Borago officinalis - Borage - Starflower

One of my most cherished flowers and garden herbs is borage, a plant I discovered a few years ago when I noticed it was one of the key ingredients in some Omega 3-6-9 oil capsules I was taking at the time (Life brand, fair quality). For some reason the Life brand omega 3-6-9 capsules gave me a bit of a perk and made me feel better than most of the other brands I had tried, so I checked the labels and the only difference between them was that the Life brand contained borage oil.

So I did a little research.

And then I decided to pick up some seeds and grow some myself.

Borage leaves have a taste that is very similar to cucumber, and because of this they're often used in salads and dressings. Sometimes I make tzatziki sauce and substitute borage leaves for cucumber. While the sauce turns out greener than it would have if I'd used cukes, it's just as tasty and nutritious as regular tzatziki sauce, maybe more so.

Borage flowers, or blue starflowers, are sweet and edible. They are one of the only non-poisonous flowers on earth that are naturally blue and as such have been used since ancient times as a culinary accent or garnish, especially on cakes or desserts. I garnish scrambled eggs and omelettes with starflowers (like the calendula and heart's ease omelette, below), usually for summer morning breakfasts. It feels kind of weird to snack on flowers at first but they're quite good, the petals and sugary sweet pollen crystals kind of melt on the tongue.

(I started eating flowers when I was 12 and found a book at the library about foraging for food. There was a recipe for sauteed wild tigerlily blooms and tubers in butter and ohhh man I just had to make it... and ohhhhh man it was so good! Tigerlilies have been my favourite flower ever since).





As for medicinal properties borage is a systemic anti-inflammatory, particularly endocrine inflammation, which tends to be the area of my body my immune system depends on to compensate against infections. When I get a staph infection it causes systemic inflammation, which causes meningeal inflammation, which causes endocrine inflammation (like dominoes). When I take borage oil it calms my central nervous system by reducing systemic inflammation, particularly endocrine inflammation. I can literally feel chemicals doing happy things to my uterus and others bits when I take borage oil. Starflower's effects on the endocrine system are probably the reason why it's recommended for women who suffer from PMS and also for men who suffer from endocrine disorders; it soothes an otherwise excited endocrine system.

That said, while borage is delicious I've noticed that I become photosensitive and over a long period of time (6+ months) I experience some kidney discomfort when I ingest it regularly.

Borage may ease inflammation, endocrine disorders and related emotional anxiety, but it's hard on the eyes, skin and kidneys. Because of this I don't take it in excess or over a prolonged period of time. I'm not sure why but I have the same photosensitive reaction to St. John's Wort (which has never worked for me) and chamomile (which I drink only because I like the taste of it).

Like lupins and sunflowers, borage is very good at removing heavy metals from contaminated soil. They can also absorb radioactive waste. Because of this lupins and genetically modified sunflowers were planted by the thousands around the nuclear disaster site at Chernobyl, Ukraine. Using beneficial plants to absorb toxic waste from soil is known as heavy metal and radioactive waste phytoextraction or phytoremediation.

Borage plants are very efficient at removing toxic waste from the soil but because they are small and delicate they don't have a substantial bio-mass (they're not big enough), so they can't absorb a high volume of waste. But for backyard gardens with moderate to little heavy metal toxicity borage is both an excellent companion plant and delicious medicinal and culinary herb.

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