Cutting wood with poison vine on it

[freeasaburt]

I occasionally make a cup of tea by just pouring hot water over fresh young leaves that i picked. I use a small tea pot with a holder for the leaves. It's not bad, and supposed to be healthy. I generally don't drink a lot of tea, though.

 

[Mad Professor]

Mine was purely some urushiol I didn't get off my forearm. She had a blotchy rash for a couple of weeks.

My skin: no blemishes at all. Yes. She was most unhappy 'bout that.

Here's another challenge for you guys: Stinging nettles.
They don't bother me. I can feel 'em, but it's more like a really soft scratching with a mildly unpleasant tingle. I get no rash or strong feeling from them, either. I don't think I'd like to wade through them naked, but I can literally load them up by the bare armful without any problems.

You can eat those and are quite nutritious. Boiling removes the irritant effect. Provides a complete protein, all essential amino acids, 37% of calorie content.

"Contains Many Nutrients

Stinging nettle’s leaves and root provide a wide variety of nutrients, including (1):

• Vitamins: Vitamins A, C
  and K, as well as several B vitamins
• Minerals: Calcium, iron,
  magnesium, phosphorus, potassium and sodium
• Fats: Linoleic acid,
  linolenic acid, palmitic acid, stearic acid and oleic acid
• Amino acids: All of the essential amino acids
• Polyphenols: Kaempferol,
  quercetin, caffeic acid, coumarins and other flavonoids
• Pigments: Beta-carotene, lutein,
  luteoxanthin and other carotenoids

What’s more, many of these nutrients act as antioxidants inside your body."

Quercetin has been used to treat Covid

https://www.nutritionvalue.org/Stin...rthern_Plains_Indians)_nutritional_value.html

 

[fields_mj]

Myself, I can string trim poison ivy wearing shorts, just getting covered with the juices. I routinely rip it out with my bare hands, and I have no concerns whatsoever for getting a rash. It's just another weed to me. My wife has another opinion, however. I gave her a rash one time from the juices I didn't get adequately removed! Yeah. That made me real popular! She reminded me of that today, and it was about 25 years ago.

My wife and I had a similar experience when we were dating (ie 20 years ago). I had been hanging deer stands and clearing shooting lanes. I pulled some out of a tree that I had hung a stand in. I don't normally get it, and when I do I only get it a little. She's HIGHLY allergic. I didn't get all of it off of me before I got back to the house. She wound up with it in an area that is otherwise normally covered by clothing.... She was not pleased at all. I tried reminding her how much fun she was having at the time just to offer another perspective and try to cheer her up. My remarks were not well received at the time....

 

[sean donato]

Mine was purely some urushiol I didn't get off my forearm. She had a blotchy rash for a couple of weeks.

My skin: no blemishes at all. Yes. She was most unhappy 'bout that.

Here's another challenge for you guys: Stinging nettles.
They don't bother me. I can feel 'em, but it's more like a really soft scratching with a mildly unpleasant tingle. I get no rash or strong feeling from them, either. I don't think I'd like to wade through them naked, but I can literally load them up by the bare armful without any problems.

It's akin to handling fiberglass to me, mildy irritating, not enough to be bothersome, but enough to know I put my hands in it. I don't try to get in it if I can help it. Wife says it's like being stabbed by a thousand needles.

 

[pdqdl]

The most active ingredient in the stinging nettles is formic acid. This is also the stuff used by a lot of ants when stinging.

 

[HumBurner]

It's akin to handling fiberglass to me, mildy irritating, not enough to be bothersome, but enough to know I put my hands in it. I don't try to get in it if I can help it. Wife says it's like being stabbed by a thousand needles.

That's what fiberglass feels like to me. I call it "itchulation", when dealing with fiberglass insulation.

 

[HumBurner]

The most active ingredient in the stinging nettles is formic acid. This is also the stuff used by a lot of ants when stinging.

Is that also what produces the vinegar smell if you crush an ant?

 

[HumBurner]

You can eat those and are quite nutritious. Boiling removes the irritant effect. Provides a complete protein, all essential amino acids, 37% of calorie content.

"Contains Many Nutrients

Stinging nettle’s leaves and root provide a wide variety of nutrients, including (1):

• Vitamins: Vitamins A, C
  and K, as well as several B vitamins
• Minerals: Calcium, iron,
  magnesium, phosphorus, potassium and sodium
• Fats: Linoleic acid,
  linolenic acid, palmitic acid, stearic acid and oleic acid
• Amino acids: All of the essential amino acids
• Polyphenols: Kaempferol,
  quercetin, caffeic acid, coumarins and other flavonoids
• Pigments: Beta-carotene, lutein,
  luteoxanthin and other carotenoids

What’s more, many of these nutrients act as antioxidants inside your body."

Quercetin has been used to treat Covid

https://www.nutritionvalue.org/Stin...rthern_Plains_Indians)_nutritional_value.html

Just fyi, in many people, stearic acid causes nutrient uptake issues. Quite interesting as a good majority of vitamins/supplements contain it.


This is akin to how oxalic acid (largely an issue with spinach, but present in all greens) inhibits uptake of minerals/vitamins.

 

[pdqdl]

Is that also what produces the vinegar smell if you crush an ant?

It's a similar molecule, but not the same. Vinegar is acetic acid, which is plain old two-carbon alcohol (ethanol) with an extra oxygen tacked onto the end. This is a carboxylic acid, which means one of the carbons has both an oxygen doubly bonded and an -OH (alcohol) group attached.

Formic acid is just one carbon short of that, just like methyl alcohol is one carbon short of ethanol. When you smell them, it is the "acid" end that you are smelling.

Fun stuff: The longer the carbon chain, the smell changes. A common ingredient of vomit, rancid butter, and dog poop is butyric acid. This is the same stuff as described above, except with 4 carbons. I have about 250ml of that at my shop, in the odd event that I need to make someplace smell really vile. A couple of cc's of that stuff will ruin everyone's visit to where ever it might have been "spilled". It is truly repugnant stuff.

Many of the fruity, pleasant flavors that we encounter come from the esters, which add an oxygen into the middle of one of those carbon chains.

 

[cumminstinkerer]

My wife and I had a similar experience when we were dating (ie 20 years ago). I had been hanging deer stands and clearing shooting lanes. I pulled some out of a tree that I had hung a stand in. I don't normally get it, and when I do I only get it a little. She's HIGHLY allergic. I didn't get all of it off of me before I got back to the house. She wound up with it in an area that is otherwise normally covered by clothing.... She was not pleased at all. I tried reminding her how much fun she was having at the time just to offer another perspective and try to cheer her up. My remarks were not well received at the time....

had that same issue when cutting jalapeno peppers, got myself in a covered area as well, apparently that stuff hangs on a while cuz it made a transfer to internal parts too, wow talk about wound up on that one