Acorns in medical treatment

There are all kinds of home remedies you can use but tannin can be better than witch hazel, calamine lotion, cold compresses, baking soda, or Benadryl because it’s free and easy to make.  That’s always good for a SHTF situation. 

I’ve written that acorns can be a good food to eat and the California Indians used them as a staple in their diet.  In order to eat them you need to process them to remove the tannins.  What about the tannins?  After you process them to eat you have tannin which is very valuable in medical treatment.  Perhaps you don’t want to eat acorns but instead just want to utilize the tannins. 

Tannin can be found in many plants.  It’s found in acorns but also in the bark of trees, plantain, strawberry leaves, and blackberry stems to name a few.  When processing acorns to eat you crush them and pour water over them to leach out the tannins.  When collecting tannins, instead of pouring water over to leach out the tannins you soak the crushed acorns (or other crushed material) in water.  The longer you soak the more tannins you will have.  You can also boil the material if you have the heat source.  Either strain this tea to use or let the material sink to the bottom of your container and use the liquid.

For the following treatments use the tea, or liquid, that you’ve made from leaching the tannins. 

Burns:  Pour cooled tea tannin on the burned area.  Moisten your gauze or bandage with the tannin.  Apply as a compress.  Remoisten as needed.

Diarrhea:  Drink the tea.  It tastes bad but will help! 

Insect bites, chicken pox, rashes and fungal infections, anything that itches:  Wash the affected area with the tea to relieve the itching. In some cases you should be able to soak the affected part to get rid of the itch and to help it heal.  You can also apply as a compress.

Try tannins.  They work and are free!