTube to promote it, and then YouTube has turned into its own thing. I guess it’s growing. People are more and more wanting to go back to nature, so to speak, and remember some of these skills that over the past hundred years or so have really started becoming lost. What was everyday knowledge is now becoming lost. There’s a growing subculture for sure, but it’s becoming almost more mainstream. It’s growing, so I guess it’s just the right place at the right time in history to be doing this. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I love that you are reaching so many folks because I think that we need more plant people. Like you were talking about too, that acorns were not only edible, but actually, this incredible nutrition for a whole civilization. Civilizations, we could say. About the dandelion, now that to me, feels like common place knowledge because I live kind of in a bubble in some respects, I think. I was just recently in Arkansas and chatting it up with some folks. I mentioned something about herbs and plants, and somebody said, “That’s just all total woo BS. Just total woo-woo BS.” I was kind of shocked because I actually do know that people still think that way. I’m not totally naïve, but I just hadn’t been confronted with it in a while. I was-

Matthew Hunter:

You hadn’t seen someone in the wild who actually thought that. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah, exactly! I was dumbfounded because I’m actually not very woo myself, so I was like, “Wait. What?” I was just very confused. It was a reminder there’s still a lot of people out there who are—there’s probably a lot of people who aren’t ready for that knowledge, but there’s a lot of people who are looking for that spark and have that interest. They see a plant growing in their lawn and they’re like, “What is that plant?” I mean how many stories have we heard about that and then they stop using Roundup? That’s how revolution starts. I love that you’re doing it. I love that you’re reaching a great audience. It’s just so important. I think the world needs more plant enthusiasts, full-time plant enthusiasts. 

Matthew Hunter:

I think even over the past ten years, I think I’ve seen a culture change, or maybe because I’m just a little older, people are politer than they used to be. I’m not sure which one it is. I remember when I was first doing this, people would really scoff at me. Some people will still poke a little bit like, “Oh, you like to eat weeds.” I’m like, “More than just weeds, trees and fruit too, all types of plants. More than just the weeds.” It seems like now when I tell people what I do, they’re like, “That’s really cool!” A lot of times they don’t know it. They didn’t know you could do—like, “I didn’t know you can even do that!” They don’t necessarily scoff. When I was first starting out, I got a lot more strange looks. Maybe it’s changing. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I’m really excited about the plant you chose, sassafras. This is not a plant I know well because it doesn’t grow here, but I was just hanging out with sassafras. I was happy that I could identify it. It was fun. I was just hanging out with sassafras, now I get to hear about sassafras from you, so wherever you’d like to start, I’m excited to hear. 

Matthew Hunter:

I actually brought a little sassafras here and hopefully I don’t spill dirt all over my computer, so that people—you can see how to identify it here. You have your—it’s a tree. This one is a seedling, but you have your unlobed leaves, and then you have your little mitten-shaped leaves, and then your three-lobed leaves, all in the same plant. Can you see that? 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah, it looks great. Yeah. 

Matthew Hunter:

I guess whenever we talk about sassafras, you have to mention safety first because people are going to be wondering about that. I think it was in 1960, the FDA outlawed sassafras for commercial sale. I think you can still buy the roots, if I’m not mistaken, but they don’t put them in soda anymore. Sassafras is the original root beer plant, one of the main ones. It was found in lab studies to cause cancer--liver cancer in rats and mice. I wanted to ask you because I’m curious, are there any plants that you use that are either: a) toxic or have a toxic reputation? or that, b) Maybe you were even afraid to use at first when you first started using them? 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Kava comes to mind as one that I feel like kind of what you’re doing. I always have to preempt it with saying, “No, it doesn’t cause liver cancer” because it’s just known for that. One that comes to mind is lobelia. Lobelia has a reputation as being somewhat toxic. The first time I tasted lobelia, I had a little seed. Have you done that before? Tasted lobelia seed? 

Matthew Hunter:

I’ve never tasted it. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

It’s super acrid. I tasted it and I felt like my whole body was like—it was like a nervous system reaction of, “Oh, shit! This is a really bad idea,” because it was really intense, but I got over it. There’s a couple apprehensive ones. I could say I’m not super adventurous. I’m not the person who goes out into the wild and like, “I’ll eat that and that and that.” I’m pretty cautious, really. 

Matthew Hunter:

I did pokeweed. I started using pokeroot that was—even though I followed all the directions, it’s a very small amount—I knew what I was doing because I had double, triple, quadruple checked, but I was still so scared. Now, it’s not a big deal, but that one, it’s like it will kill you. I mean, technically it could if you use enough. 

Sassafras. If you do an online Google search of sassafras, the first ten websites or however many are going to be like, “It causes liver cancer, do not use.” I guess I wanted to compare it to using alcohol because alcohol is a known carcinogen, technically. It can cause cancer. No one really debates that, but everyone recognizes that—people, even if they drink a glass of wine with dinner, they say it’s healthy. What can harm can also be good for you. I think it was James Duke who said that in his opinion, sassafras was 1/13 as cancer-causing as beer or something like that. It’s never actually caused cancer in humans to my knowledge. I don’t think there’s been one reported case. Samuel Thayer in his book, Incredible Wild Edibles, has the best treatment in the whole literature—in all of the literature available on the safety and all of the study. Basically, I’ll just summarize it by saying the herbalists who work with sassafras and the foragers, pretty much all agree if they really work with it and know about it. Almost all of them agree that it’s completely safe to use. Some will say use caution, but almost no one discourages its use. I have to—you have to throw that little safety out there, but it is interesting how a lot of plants—when I first started foraging, I thought of plants in terms— because I wasn’t into herbal medicine. I’m still—I would consider myself an herbalist in training. I don’t even know if I’d give myself the title of “herbalist” yet. I’ve always thought of herbs as either being edible or poisonous because as a forager, with edible plants there are two categories: Can I eat it? Can I not? Then you get into herbal medicine and you’re like, “All these plants I heard were poisonous are used in medicine.” I always thought irises were poisonous, and then I find out they’re actually used in medicine, and the list goes on and on—pokeweed or whatever. So, I don’t consider sassafras unsafe in the slightest.

Where do I even want to start with it? Sassafras, let’s see. Historically, sassafras was one of the most important plants in the United States at one time. I think it was discovered by the Western world in the mid 1500s. One of the guys who gets credit for discovering it or first recording it, I think his name was Nicolas Monardes. Are you familiar with this gentleman? 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I feel like I should just from the last name. He must have some plants named after him, like Monarda. 

Matthew Hunter:

I think monarda is actually named—the bee balm—yes, it’s named after him. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Okay. 

Matthew Hunter:

He was Spanish, I believe, and reports learning it from the French in Florida. The French used it to—I guess he records they were—a lot of them were getting sick and they used sassafras to cure them. I’m not sure the details behind that. In the early 1600s, it had become very popular and was the #1 export out of the United—or what is now the United States. It was the #1 export. It was a cash crop. In today’s money, it would have been a multimillion dollar industry, I guess probably. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I didn’t know that. 

Matthew Hunter:

It was bigger than tobacco at one time. It was a major, major export. Eventually, I guess it went out of fashion they say because it had a reputation for curing syphilis. They say the more polite people stopped drinking it. They didn’t—I guess they didn’t want people to think they had syphilis—I don’t know if that’s really true, but that’s what the folklore says. Anyway-

Rosalee de la Forêt:

It makes sense though. 

Matthew Hunter:

It’s always been a very popular herb in the folk tradition. The roots are what’s used and the leaves as well, but they are two very different medicines, and foods. Really, they’re foods as well as medicines. The sassafras tree is the tree of many smells. It’s in the Bay family. If you crush—and I’m not making this up. People think I’m making this up, but it’s a one-to-one. The leaves smell like Froot Loops. I’m not kidding at all. Not always, but especially when they’re real young and just coming out, if you crush them, they smell just like Froot Loops, almost identical. The twigs, if you scrape the twigs off and smell them, it smells like a lemon PEZ candy or—what are they called? Lemon drops or something. The roots are completely different and they smell just like root beer. I guess the way I introduce it to a lot of people in Louisiana is that the leaves are—they’re actually a spice called “filé.” 

Most people have maybe heard the name “sassafras” but are not too familiar with it, and probably have not used it because of its whole thing in the 1960s where pretty much from that point on, people just stopped using it. I think a lot of people. But in Louisiana, they make gumbo and so everyone knows filé gumbo. A lot of people know filé gumbo and probably even have a little jar of filé in their cabinet, but if you ask them, “What is that? What is filé?” they won’t know what it is. If you look at the back of the jar, all it is is ground up, powdered sassafras leaves. It’s used as a thickener like okra would be used as a thickener in gumbo. The leaves are one of the most demulcent herbs that I know of. They are just so packed full of mucilage. 

I’ll take the leaves and dry them. I’ll use them just like any demulcent. I’d use them on the eyes. The historical books will say to use the pith, sassafras pith from the trunks, but I don’t even know how to get a hold of that in today’s world. The trees are so small, so I’ll use the pith. Excuse me. I’ll use the leaves as a demulcent. The roots have so many uses. I’m trying to think—I thought of a few herbs to compare them to. Have you ever used yarrow before? 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

It’s my plant ally this year, actually. 

Matthew Hunter:

Oh, okay. You know how yarrow is—I haven’t used it in a long time because it doesn’t really grow where I’m at in the Deep South. I was thinking of how can I compare sassafras root—what can I compare the roots to? Yarrow, they say is like a vasodilator. I’m not sure if that’s correct. They say it’s like a blood thinner. It thins the blood. It just kind of opens you up and feels like a cleansing kind of action. Have you ever got that when using yarrow? 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Absolutely, yeah. It moves blood and it opens the exterior. It’s often used to encourage sweating, so it does have quite a moving, dispersing quality to it. 

Matthew Hunter:

I think the best plant I can compare it to as far as the way it makes me feel is yarrow because-

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s fascinating. 

Matthew Hunter:

It’s a blood mover and a blood cleanser, are the two probably if you had to summarize it in a quick sentence. That’s sassafras. It’s warming in the sense that it’s packed full of oils and it’s spicy, so it is a strong diaphoretic. If you make an infusion of the dried roots, you powder them up and you make an infusion—it’s usually made as a decoction, but you boil off a lot of the volatile oils. If you make an infusion, it’s strongly diaphoretic, stronger than almost anything I’ve tried. It’s like boneset level diaphoretic. It will induce a sweat almost immediately if you drink it hot. It’s actually like—it’s almost not warming. I was reading Matthew Wood’s chapter on sassafras. He says that it’s so warming that it’s actually cooling. 

It sounds backwards, but I guess–you feel it. It’s hard to describe sassafras, but it’s easy to feel the effects when you take it. It thins the blood. I guess it’s so good at just moving the blood outward maybe. It disperses heat so you actually feel cooled off when you take it. I like to take it before working out in the heat or going for a walk. If it’s hot outside, I’ll take some sassafras or I think it’s like—if I take it when I’m sitting inside, it’s like the AC is working harder, but it’s really just the sassafras that’s cooling you off. Let’s talk about how to use it. I’m not very good at—I feel like I’m not doing too great at describing its energetic properties. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Really? Are you kidding? That was great! That was fantastic! That’s a very—so the—when we sweat, it cools us off and so I got what you’re saying exactly. It’s like the sassafras is heating you up so much that you sweat, but then it’s a secondary effect that the sweating then creates a cooling effect. So, absolutely!  

Matthew Hunter:

It’s a blood mover. It’s a blood cleanser. Another one I wanted to compare it to was—have you ever taken a strong cup of nettle tea and you just feel better? Like you just feel like, “I feel healthier.” You got some nettle tea right now? Okay. I’ve read that nettle is used for flushing out the joints from—for people who have gout, flushes out the uric acid from what I read. If you drink a strong cup of nettle tea, sometimes you can almost feel like—it’s like your joints—you didn’t really notice your joints were stuffy or inflamed until you drank it, and then once it goes away, you’re like, “It feels like some lubricant on my joints.” It’s like someone oiled up your joints a little bit. Sassafras is very much like that. It gets the blood just moving and you can really feel it. It’s like a cooling action on the body. People use it as an energizer, sort of. They say it makes you feel younger, make you feel you can work outside all day. 

It was primarily used as a spring tonic. After a long winter, people eating a lot of fermented foods, a lot of dried foods, they felt like they just needed a spring cleaning for the body, basically. It’s a spring tonic. It is considered a liver herb, so despite its reputation as being harmful to the liver, a lot of herbalists or the people who use it—I say a lot of herbalists—not too many use it these days, but the people who do consider it very much a liver herb. I don’t get the same effects as you would from barberry or yellow dock or some of those more well-known liver herbs, but certainly in a formula with other liver herbs, it’s going to be really wonderful for that, like a general cleanser. 

Another thing that I’ve sort of experimented with it for is like an adaptogen kind of. I wouldn’t consider it adaptogen on its own, but in a formula with other adaptogens—I don’t think it has too much of an effect on the mind so much as it does the body. It’s energizing to the body. It just makes you feel energized when you take it. It has been historically used for chronic rheumatism, so going back to nettle, how it flushes you out. People—I could totally say I’ve never used it for that purpose, but I can feel it in my body. I don’t have arthritis, but I feel like if I did, it would feel better. Have you ever had a long day where you’re on your feet, and then at the end of it, the next day, your feet just feel kind of puffy? Like stagnant? Like you just need some stretch or something? Thirty drops of a sassafras tincture will dissipate all that. It just gets the blood moving. Hopefully I’m describing it well. I’m more describing how it makes me feel than-

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s fantastic. 

Matthew Hunter:

Going through. Energy, maybe not all by itself, but definitely in an adaptogen formula. Fever would be one. A diaphoretic. It is used probably for cold and flu to some extent. You do see that use popping up. I’ve added it to cold formulas like if I’m making a decoction with a bunch of cold and flu stuff. If I have a nasty cough or something and I happen to have some sassafras root bark on hand, I’ll throw it in. General liver cleanser, blood tonic. The leaves are totally different. They have none of the effects of the root at all, and they’re just a pure demulcent herb. Does that-

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That was excellent. Do the leaves taste like Froot Loops? Because you said they smell, right? The leaves smell like-

Matthew Hunter:

No. They don’t really taste like too much of anything.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Kind of sweet, bland taste maybe? Like a demulcent-

Matthew Hunter:

They’re more bland. They don’t really have too much of a flavor. I guess maybe some Louisiana chef who makes filé gumbo would correct me but I would imagine they put it in there more for the thickening action than anything. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I’m curious about harvesting the root bark. Is that something—can you do that and let the tree live harvesting rootlets off the tree? Or is it something you have to take the tree out if you’re harvesting root bark?

Matthew Hunter:

With larger trees you could. We don’t really have large trees—sassafras trees in the South anymore. That’s another thing I wanted to talk about. Around, I think it was 2004, there was a beetle that was introduced to the Southeast called the “redbay ambrosia beetle.” It was introduced right there in Georgia-South Carolina border on the coast. Since 2004, it spread across all the southeast and it goes after any plant in the Bay family, so spicebush, wild bay and sassafras are some of the main ones. So all of the sassafras in the South is small, but the thing about it is it’s really aggressive by the roots, so when a large tree dies, it will send off suckers all around. 

They’re pretty much all small now. Theoretically, on the larger trees, you could take a root and it wouldn’t die, but now we have to kill the tree. I did want to talk about propagation a little bit because it’s like I’m recommending that you take this plant from the wild. It’s already under a severe threat. How do we counterbalance that where we’re still able to harvest it? Because it is still abundant. Because it’s so aggressive by the roots, it has been able to still thrive in some areas, but you just don’t see big trees. One of the ways you can propagate sassafras is actually by cutting down one of the trees. People will say that if you cut down a sassafras tree, a hundred show up to its funeral. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Interesting. 

Matthew Hunter:

If you’re trying to spread your patch, you may purposely cut one down to stimulate root growth. I’m not sure what time would be—like what time of year would be the best to do that, but if you want to take sassafras from one area and get it to another, transplanting is not such a good idea, but root cutting is. The above-ground cuttings like stem cuttings don’t do too well, but the roots are very aggressive. You can dig one up and if you’re real careful not to damage the roots, you can cut them into three-inch or four-inch pieces, bury them horizontal right under the soil, and they will root. They’ll sprout aggressively. You can propagate by that way. Besides that, you do have to kill the tree. The bark of the roots is the most concentrated, so I shave off the larger roots. I’ll shave off the bark with a knife, the root bark, and then the smaller roots I’ll just split and let them dry that way. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Cool. It sounds like you—you talked about using them as a decoction and making a tincture with them as well. 

Matthew Hunter:

One thing I really want to try, in Euell Gibbons’s, Stalking the Wild Asparagus. I have not tried this. He says that the roots can be ground into a fine powder and used as replacement for a cinnamon to cook with because cinnamon is in the same family. I don’t know if I mentioned that bay—I mean that sassafras is in the Bay family. Cinnamon is also in the Bay family. It’s very much probably like cinnamon. I never use cinnamon as a medicine, but probably—there’s probably some similarities there. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Interesting. You also shared a recipe with us for sassafras root beer. What I love about this recipe is that it’s very accessible. If someone has access to sassafras root bark, this is not difficult. Anyone could do this. Would you share a little bit about the recipe? I’ve never had sassafras root beer before, so I’m intrigued. 

Matthew Hunter:

I purposely didn’t put anything in there. I wanted to make it as simple as possible. I have these bottles here. I brought a little bottle to show you. These are little 16oz glass bottles, swing top. That’s what I use to make it. The first thing you have to do—we’re actually going to be doing—for this recipe, we do fermentation where you buy yeast and then add it. The yeast eats the sugar and produces carbon dioxide and a little, tiny bit of alcohol, and then it makes a carbonated soda. 

The first thing you have to do is sterilize all your equipment. I was first learning how to do this and made a video on it. I used bleach. I took a five-gallon bucket of water and then added a little bit of bleach, chlorine, just regular chlorine bleach. That’s how I learned it how to do it in the books that I bought. I got reprimanded by a lot of people. They were like, “You need to use Star San sanitizer,” which I guess is like a food safe sanitizer. I think it uses iodine, but you don’t have to rinse it out afterwards. You just put it in there. I don’t know how it works, but Star San would be one. I’ll take all my equipment and I’ll put it in a bleach water mixture, dunk it in there, let it sit for a little while, and then I’ll rinse everything with super, super hot water. It doesn’t have to be perfectly sterile, but you don’t want any other contaminants getting in there and fermenting with the yeast or it could make it gross. A lot of people say not to use soap and water. Probably you definitely could, but from what I’ve read, the soap taste will kind of linger is what they say. 

We’re going to boil up a gallon. A gallon makes—these are 16oz bottles that I just showed you, and it makes eight of those. We’re going to do a gallon of water. We’re going to boil up, I think 21 grams is about where I’ve landed–21 grams of sassafras root bark. We have to let it cool because if you add the yeast in even when it’s just a little bit too hot, it will kill the yeast. You need to let it cool down to lukewarm temperature. We’re going to add sugar. I forget how much off the top of my head. I’m not looking at the recipe. What is it like? Two?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Two cups. 

Matthew Hunter:

Two cups of sugar, and then we’re going to add an eighth of a teaspoon, I think is what I put on there, yeast. I just use ale yeast you can buy on Amazon. People use different—they’ll use wine yeast or ale yeast or whatever. There are different—champagne, I think, yeast some people use. There are different types of yeast but they all should work. Then you will shake it up, pour it into the individual bottles, and then each of those bottles is closed and shaken. Those will just sit on the counter for about three days. It carbonates really quickly. To know if it’s ready, you can just take one and pop it open. If it barely pops, you need to wait a little bit longer. You can close it right back, and then if it really pops, you’re ready. Then if it pops and it starts overflowing, you probably waited a little bit too long. It can explode on the counter if you let them go too long. Putting them in the fridge doesn’t completely stop the carbonation process, but it slows it down greatly. You don’t want to leave them in there for multiple months in the back of your fridge because they can explode. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I know the sound of that very well like, “What was that pop? Oh, man! I have a big mess to clean up now.” 

Matthew Hunter:

It’s been fun. You can just drink it straight. The amount of alcohol is so small that it’s good for kids. We’ve made root beer floats with it. I’m not a big root beer fan, but when you pour something, it’s infinitely better tasting than if something you bought at the store, so I love sassafras root beer. It’s cool. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thank you so much for sharing that recipe with us. Listeners can download their illustrated copy above this transcript. Thanks again. I think this is just so accessible, easy and fun. I think it’s going to be a great recipe for folks. 

Matthew Hunter:

Yeah. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Was there anything else that you’d like to share about sassafras before we move on, Matthew?

Matthew Hunter:

I was going to ask you one question because I know you’re the one to ask questions, but I was like, hmm. I was asking my wife. I was like, “Should I ask her this question or this question?” So, can I ask you a question? 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Let’s try it. 

Matthew Hunter:

Okay. I was going to ask you something along the lines of, “What do you think is one of the most underrated herbs or an herb that’s maybe not super well-known that you think should be more well-known?” If you can’t think of anything, then my second question would be, “What is your favorite herb?” I want to give you a little backup option-

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thank you. That’s very kind of you. I’m not used to getting asked the questions on the show. Well, the first herb that you—the first herb that came to mind was self-heal, Prunella, is I think a very underrated herb. I think I underrated it for a long time. That one comes to mind, just the effects on the lymphatic system is really cool. The fact that it grows everywhere is so cool. I think there’s a lot of promise there in terms of looking at how self-heal might be used for preventing or addressing estrogen-dominant cancers. We don’t have all the answers there yet, but I think there’s some promise there that I wish would be looked into more. That one comes to mind, for sure. 

Another one that comes to mind is calamus, which is one that I’ve just recently fallen in love with. A couple of years ago, I had two guests right in a row, jim and Karyn both chose calamus. It was one of those things like how you said you were told about that home school program twice in a day like, “Okay. I’m paying attention.” That was kind of the same thing like I had two guests right in a row choose calamus root. I was like, “Okay, I’m paying attention.” That’s been a really fun one to get to know as well, but again, can be a little bit underrated I think. That’s a great question. 

Matthew Hunter:

Is that what jim mcdonald said was his favorite herb, was calamus?

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I bet it’s one of his favorite herbs. I’ve known about it—I knew jim liked it. I was mainly familiar with it because when I hang out with jim, he’s often chewing on calamus root. That’s been fun. He ended up sending me some of his calamus roots, just dried roots. It’s been fun. I’ve been doing that, just chewing on them as I go on a walk. It clears the mind, heightens the senses and stuff. I don’t know if you’d call it his favorite herb or if he would call it his favorite herb. We’ll have to have him on the show and ask him, I guess, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that was in his Top 5, at least. 

Matthew Hunter:

I thought I was reading an article where they were—where they had mentioned that it was his favorite herb or something. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Yeah, it makes sense. I wouldn’t dispute it, for sure. Alright. Thanks for putting me on the spot, Matthew. I appreciate it. I would love to talk a little bit more about your YouTube Channel. I know you have a mission there to document a lot of plants. I’d just love to hear about your mission and your process with your YouTube videos. 

Matthew Hunter:

My channel is Legacy Wilderness Academy. I say this at the beginning of almost all of my videos—I say my mission. I’m not going to repeat the whole thing, but it’s basically to document every edible and medicinal plant in the South. My area of focus is the coastal plain, which is the—it’s like an eco region or sort of geographical province that ranges from East Texas to the coastal Carolinas. It’s pretty much like the southern half of the Gulf Coast states where it’s almost like a humid subtropical climate. We don’t get a lot of hard freezes. Some years, we’d barely would get a—we might get frost on the grass. It’s not quite tropical because it does have hard freezes, but it’s also not like a mountain. It’s a lot more humid and hot than the Appalachian climate just north of us. The goal is really to over time be able to document all those plants in video form. I really try to do an all-in-one package, so I’ll have a quick overview and then how to identify it, its uses, and then how to prepare it because I noticed that people will always ask questions on the comments like, “How do you use it? What’s the dosage?” I’m like, “Okay. People ask this every time, so I’m just going to do—I’ll make a tincture. How many times do you make a tincture? in my video and explain what ethyl alcohol is or whatever. I will do it. I just started making the medicine right there in every video. It’s been relatively successful. I just like that it helps a lot of people. I get comments, “Hey, you helped me. I don’t take this medicine anymore.” I don’t get those super often, but—or people are just like, “Love what you’re doing.” People are super thankful, so I just—I like teaching my people in my region the plants. It’s been really wonderful to just see how thankful people are with every video.

Rosalee de la Forêt:

What year did you start doing it? 

Matthew Hunter:

Let’s see. I’ve really been hitting it hard for two years now. I started the YouTube Channel maybe three or four years ago, but wasn’t very consistent. I moved back to Louisiana about two years ago to the day almost. Before that, I was in Southern Arizona. I did a lot of—I was in Southern Arizona for five years. I had a whole course. I had this whole brand and everything for the desert. I pretty much scrapped it all because I just didn’t want to confuse people. There was a certain point where after I moved to Louisiana I was like, “Okay. I pretty much have to start over because the plants are just so different.” I had a lot built up there, but I didn’t want to confuse everybody and keep posting desert stuff. It was like, “Where does he live? Does he live in the South or does he live in the desert?” so I stopped a lot of that stuff and I’ve been in the South now for two years. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I’m going to ask a personal question—I care about this answer. I’m curious because in your videos, you do such a great job. You’re so natural. It feels like when I watch them, I really connect with you. You got the whole family involved. That’s fun, your daughter, especially. I‘m curious what your process was like. Did you have an awkward stage? Did you have like, “Oh, my God. There’s a camera pointed at me,” stage. Have you seen yourself? I just need encouragement that I’m going to get better.

Matthew Hunter:

I’m probably still in my awkward stage. Maybe you’ve noticed just in this meeting together. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Not at all, not at all, Matthew. This is-

Matthew Hunter:

It helped a lot to script my video. I used to just go, just shoot off the hip and I will just—but I’m a rambler, so I will just go off on these crazy tangents. Now, I’ll actually script them. I don’t have a teleprompter which would be nice. If I was in an indoor studio, I’d probably have a teleprompter, but I’m outdoors so I don’t even bother. I will just read a line. Here’s why it seems so natural: Because I will stand in front of the camera and do—say the same thing seven times and keep—if you saw all the outtakes, it would just be like pathetic because I’ll just be like, “I can’t believe I stuttered.” I’m so picky. And then once you said it so many times, you start to forget what you said, so I’ll read the next line and I’ll say it, and then I’ll switch scenes. So, no, it’s not easy, for sure. It could be I’ll film a short—people see 15 minutes, but it took me six hours to film that footage or longer. It can be frustrating-

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That was actually another question I had for you. How much time goes into those videos? So, you answered that. 

Matthew Hunter:

I’ll try to do a whole day of—sometimes it will take me a whole day of research or longer. I’ll try to write the script out. Researching is one of my favorite things. I’ll go to all these different resources and I’ll put, “Here’s what Rosalee said on her video,” and I’ll write it out word for word, and then I’ll put the next person here, and then I’ll have a big list of two pages of just all the different resources, and then I’ll kind of, “What are the main points I want to get across? What are the main uses?” I don’t want to leave people with too many—sometimes I do, but I try to stick to the main ones. That’s how I do it. It’s a lot of fun, but it’s also—I’m never out of awkward stage, so good luck. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I would say differently for you, Matthew, but it does feel validating to hear how much work goes into it, and that you can get frustrated. I’m so grateful that my video editor, Francesca, knows about all my outtakes because I stutter all the time too or just (makes stuttering sound) a lot. 

Matthew Hunter:

A lot, a lot. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I’m glad it’s just Francesca and I that know about that. 

Matthew Hunter:

But then I get really good at—if I ever have to recall the information on the spot and teach about it, well I’ve said it like seven times, so I just know it by heart at this point. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s cool to hear. I love behind-the-scene stuff. That’s cool to hear that. I think it’s cool for other people to hear that too because, like you said, they see the 15 minutes and they have no idea what has gone into that. The research that’s gone into it. It’s not just that there’s the research about the plant, then there’s all of the work we put into understanding cameras and video editing, and scripting, and just all of that. I have very little patience for the people. I get it very seldomly, but when people leave rude comments on YouTube or whatever, I’m just like, “You have no idea what has gone into this.” 

Matthew Hunter:

It is free also. Just saying. I’m not charging you to watch YouTube. I feel really pathetic because I have this—I say expensive—middle end camera, and I just put it on auto. I don’t even do—anybody who has a camera like that is probably fixing all the lighting and everything. I just put that sucker on auto and just go with it, so I have no-

Rosalee de la Forêt:

That’s where we’re at too. I’m an herbalist, not a camera technician. It’s my husband doing the camera stuff. Every time we pull it out, I’m like, “We should maybe learn this camera better,” but then I put it away again until next time, so it’s not high on the list. I’d rather research sassafras, honestly. Thanks for sharing the behind-the-scenes on that, and you’re definitely out of the awkward stage absolutely, Matthew. You’re doing an excellent job. I highly encourage everybody to check it out. Thanks for sharing that. Yes, I have watched. I don’t live in the southeast and I really love watching your videos. There’s lots of crossover with other plants and stuff, so I highly encourage folks to check it out. 

I have one last question for you, Matthew, before we head out on our ways, and that question is, “What do you wish you had known when you first started learning about plants?” 

Matthew Hunter:

I thought how I was going to answer this. I think one of the things—I’ll tell you a story. When I was—I don’t know how old I was. I was really in my early twenties, at this point, and I had been foraging for a number of years and I counted all the plants that I had consumed. In one way—maybe it was just one time I ate a leaf, but all the different wild plants or if not wild, things that I had found in landscaping or whatever. I came up with a list of I think over 300 plants that I had found in the wild, which sounds like a lot. Over time, any friend if you—any friend would call me an expert. Any friend would say I’m a walking encyclopedia on plants, but after ten years, I looked up and it’s so easy to feel like you’re so knowledgeable, like you’re an expert because of the number of plants that you’ve used, but I realized, one day, I’ve used this plant. I’ve used this. I’ve eaten this, so I feel like I’m qualified to talk on it. When you actually look at how much I know, so many of the plants it’s like one inch deep, like my knowledge is so limited.

I think one of the things that I would recommend to people who are just getting started is don’t worry about the number of plants. Everyone wants a book that has 200 plants in it, when really, if they had a book that had ten plants, they probably get a lot further. I think my recommendation would be: spend time researching each individual plant. This is from wild—obviously, I do a lot of wild harvesting. I actually try not to buy herbs. That’s just like a personal goal of mine. I want to know—it goes back to the survival aspect. I want to know what grows near me. I try to exclude all else. I do buy plants like herbs and stuff, but I try not to as much as I can. When you’re foraging, it’s like there’s so much to learn. You have the edible uses. For sassafras, you could look at how do you make the filé powder? What does sassafras taste like in a salad? Can I use the bark, the root bark and the leaves? What about the bark itself? What about the cinnamon substitute we talked about? How do I even make a—how do I make this taste good? With a lot of plants, does this work better as a fresh plant tincture or a dried plant tincture or infusion or decoction? What percentage alcohol works best? There’s like a million questions you can ask for just one single plant to really get to know it. If you spend—I think people would be better off spending their time doing deep dives on a handful of plants than trying to learn all these different plants. 

I think it was Michael Moore who had said something along the lines of “these expert herbalists.” He mentioned this I think in passing in one of his books how somebody, an expert herbalist, will really use the majority of their practice is 15 well-chosen plants. The point he was making is you can get a lot done with a few plants if you pick the right ones. There’s so much to learn about just one plant. Now, I try to have a target species where it’s like, “I’m going to focus on this and I’m going to consume this plant everyday,” and you’ll learn new things doing that on accident. I left a magnolia bark decoction overnight and the next—I noticed that the next day, it had this oil looking stuff floating on the surface. I felt like it was way more powerful by letting it sit overnight. I did that on accident because I was just using it, so I think that’s the best way: Pick a plant, stick to it or pick three plants and stick to them, and then wait a little while before you move on. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

I love that so much. It’s so true. In all of my courses, we have a plant we call “plant allies.” Someone chooses their plant ally for that course, whatever the time period might be. I tell people the same thing. You can go read about a plant. When you choose it as your plant ally, like what you’re suggesting—and you did such a great job illustrating all those different questions about sassafras. So many questions about using the different parts, the ways to work with it, medicinal preparations, and food, etc. There is so much to know about those plants that I tell people, “You’re going to become an expert in this plant way more than anything you’ll ever read in a book.” I love that example of the magnolia bark accident too. That’s fabulous. 

Yarrow is my plant ally this year. Yarrow is a plant I would say I know. I know yarrow so well. It grows everywhere here. I’ve worked with it countless times as medicine and I thought it would be fun to have a plant ally that I feel like I “know” because I’m going to be learning so much, and I already have just really focusing on that plant. I love that. Thank you so much. 

Matthew Hunter:

Yeah, it’s a lot of fun. I think it’s fun when you do that too. You just really—because there’s—it’s almost like anyone can be an expert on one plant. Someone who’s only been foraging for a year, but if they’ve only focused on that one plant, they’re an expert on yarrow or whatever the plant is so you can learn so much from doing that. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Absolutely. This has been just so much fun, Matthew. Thanks so much for being on the show. It’s been great talking to you. I’m sad it’s over, but I’m also like, “Well, I’m going to go watch your YouTube Channel some more,” so we’ll be hanging out more. 

Matthew Hunter:

I appreciate it. I know. You said you feel like you already knew me and I was like I could feel the same way because I’ve watched quite a few of your videos. I’ve been watching them for I don’t know how long now, probably over a year now at least. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Cool. Thank you so much. Thanks for being on the show. Thanks for all the awesome work you’re doing, spreading the plant word out there. Looking forward to hearing more from you. 

Matthew Hunter:

Thank you, again, so much. I’m very honored to be on your show. It’s definitely humbling being able to share a platform with so many herbalists that are just way more qualified than me, so I just want to, seriously, thank you and just tell you how much I appreciate it. 

Rosalee de la Forêt:

Thank you so much, Matthew. 

As always, thank you so much for being here. Don’t forget to download your beautifully illustrated recipe card above this transcript. Also sign up for my newsletter below, which is the best way to stay in touch with me. If you’d like to hear more from Matthew, definitely check out his YouTube Channel, Legacy Wilderness Academy. 

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I deeply believe that this world needs more herbalists and plant-centered folks, and I’m so glad that you’re here as part of this herbal community. Also, a big round of thanks to the people all over the world who make this podcast happen week to week:

Emilie Thomas-Anderson is the Project Manager who oversees the entire podcast operation from guest outreach, to writing show notes, and on and on. I often tell people I just show up! Emilie does most of the heavy lifting. 

Nicole Paull is the operator for the entire Herbs with Rosalee School and Community. She keeps an eagle eye view on everything to ensure it’s running smoothly. 

Francesca is our fabulous video and audio editor. She not only makes listening more pleasant. She also adds beauty to the YouTube videos with plant images and video overlays. Tatiana Rusakova is the botanical illustrator who creates gorgeous plant and recipe illustrations for us. I love them and I know you love them. Once the illustration is ready, Jenny creates the recipe cards, as well as the thumbnail images for YouTube. 

Alex is our behind-the-scenes tech support and Social Media Manager, and Karin and Emilie are our Student Services Coordinators and Community Support. If you’ve written in with a question, undoubtedly, you got help from them. For those of you who like to read along, Jennifer is who creates the transcripts each week. Xavier, my handsome French husband, is the cameraman and website IT guy. 

It takes an herbal village to make it all happen including you. Thank you so much for your support through your comments, reviews and ratings.

One of my very favorite things about this podcast is hearing from you. I read every comment that comes in and I’m excited to hear your thoughts. 

Okay. You’ve lasted to the very end of the show, which means you get a gold star and this herbal tidbit:

Did you know that sassafras is also a butterfly nursery? It’s a host plant for the spicebush swallowtail, which is a gorgeous black and blue butterfly that lays its eggs on sassafras leaves. The caterpillars that hatch out are just wildly clever. They actually mimic the heads of snakes to scare off predators. I mean, that’s some next level camouflage right there, then these little guys munch away on the leaves. They’re growing up safely tucked inside the folds before they do their transformation into the beautiful butterfly. While we may love sassafras for its rooty, aromatic magic, spicebush swallowtails love it for a completely different reason. It’s home. 

Thank you for joining me on this herbal adventure. I’ll see you next time. 

Hi, it’s Rosalee. If this podcast has brought you inspiration or grounded you in your love of herbs, I’d love to invite you to join the Podcast Circle. Your membership helps support the show and it gives you access to live herbal classes, exclusive resources, and a warm community of fellow plant lovers.

Learn more and join us at HerbalPodcastCircle.com. Your support truly helps this podcast thrive.

Thank you.