How to make: Placenta encapsulation

Sliced placenta

Steamed placenta

Dried placenta

Finely ground placenta

After a particularly stressful week I have never been so thankful for the hormonal support my placenta has been giving me. There was a small lapse in timing in-between finishing my course of smoothies and starting taking my placenta pills and, gosh, did I feel it. I was a hormonal mess for about a day and a half, but lo and behold as soon as I started taking my placenta pills I have been feeling calmer and centred again.

We made two different types of placenta pill, raw and steamed. The raw ones have more of a kick to them but the steamed ones keep better.

Instructions

(By M)

Raw:

• Wash the placenta, removing any bloodclots along with the membrane (a bit like removing the skin from a chicken breast)
• Finely slice the placenta – the finer the slices the faster it will dehydrate.
• Place on a foil-lined baking tray and pop in the oven on its lowest heat until fully dried (50C / 110F. You may have to prop the oven door open if it gets too hot – you're drying it, not cooking it). That means no pink bits, the pieces of placenta should snap when folded, not tear! This can take up to 8 hours, turn halfway through.
• Remove from the foil (some might take some persuading) and put in your pestle and mortar. You could probably use a coffee grinder, but traditional Chinese medicine says this creates too much energy (?) apparently. Besides, grinding it by hand is much more satisfying.

Steamed:

• See stage 1 of 'Raw' above.
• Place the placenta in a steamer above a pan of boiling water. Only fill with water to a couple of inches depth as you don't want it boiling over. Steam the placenta with some lemon, ginger and chilli.
• As for 'Raw' above, place in the oven on the lowest possible heat.
• Grind it!

Now to encapsulate your placenta powder… You can buy a specialist encapsulator but I used a folded piece of card to fill the capsules (think refilling a pot of glitter). It's a bit fiddly, but oddly therapeutic.

Yield-wise we got roughly 30 steamed and 40 raw. We did previously remove five thumbsize pieces for smoothies and a walnut sized piece for a tincture so you may well get more, dependant on placenta size of course. Keep refrigerated in a lidded jar and take 1-2 daily.