Quercetin

Hate you Rockefeller Part 13

Looking one day for what are the natural sources of Quercetin, I read that this substance is produced in great quantity in the skin of red onions. Since a large number of onions pass through my kitchen, this was too good to be true. In modern bio-chemical terms, Quercetin is a potent flavonoid with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. Many of us first heard of Quercetin in the dark days of 2020 as a molecule that will help you stay healthy during flu season. Vitamin D became my #1 molecule after all the shenanigans of 2020 and 2021. But Quercetin was still in the top 10. Seeing that a bottle of Quercetin tablets was $38, I wondered if maybe there weren’t a way to make some at home.

I generally dislike the idea of ingesting single molecules as a way to stay healthy. I think Nature’s intelligence is vastly superior to our modern science, and Nature just NEVER makes foods that are single molecules. So if there were an easy enough way for me to extract Quercetin along with whatever other substances it naturally occurs with, I would rather take that combo than a single isolated molecule, especially if that molecule were created in a chemical factory half way around the world.

Take off the outer dried skins of the red onion, chop them up a bit and put into a jar. For this adventure I did this only with organic onions. Over a few weeks the jar is “full enough” as we say in the home chemistry business. Pour in some organic vodka to cover. Every few days give it a shake. After a few weeks, done. The skins have become quite thin and translucent and lost much of their original color.

As you could imagine, the results are a beautiful red. This is juice. A little reading informs me that this concoction was well known over the centuries as a healthy tonic. In the past the skins were steamed in not too hot water for a few hours, and the beautiful water drunk. I do not know what other molecules are present in addition to the Quercetin, but I do not really care at this point. I have not done enough homework to know what studies were done on the isolated molecule, so I cannot weigh in on what about all the other red onion molecules that come along with. I like red onions. They are my long-standing friends. It’s well worth the try.

Have you ever noticed that most, and I mean MOST single molecules that are produced as medicines are pure white crystals. Each of these pure white powders is given its own fake color, which has NOTHING to do with its function. It still blows me away that MOST of our medicines are made in giant factories using harsh chemicals and feedstocks petroleum. We take the blackest of the black from under the ground, which is by the way very, very poisonous to us, and we do all kinds of chemistry to it making it into a white powder.

I’m learning as quick as I can about making my own helps for the daily bruises and imbalances of daily life. Like Comfrey. I love the power of Comfrey. Nature, which truly does provide powerful healing through plants & fungi, almost never produces anything that is white. Each food or root or leaf or flower has colors, which are meaningful, they are not arbitrary. I know that red onion skins are red, or purple, actually, for a reason that is not arbitrary. The color is one of the attributes to tell us there’s some good stuff in there to help us through the winter.

Speaking chemistry and white powders, I put a few grains of citric acid into one glass of the red onion extract, and a few grains of baking powder into the other. Naturally derived colors are often very dependent upon pH. The citric acid did nothing to the beautiful color. The baking soda immediately turned it a dull brown.