Growing Home - Rhubarb's Medicinal Roots

For thousands of years the Rhubarb and related species were grown in China for their medicinal roots, which was used as a laxative and a digestive remedy. Rhubarb roots became so valuable they were often worth more than cinnamon or opium. In the 1700s, sugar became affordable in Europe, so cooks began sweetening rhubarb’s sour stalks for desserts. Rhubarb leaves were never used because of concentrations of oxalic acid and other toxins. But Rhubarb stalks contain little oxalic acid making them edible, turning rhubarb into the familiar “pie plant.”