I’m not ashamed to say that I like root beer. There’s something about the herbal and woodsy flavors that I enjoy. It’s refreshing, but also a time machine. A sip of root beer brings me back to my childhood and makes me feel like a little kid again. More so than any other drink, it is classic Americana. And if I ever have the option of drinking root beer, I’ll choose it over any another soda. But as much as I love root beer, there’s one thing that really grinds my gears, gets my goat, and burns my bacon: A scientist stole my root beer.
Root beers by Justin Brower
Root beer has, in some way, shape, or form, been around for centuries. People undoubtedly mixed roots, berries, and herbs together in water to create teas and elixirs, either to make polluted water more palatable or as some sort of remedy. Throw in some sugar to make it go down easier and a little local yeast from, well, everywhere, and voila, you’ve got fermentation and beer. These types of drinks were popular in colonial America, and called “small beers” because of their low alcohol content, around 2%.
But the man that gets the glory for “inventing” root beer is Charles Hires, a pharmacist with an entrepreneurial spirit. Legend has it he was on his honeymoon and came across a tea that he particularly liked. Upon his return home he replicated the recipe and sold it as a “cure-all” elixir, which were all the rage at the time. His concoction was originally called root tea, but he renamed it root beer shortly before he displayed it at the 1876 Centennial Exposition*, supposedly to make it more appealing to the working class. Hey, it works for me. His genius came in not just selling root beer, but marketing it, and selling kits so that people could brew their own at home. Then in 1884 he made a liquid concentrate, a.k.a. syrup, so that people could skip the brewing process and “just add water.” This is still how we deliver and sell root beer and other sodas today.
* The 1876 Centennial Exposition is also famous for giving us Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, Remington’s typewriter, Heinz ketchup, and Kudzu, the invasive vine and scourge of the South.
So what’s the “root” in root beer? That would be the roots, and bark, of the Sassafras tree, and used in making America’s iconic root beer all the way up to 1960. Native to the Eastern United States, Sassafras albidum is a deciduous tree of medium height (~30 feet) that is often grown for its ornamental appearance and fragrance. In the fall the leaves turn spectacular shades of red and orange. In the woodsy wild, Sassafras trees are easy to identify because the leaves are shaped like mittens. Seriously. You’ve got a left and right handed mitten, and a double mitten, like for people with two thumbs on each hand. Just look at the photo, it’s easier that way.
Sassafras albidum leaves by Justin Brower
The fragrance of Sassafras comes from essential oils present in the roots and bark of the tree. Notable chemicals include aromatic compounds like α-pinene (pine scented, duh) and camphor (Vicks VapoRub) as well as possible hallucinogens thujone and myristicin – which you’ve read about here, of course. But the chemical getting all the glory, or the blame, is safrole – and if you remember your myristicin, you’d see that they look a lot alike.
Safrole is the primary constituent of Sassafras oil, but when reading about safrole and why it was originally banned from use in root beer, I see a lot of bad math, which I think propagates itself into other write-ups – without references of course. But here’s what I came up with, which is the absolute best case scenario for determining safrole concentration in Sassafras root, but also not an indicator of what you’d find in a steeped tea. I’ll explain.
Safrole
From 150 grams of ground Sassafras root a total of 0.68 grams (680 milligrams) of safrole was extracted using 3 liters of “petrol”, a low boiling mixture of hydrocarbons that dissolves non-polar (read: greasy) things, like safrole, giving a total percent yield of 0.4% safrole (1). And that’s coming from two sets of extracts: one that yields 0.44 grams of oil that is 90% safrole and one which is 4.87 grams of oil but only 6% safrole. What I often read is along the lines of: Sassafras contains ~3% essential oil of which 90% is safrole. It’s true that there is ~3% essential oil, but only one extract in this case is 90% safrole. If you do the math, you’d calculate that safrole makes up 2.8% of the total extracted oil. So right off the bat, people estimate safrole almost 10-times too high.
Enough math. The point I really want to make is that this is a best case scenario and not representative of a real world scenario. First, the above experiment is using ground Sassafras. And when I say ground I mean like coffee grounds. Second, they are extracting out safrole (and other oils) using a non-polar solvent. They have to, because safrole is insoluble in water. It is literally like oil in water. I don’t know how you make your Sassafras tea, but most people don’t have the ability to grind wood into a powder and they sure as hell aren’t mixing it with gasoline. So the amount of safrole extracted from small chunks of root in hot water? I don’t know, but I can guarantee you it’s much, much less than 0.4%, and likely more along the lines of 0.04%.
I’m actually getting a bit worked up. Can you tell? So why my fixation on safrole? Because some jackass thought it would be a good idea to feed it to rats and see what happens. And if your agenda is to show that safrole is toxic, feed them huge amounts. Like 0.5 grams per kilogram of body weight every day for 2 months (2). To obtain this much safrole naturally, the rat would have to eat it’s body weight in sassafras root every day. What happened? They established an LD50 (lethal dose for 50% of the population) in rats of 1950 mg/kg. They also saw liver damage and tumor formation, at high doses, due to safrole-DNA adducts attributed to a metabolite found in rats, 1′-hydroxysafrole (3).
Sassafras albidum leaf by Justin Brower
Liver damage and cancer is bad. Period. But obviously I’ve got some issues, at least that’s what everyone tells me. I hate the “scale-up game” between rats and humans. It just doesn’t work. Rats and humans aren’t the same, and we don’t metabolize things the same. With that said, to just give you an idea of the magnitude we’re talking about, if I wanted to consume 0.5 grams/kg of safrole, and assuming I can extract out 0.04% safrole from Sassafras root chunks in water, I’d need to boil up 170 pounds of sassafras root…in about 400 gallons of water. If I had to dig up 170 pounds of Sassafras root every day for 2 months I’d die from exhaustion long before the cancer got me. Now obviously you don’t want liver damage. Or cancer. I don’t even want an LD1, let alone an LD50. But hopefully you can see how ridiculous this is. But the best part is that hepatocarcinogenic metabolite, 1′-hydroxysafrole. Remember that one, the one that messes with the DNA? Well, it’s not even found in humans (4). Really? Seriously.
So we’re left with a chemical that’s insoluble in water, in already low concentrations, causes damage in rats at obscenely high amounts via a metabolite not even found in man. What’s the U.S. government to do? Ban it of course. In 1960 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration banned the addition of safrole in foods. Never mind that safrole is present in every day foods like cinnamon and basil. This bone-headed decision forced root beer brewers to abandon Sassafras roots and extracted oils, and instead turn toward other additives to make up for the flavor loss.
I know this is getting long, but there are two conspiracy theories out there regarding why the FDA banned safrole, and you know I love me some conspiracy theories:
- Cola companies, particularly Coca-Cola, was concerned that root beer was cutting into their sales and profit margins, and coerced the FDA into banning safrole to put the hurt on the brewers. This I could buy into, because Coca-Cola has butted heads with the FDA before. Around 1910 the FDA wanted Coca-Cola to stop adding caffeine to their products, and even sued them. Coca-Cola said “no”, flipped them the bird, and went about their merry way. So there is some history of big business having power over government.
- Safrole is a building block in the synthesis of MDMA, also known world wide as Ecstasy. In two easy steps (or less if you’re clever), you can synthesize a whole range of MDMA and related designer stimulant drugs. This has the negative effect of massive deforestation in Asian countries of safrole containing trees, with a large portion of it being funneled towards illegal MDMA manufacturing in China and the U.S. The problem with this theory though is that although MDMA has been known since the early 1900’s, and tested in humans in the 50’s, it wasn’t used as a recreational drug until the late Alexander Shulgin’s lab synthesized and tried it out in the early 80’s. Then in 1985 the DEA scheduled MDMA as a schedule-I drug. So the timing is a bit off for the FDA to become involved in the MDMA scene.
Throw in the fact that I can’t find any cases of people becoming ill, let alone developing cancer from drinking root beer or tea made from Sassafras root, despite being used for centuries, makes me think there were either some shenanigans going on at the FDA or some really bad science. I vote for bad science . . . with a dash of conspiracy.
So what does “real” root beer taste like? I have no idea…some scientist stole it from me.
Abita root beer by Justin Brower
References:
1. Sethi, Manohar L., Rao G. Subba, B.k. Chowdhury, J.f. Morton, and Govind J. Kapadia. “Identification of Volatile Constituents of Sassafras Albidum Root Oil.” Phytochemistry 15.11 (1976): 1773-775.
2. Hagan, Ernest C., Paul M. Jenner, Wm.i. Jones, O.garth Fitzhugh, Eleanor L. Long, J.g. Brouwer, and Willis K. Webb. “Toxic Properties of Compounds Related to Safrole.” Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology 7.1 (1965): 18-24.
3. Liu, T.y, C.c Chen, C.l Chen, and C.w Chi. “Safrole-induced Oxidative Damage in the Liver of Sprague–Dawley Rats.” Food and Chemical Toxicology 37.7 (1999): 697-702.
4. Benedetti, M., A. Malnoe, and A. Broillet. “Absorption, Metabolism and Excretion of Safrole in the Rat and Man.” Toxicology 7.1 (1977): 69-83.
Nature's Poisons 
You can buy sassafras root bark on Amazon.
When I was a kid, the old-timers still made and consumed sassafras tea in the spring. They would generally boil the entire root, rather than using just the root bark.
I remember it being pretty good. Definitely root beer-like, though not as complex in flavor as commercial root beer, which no doubt has other flavoring agents in it in addition to the sassafras (or whatever they use in place of it today).
I homebrew beer, so I’ll probably try my hand at root beer at some point. Maybe soon?
Root beers are so different from one another. The “Tommyknockers” brand shown in the lineup pic has maple syrup in it…not my cup o’ tea.
Thanks for the input and for reading!
Definitely worth trying your hand at!
We use this recipe — http://wellnessmama.com/11392/homemade-root-beer/ — though it’s a bit of an art. It’s fantastic, though, and makes the best root beer float, ever (and I’m picky about root beers). I’ve also happened across blogs of people who do it by creating the syrup then adding a tablespoon to carbonated water, though I haven’t tried that method.
That sounds interesting! I’m not on the ‘probiotic’ kick, but if you’re endorsing it, it’s worth a shot! Thanks for reading and the tip.
That is a great article as I am sipping on Sassafras and sumac tea tight now!!! I was laughing too!
Great story!
Thanks so much!
So, whats your favorite root beer? Mine is that Abita you posted a picture of at the end of the article.
It’s funny you say that . . . that’s mine, too. I don’t like lots of vanilla, or maple syrup, like that “Tommyknockers.”
Have you had Sprecher? It’s the best
I haven’t. Fortunately there’s a “soda shop” in town that sells at least a hundred different root beers (and other sodas too), so I’ll look for that one. Thanks for the tip.
Henry Winehard is my favorite
Pingback: Bookmarks for September 17th | Chris's Digital Detritus
Love this blog. Loved this entry. About a decade ago, my brother-in-law was able to get some sassafras root from some hippy store and we brewed it, sweetened it and pressurized it with CO2 from a canister (would be much easier these days with something like soda stream). Tasted really nice. I’d say and earthier, more complex flavor than A&W. Worth it? Just for the experience, I’d say yes, but we’ve not done it since as it was a bit of a hassle. Also, I’d blame the bureaucrats and not the scientists for taking your root beer away.
Thanks for the kind words and for reading! I do appreciate it.
I expect more from my fellow scientists, thus the blame. Bad science beget bad policy.
Most rootbeer flavouring now seems to be methyl salicylate, which I’d presume was much more lethal (reye’s?)
I’ve never tried proper rootbeer – mine too was stolen by scientists, but my favourite is the F&N’s Sarsi – Malaysian version (the chinese version doesn’t have enough flavouring)
Every root beer is different, just like the alcoholic beers.
And I have seen oil of wintergreen in root beers, but it’s so strong it’s used in very small amounts. I’m not a fan of that strong minty flavor.
And yes, methyl salicylate is pretty toxic. Much more so than safrole. I’ve got a post on related salicylic acid here (or just scroll down the homepage list a bit):
And thanks for reading!
There are number of folks in Lancaster County, PA, USA that make old-fashioned root beer and sell it along the road. Just a cooler, a cash box, and a sign.
In the one I get most frequently, the sassafras flavor is right up front. It’s fantastic.
I’ll look for it if I’m up that way. If I look hard enough I should probably be able to find some in the rural parts of NC too.
I might have to do some sassafras harvesting and brew some up myself.
Thanks for reading!
I think I ran across a gal who made rootbeer from the leaves (not in a commercial kitchen; had some effort raising those trees without enough wind.) She was keeping at finding the stressor to get more flavor, too. A plausible way to ‘make polluted water more palatable.’ Her nerves. It’s probably impossible to beat lychee flavor variants for throughput, though.
Interesting. Sassafras leaves – dried and ground – is file powder. And you can’t make gumbo without it.
Thanks for reading!
I don’t know where the taboo surrounding conspiracies came from. Maybe because the conspiracy theories we often hear are simply the nutty ramblings of mentally ill people. Or maybe because comic books have trained everyone into associating conspiracies with comical “Legion of Doom”, costume-wearing, dungeon-inhabiting baldies when they are a much more banal reality. All a conspiracy is is a deal made in secrecy between two or more people for their own benefit but to the detriment of others. Gee, like that NEVER happens. Ever hear of lobbying? You think lobbies are going to come out and tell you what they’re really lobbying for half the time? The lobbying of the FDA is a daily occurrence that is or should be common knowledge by now.
Think ephedra. Ooo, big scary ephedrine. A precursor to meth! The science there was all bull, too. The think to realize is that bad science is often done in the context of some ulterior motive (like Bush lying about WMDs in Iraq to justify war).
The thujone toxicity discovered for the purpose of banning absinthe – and it was based on completely shoddy science, paid for by french winemakers (who saw the mass popularity of the drink as a threat)…
Regarding safrole: So rat LD50 is 2 g/kg – this is truly alarming: sodium chloride rat LD50 is 3g/kg ! NaCl is bad for kidney, liver and cardiovascular system. And it makes cars rust.
Yeah, it’s a lot like thujone. Did you read that post? I guess the FDA, via the TTB, relaxed a bit on thujone and allow up to 10 mg/kg, but that’s still ridiculously low.
I thought about comparing safrole LD50 to something known, and narrowed it down to acetaminophen (2 g/kg) and salt (3), but I ended up cutting it out. So good call.
It’s a bad cycle too. What are the odds of a PI getting funding on a proposal to show that safrole is less toxic than believed? I’d say about as good as the FDA reversing its ban.
Comment from a distiller five years late:
The thujone limit isn’t terribly strict in practice. Much like your comment on water being a poor solvent for safrole, any practical recipe for absinthe hardly registers detectable thujone if it’s even measurable in the first place.
Good to know, thanks!
Pingback: There’s More Than One Way to Kill a Fish | Nature's Poisons
Dale Pendell I thing quoted in one of his books on plants and poisons’s that safrole is roughly comparable to being 15x less carcinogenic than ethanol…….
yeah, the FDA and DEA are both twisting the nut on this one…..still, the root/cortex is tolerated in whole form outside of being used as an ingredient for food processing.
The FDA made pappy’s sassafras syrup company remove the safole from their extract tea product…….nice thing is its real easy to put some back in.
amazing though how little of the root can make one feel like utter shit…..I can eat nutmeg with no problems, but a small chunk of sassafras is not much of a way to start the day.
my interest in this plant intersects the subject of reticuline/salutaridine isoquinoline compounds found in various plant materials…which to this opiophile is the holy grail of researching the amazing endogenous morphine/codeine biosynthetic pathway found in various mammals, reptiles, amphibians, and some invertebrates.
I noticed that a handful of herbs/plants that are well known foods/medicinal herbs contain reticuline/salutaridine, and just happens that almost , maybe all of them I have focused on are known in part as analgesics at least from folkloric/anecdotal perspectives. the production of morphine from l-tyrosine seems to carry on further from a similar production of dopamine from l-tyrosine.
I have pretty severe ADD issues, near narcolepsy, explosive violent behavior under pressure, panic attacks at night etc…..that is unless I am properly medicated with stimulants…..too bad I dropped out of college before finally approaching stimulant treatment at age 40, that until that point I self medicated with opiates that had a similar fix on the problem….but with more side effects and seem to worsen sleep issues and violent outbursts are not as well handled, the opiates did help with daytime somnolence very well.
reticuline and salutaridine containing plant materials at times have seemed to help to a degree…better than opium tincture at least, although initially not as enjoyable. kratom and or uncaria suffice if stimulant medication is problematic.
I assume that croton and sassafras to some degree may have analgesic effect due in part to isoquinoline alkaloids.
root beer is my favorite beverage next to a bad ass ginger beer….or one in the same, even better…..throw in some additional oroxyline a component is thee best.
great article sir….
BTW ,have you any knowledge into the subject of feeding studies and the subject of reticuline/salutaridine and endogenous morphine production in the body or possible influence production in the brain? (besides white blood cell production via sepsis)
No, I don’t. I’m just familiar with reticuline/salutaridine as natural products found in opium poppy. But my guess is that our body won’t convert them to morphine, we just don’t have the same enzymes as the poppy for the biosynthesis.
Thanks for reading, and for the Dale Pendell tip, I wasn’t familiar with him or his works.
A few days ago I try Pappy’s–now called Ancient Infusions–sassafras tea (safrole-free). I love the flavor, we’re refreshing and mildly minty, and I only have to use about a third of the sugar I do with coffee, but unfortunately I feel terrible after drinking it for about 24 hours. There must be something else besides safrole that has bioactive effects. Perhaps eugenol and camphor. Unfortunately I bought six bottles–I didn’t see the two bottle offering, although six bottles is more economical, satisfying to know when I throw it out. I’d give it away but I’m afraid to inflict that it on someone else.
I would think that Safrole could very well be carcinogenic- although I am not sure about the amount that was used in root beer and what kind of effect it would truly have.
When you hydrolyze Safrole, which can happen in acidic conditions (upon consumption), it results in two products: a diol and formaldehyde. Maybe hearing “Safrole is a carcinogen” is not very convincing, however I believe that formaldehyde is much more well known as a carcinogen- at least personally. Perhaps drinking root beer with Safrone would never a cause a problem- however using my knowledge of chemistry, it seems that classifying it as a carcinogen is not completely unjustified.
https://mrc.ukri.org/news/browse/toxic-formaldehyde-is-produced-inside-our-own-cells/
Dr Patel said: “Surprisingly, although the body produces this violently toxic formaldehyde, it then converts it into something that can be used to fuel the one-carbon cycle. So, something toxic is converted into something useful to the body, to make certain amino acids and DNA. Folate and formaldehyde have two faces: a beneficial side because they provide the chemical buildings blocks for cells to live and grow, and a dangerous side because formaldehyde can damage DNA.”
I was just on a business trip to Toronto where I discovered a Canadian brew called ‘Babbling Brook’s Root Beer’. It uses an old recipe that includes sassafras root and it’s amazing. It’s only available at the Nickel Brook brewery and a few local stores and restaurants, but it’s hands down my favorite root beer out of the 98 different brews I’ve tried.
I grew up on sassafras bend on the Tippicanoe river..we drank it almost daily throughout the summer and often in the winter and my father is almost 90 and no side effects… in fact no one in my family has suffered any of the supposed side effects…..nor any of the neighbors who drank it regularly too… it’s a hoax
Loving that ol fashion sassafras root beer here. Thanks so much for the article. Just a thought, suppose people started making themselves healthy for free, hmmm who would become irrelevant from this? Hundreds of our of work rats at the FDA.
If you want to try it, just go anywhere in the east and dig up some of the roots (saplings are of course easiest). I lived in Maryland and they were everywhere. Wash and peel the roots and boil them in water. The water will quickly turn red and you’ll have a root beer flavored tea. Used to do this when I was younger and when I lived somewhere they grew – not too often though, since it’s quite a physical effort to dig up the roots.
Fabulous article! I grew up in Indiana, with very fond memories of actually buying it in the local grocery store in little baggies displayed prominently in the produce section. Thanks to this wonderfully written and well substantiated article, I’m proud to report that I’m going back on the Sassafras train! Cheers…
I was demonstrating at a pioneer village, and someone asked me if I was making sassafras tea over the fire. I replied no, that I often did, but this time I had roasted my own coffee beans, so i was making coffee. The lady was elderly, probably in her 70s or early 80s. She told me that her mother had been one of 9 children. The local Dr. told her grandmother that if she would promise to give her children one cup of sassafras tea every day, he would treat them for free whenever they got sick. I asked her if her mom had ever gotten sick, and she said “Not very often.”
As a child I lived in the mountains of Appalachia (late 50’s) . Myself and a couple of friends used to search out small sassafras trees for the roots. We would take the roots home, wash, then boil them to make tea. I drank that tea all winter each year. I loved the taste, and especially enjoyed the pleasant aroma. I didn’t often get sick as a child, and I seldom ever get sick now either. I noticed the root beer had changed a few years back, but didn’t know why. Someone told me they had outlawed sassafrass. Rootbeer made any different than with the sassafras root is just NOT Rootbeer. Sorry, they should call it “imitation” Rootbeer soda! Like with most things, greed took over, tradition and quality soon went by the wayside in favor of the “almighty” dollar!
Sassafras root bark is available online. I buy it and keep it in the freezer, and when I’m ready to steep me some tea, I drag it out and fire up the hot water. I make it really strong so I can make a syrup out of it [1 c. very strong sassafras tea to 3 c. sugar; add a little corn syrup to keep it from crystallizing]. Add to your favorite root beer…or drizzle over your vanilla ice cream for an “up-side-down rootbeer float”!
Pingback: The Trouble with Thistles | Nature's Poisons
Interesting read. As a teenager I worked as a icecream shop soda jerk, did all the ordering and loved working with 10 beautiful girls, that were dressed in 1920s, period dress, with the old marble, soda fonts, and coke syrup. Until, coke banned their syrup for sale. (The sweetness ratio was a valve adjustment for the machine. By color matching under a microscope, you adjusted the sweetness. That adjustment took place every few months. Today Mc Donaldz runs a sweeter mix, a little like the “New Coke” (a mix fiasco 1970-1980s).(dont mess with my coke)(I think they feared Pepsi,as pepsi started making headway.) My wife loves Mc Donalds Coke. Now theres a sugar tax effecting all softdrinks in Seattle. How about the crazy ban on larger size big gulps in NY. My son and I proudly purchase our 500 oz mugs, Rediculousness. Back in the day, ZCMI still ran a soda jerk for the sodas but everything else changed to a button nozzle dispenser. Iron port, Sasspirilla, Snelgroves Icecream, hot fudge sundays,… I have been trying to reproduce those flavors ever since, the best of the best. It was 1920s style for the 1970s. Snelgroves was sold to Bryers, who changed everything. Bryers doesn’t come close to the creamy excellence that Snelgroves once was.
Fernwoods Icecream would sell Rootbeer by the gallon in glass bottles, back in those days. Snelgroves son tried starting up an icecream shop, called Snellies but got in trouble with briars for infringment. That would have been a excellent resource. Farrs, keeps tradition going.
Marie Calanders went after Canyon Racket Club for copying there menu, and pie recipies. The owner owned both. There is no secret to making good food, or Mrs fields chocolate chip cookies, except what they usually forget, fresh ingrediants being number one. The real beauty is we can drink or make what ever we want as long as it only effects ourselves. Coke has taken over water purification for the world. The problem is something in their filteration, that even effects their Desani Water. It can cause lower back pain.
With so many foods and flavors, waiting to be tried, and natural flavors are always better in my book. I just dont know if I have ten years to wait for a saspirilla tree to grow. Love these rootbeer experiments. Much healthier than making moonshine, east coast secret ingrediant, adding bannana peels to mellow the flavor. Trick of my old Southern friends. I like old fashioned rootbeer myself, thats why I am here, I am a Utah Boy…Icecream and rootbeer, are staples of the desert dry State.
Hi Justin! Thanks for the great article. I’m an herbalist and I’ve been researching Sassafras root for hormonal issues. I feel the same way as you from what I’ve learned so far, seems to be unfairly demonized.
I can’t wait to read some of your other articles. Thank you!
Truly excellent – and highly entertaining – article Justin. Thank you for taking the time to focus your experienced and erudite organically chemical mind on this.
We are looking to tap into the power of Mother Sassafras so have been deep diving research into this. you have provided the most enlightening piece so far…alongside this cornucopia of all things Sassy:
https://sassafrasandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/FDA%20invitation%20to%20reconsider
https://sassafrasandhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/hallucinogen
The whole site is a treasure trove.
You may also find this well written piece of interest:
https://planetherbs.com/research-center/theory-articles/notes-on-herb-drug-and-herb-herb-contraindications/
Thank you again for both the article and your site…and for your generous sprinkling of humour – methinks you may have English blood flowing in your veins!
I’ll be in touch via email as i’d welcome having a deeper dive with you…and maybe even sourcing you some fresh made NC root beer – old stylee, once we set up! ; )
Respect
MS
Always happy to help and entertain.
I don’t think I’d be quite so cavalier about safrole, logical though your arguments may be. I offer the following for consideration:
1. Extraction of plant tissues with hydrocarbon solvent is not necessarily very effective. It’s a situation very unlike putting safrole (or whatever) in a beaker and pouring in your favorite organic solvent. Instead, unless you’ve thoroughly disrupted the cellular structure (highly unlikely in the case of coffee ground consistency), you’re asking the safrole (or whatever) to partition across cell membranes and walls, some of which may be partially or extensively hydrated. This can be a very inefficient process. Ergo, the estimation of safrole content from a hydrocarbon extract may be way low.
2. I’ve seen teas, prepared from plant material, which have a floating oil slick. Oil slick = hydrophobic constituents likely to be water insoluble … but nevertheless they are being expressed from the plant tissues in sufficient quantity to generate a visible phase.
3. Likewise, insolubility will not necessarily prevent absorption of those “insoluble” constituents once that drink is ingested. Otherwise you’d be able to drink a pint of pure safrole with no ill effect … something I wouldn’t recommend trying. I’ll go out on a limb (but a pretty sturdy one) by saying that gastric and intestinal absorption are poorly understood. Maybe, as a previous poster suggested, the methylenedioxy function is hydrolyzed to formaldehyde in the gastric milieu … that wouldn’t require absorption at all.
Personally, I wouldn’t make sassafras tea a daily, or even weekly, part of my diet. (Which is a shame, since there is scads of sassafras growing on my property.) But that’s just me… Now, whether the substance should be banned is a whole other question…
We have sassafras trees on our land and I’ve smelled the root bark and love the smell. Crushed leaves smell good too.
One time I made root beer using a commercial root beer syrup but I messed up BIG TIME! I put the yeast in to carbonate it with ALL OF THE SUGAR [rather than with a small amount after sweetening with an artificial sweetener. It was in 2-l. glass bottles from our soda purchases [a long time ago!]. Then I want from our home in WV on a business trip to LA and while I was gone, The bottles exploded making a sticky mess! My Beloved, Shirley told me about it when I got back. Later I repeated the process with only enough sugar for carbonation and as I recall, it was ok.
Pingback: Don’t Give Your Elephant LSD; But Grow Some Opium In Your Backyard! – U.S. Marijuana Party Kentucky
Pingback: Don’t Give Your Elephant LSD; But Grow Some Opium In Your Backyard! | USMjParty Indiana
Pingback: Don’t Give Your Elephant LSD; But Grow Some Opium In Your Backyard! | Sheree Krider is in Kentucky!
Pingback: Don’t Give Your Elephant LSD; But Grow Some Opium In Your Backyard! | U.S. Marijuana Party
Pingback: Don’t Give Your Elephant LSD; But Grow Some Opium In Your Backyard! | ShereeKrider.Com
Pingback: Don’t Give Your Elephant LSD; But Grow Some Opium In Your Backyard! – Elissa Maple
Pingback: Don’t Give Your Elephant LSD; But Grow Some Opium In Your Backyard! – Nikki Wirth
Pingback: Root Beer and MDMA: Degrees of Separation - Truffle Report %
Same story for Moxie. Once a bestselling soft drink, it’s now brewed and sold only in Maine, thanks to persistent FDA ingredient persecution–and I believe is now owned by…Coca Cola,
I know this is old but thank you for the article! Very informative. I’d like to try to make homemade root beer and had read about safrole and cancer so I’m glad I found this. I also appreciate the writer’s sense of humor!
I recently found a crop of these a year ago, healthy enough I didn’t feel bad stealing some roots from the tree. I just cleaned the root, boiled it for a good while. The water turns the color of rootbeer – a light brown that’s closer to a translucent dark magenta.
Some add wintergreen, cinnamon, thickening agents, other stuff, but I find if you just heat a small amount of the dark magenta extract, add white sugar to taste allowed to dissolve then cool, add then unflavored carbonated water – the best rootbeer I’ve ever had