{"id":239,"date":"2026-08-01T17:04:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T22:04:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/?p=239"},"modified":"2026-08-20T16:19:03","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T21:19:03","slug":"food-medicine-or-poison-understanding-relationships-between-apazote-dysphania-ambrosioides-and-communities-across-guatemala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lacisreview.lacis.wisc.edu\/?p=239","title":{"rendered":"Food, Medicine, or Poison?: Understanding Relationships Between Apazote (Dysphania Ambrosioides) and Communities Across Guatemala"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Food, Medicine, or Poison?: Understanding Relationships Between Apazote (Dysphania Ambrosioides) and Communities Across Guatemala<\/h1>\n\n\n

Tabitha Faber<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"Two
Two apazote plants that were growing side-by-side in the commercial field of one family from San Juan Sacatep\u00e9quez. Image credit: Tabitha Faber. 1\/27\/2022.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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One of the hallmarks of colonialism, and of Western hegemony embedded within colonialism, is the impulse to essentialize<\/em> in order to assimilate<\/em>. Ideas, technologies, and lifeways from other cultures are broken down to their smallest parts to more easily integrate them into one totalizing Western framework. One framework, though, cannot hold the vast amount of information\u2014and its associated contexts\u2014needed to understand even seemingly simple things. Even things as simple as one stinky \u2018weed\u2019.

The stinky\u2014or, rather, aromatic\u2014\u2018weed\u2019 in question is the plant species Dysphania ambrosioides<\/em>. D. ambrosioides <\/em>is known in various areas of the world as epazote, mastruz, American wormseed, Mexican tea, paico, m\u2019khinza, or one of many other names. In Guatemala, where my research is based, pretty much everyone knows the plant as apazote.

<\/em>Depending on which aspect of the global literature on apazote you encounter, you will find very different representations of the plant. Cookbooks and Internet recipes claim certain dishes must have apazote for un sabor aut\u00e9ntico<\/em> (Marks; Logan et al.). Some Latin medicinal floras include apazote, though usually as a footnote, implying a lack of cultural importance (Estrada-Castill\u00f3n et al.; Molares and Ladio; Silva et al.). There\u2019s a huge body of ethnopharmacology literature that examines the disease-fighting potential of the plant\u2019s essential oil (Kasali et al.; Stappen et al.; Singh and Pandey). Then again: there are casefiles of people, especially young children, getting sick or dying after having apazote administered as a medicine (reported from Morocco: Hazim et al.; Badinga et al.; and Latin America: Alonso-Castro et al.). There is an absolutism to each of these representations: apazote is a food to be embraced, or<\/em> a medicine to be investigated, or<\/em> a poison to be avoided.

However, underlying this literature about perceptions<\/em> of apazote is literature examining aspects inherent to the plant itself. Taxonomically, botanists recognize that the species we call Dysphania ambrosioides<\/em> is likely a species complex, or a wide range of genetically diverse plants grouped under one name (Uotila et al.). Relatedly, other studies have examined the chemistry of D. ambrosioides<\/em>, which includes at least seven distinct chemical phenotypes or \u201cchemotypes\u201d (Owolabi et al.). One of the chemical constituents thought to be the most medicinally active, ascaridole, has been found to compose anywhere from 0% to 87% of the plant\u2019s essential oil (Dembitsky et al.; MacDonald et al.; Barros et al.). Essentializing apazote as simply a food, medicine, or poison ignores the inherent diversity of the plant \u2013 and thus best practices when using the plant.

This literature represents global perceptions and examinations of apazote, though largely from a Western perspective. My work examines these same factors within Guatemala, a small but incredibly diverse country in terms of culture, language, and ecology. The central question: how diverse is apazote, the plant as well as its cultural construction, within this one geographic area?

I traveled to Guatemala for the first time between January and February 2022. Traveling with my friend and colleague Angelita Montejo, who is from Guatemala\u2019s western department of Huehuetenango, we focused on interviewing a variety of people about their personal relationships with apazote. We talked with people ranging from Kaqchikel farmers who grew apazote for sale across the country, Tzutujil mothers who relied on apazote as una gran medicina<\/em> for themselves and their children, and Ladino <\/em>chefs who associated apazote with their grandmothers\u2019 black beans.[1]<\/a>

Diverse perspectives certainly show through in these first interviews, and a few common threads stand out. One: while not everyone had names for it, apazote was described as having a wide range of appearances. In some interviews, people described these \u201cclasses\u201d of apazote by the color of the stem (Chavac, Sequen, and Chikival, pers. comm.), the shape and size of the leaves (Tacatic and Yotz et al, pers. comm.), or the number of seeds the plant produced (Yotz et al, pers. comm.). Others simply acknowledged that apazote could look very different, but everyone agreed you could always tell that a plant was apazote by the smell \u2013 apazote always had a distinctive smell. The ways these observations bear on the question of apazote diversity have interesting implications for how uses are (or are not) correlated to inherent differences in individual plants.

Two: people interviewed who live in el campo<\/em> claimed that fresh apazote had the same smell, flavor, and medicinal use as the dried plant. Meanwhile, the series of professional chefs, all Ladinos, described very <\/em>stark differences and held strong opinions about when to use each one. One woman explained that the way the plant is dried may have an effect\u2014in her experience, apazote dried in the sun loses its flavor, while apazote dried slowly in the shade keeps its distinctive smell (Mendoza, pers. comm.). If the smell and flavor of the plant really changes, what about its medical efficacy?

How apazote processing may affect its chemistry (and thus use) bears heavily on the last point: every person in every interview mentioned that today, apazote is more difficult to grow and more difficult to find. People who do not grow their own apazote often resort to buying it in local markets, but even there it is becoming less common and more expensive. Some people are coping with a scarcity of apazote by drying the plant to keep it around longer (Sequen, Mendoza, Batz\u2019, pers. comm.), while others are simply not using the plant as often. With the decline of apazote, are plants with certain characteristics more susceptible to whatever mechanisms are causing the plant\u2019s decline? What uses are declining alongside the plant? Clearly, with these first conversations, many questions have already been raised.

One facet of the legacy of colonialism is an attempt to reject difference in favor of creating a simplified singular \u201ctruth\u201d, where one authoritative body can approve or deny alternative ways of understanding. When we instead reject this absolutism in favor of approaching incongruity with curiosity, we can see a multiplicity of understandings as reflecting a multi-faceted truth. Through this work, we see that apazote does not cleanly \u201cfit\u201d as a food, medicine, or<\/em> poison; instead, we begin to understand when apazote is best understood as each of these, individually or simultaneously, and celebrate relationships where people intimately understand these overlapping perceptions. Through this work, we\u2014myself and the many collaborators sharing their time and expertise\u2014hope to understand more about our relationships to apazote, the factors influencing these relationships, and how we can continue these relationships in a changing world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UW\u2013Madison Collaborators
<\/strong>Claudia Calder\u00f3n, CALS
Ken Keefover-Ring, Botany<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guatemalan Collaborators
<\/strong>Angelita Montejo, USAC
Armando C\u00e1ceres, USAC<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collaborators listed below are individuals who participated in interviews with the author between January and February 2022. All individuals have consented to sharing their experiences with apazote for a public audience and wished to have their contributions to the project acknowledged.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collaborators from San Juan Sacatep\u00e9quez (Kaqchikel):
Familia Tacatic: Maria, Manuel, Jos\u00e9, Rosalinda Chavac
Maria Sequen
Anadelfina Chavac<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collaborators from near Lake Atitl\u00e1n (Kaqchikel):
Thelma (surname not given)
Alberta (surname not given)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collaborators from San Juan La Laguna\/near Lake Atitl\u00e1n (Tzutujil):
Graciela Mendoza
Petronila Yotz
Asociaci\u00f3n Q’omaneel: Maria Yotz
Asociaci\u00f3n Kemo’: Candelaria, Martina, \u00c1celene
Asociaci\u00f3n Batz: Lupe, Catarina, Elena.
Dolores Chikival
Dolores Ratzam
Soila Sicajau<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Collaborators from Guatemala City (Ladinos):
Gabriela Orive
Mirciny Moliviatis
Juan Carlos Santa Cruz
Eduardo Gonzalez
Euda Morales
Jorge Jorge Lamport<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> Kaqchikel and Tzutujil are two of the 20+ Indigenous Mayan ethnic groups. Ladino <\/em>is a Guatemalan term that refers broadly to mixed Indigenous ancestry with European or non-Indigenous heritage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Professional<\/figure>
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About the Author<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tabitha Faber<\/strong> is a PhD candidate in Botany, working with Drs. Claudia Calder\u00f3n and Ken Keefover-Ring, at the University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison. She completed her B.S. in Ecology, Evolution, and Biodiversity at the University of Michigan in 2019, where she fell in love with plants. For her research, Tabitha is interested in how people relate to their environments, especially in how they choose which plants to put in their mouths. <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Works Cited<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Alonso-Castro, Angel Josabad, et al. \u201cMedicinal Plants from North and Central America and the Caribbean Considered Toxic for Humans: The Other Side of the Coin.\u201d Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine<\/em>, vol. 2017, no. c, 2017, doi:10.1155\/2017\/9439868.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Badinga, Luc Pascal Christian Loulouga, et al. \u201cM\u2019khinza-Related Intoxication: About Two Observations.\u201d Pan African Medical Journal<\/em>, vol. 31, 2018, pp. 1\u20134, doi:10.11604\/pamj.2018.31.18.15987.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Barros, Aline F., et al. \u201cNematicidal Screening of Essential Oils and Potent Toxicity of Dysphania Ambrosioides Essential Oil against Meloidogyne Incognita in Vitro and in Vivo.\u201d Journal of Phytopathology<\/em>, vol. 167, no. 7\u20138, 2019, pp. 380\u201389, doi:10.1111\/jph.12803.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dembitsky, Valery, et al. \u201cAscaridole and Related Peroxides from the Genus Chenopodium.\u201d Biomedical Papers of the Medical Faculty of the University Palack\u00fd, Olomouc, Czechoslovakia<\/em>, vol. 152, no. 2, 2008, pp. 209\u201315, doi:10.5507\/bp.2008.032.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Estrada-Castill\u00f3n, Eduardo, et al. \u201cEthnobotanical Biocultural Diversity by Rural Communities in the Cuatroci\u00e9negas Valley, Coahuila; Mexico.\u201d Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine<\/em>, vol. 17, no. 1, Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine, 2021, pp. 1\u201322, doi:10.1186\/s13002-021-00445-0.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hazim, Asmaa, et al. \u201cConfusion Syndrome During COVID-19: The \u2018Herb\u2019 That Hides the Forest?\u201d Cureus<\/em>, vol. 13, no. 9, 2021, pp. 4\u20137, doi:10.7759\/cureus.17775.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kasali, F\u00e9licien Mushagalusa, et al. \u201cEthnomedical Uses, Chemical Constituents, and Evidence-Based Pharmacological Properties of Chenopodium Ambrosioides L.: Extensive Overview.\u201d Future Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences<\/em>, vol. 7, no. 1, Future Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, 2021, doi:10.1186\/s43094-021-00306-3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Logan, Michael H., et al. \u201cAn Empirical Assessment of Epazote (Chenopodium Ambrosioides<\/em> L.) as a Flavoring Agent in Cooked Beans.\u201d Journal of Ethnobiology<\/em>, vol. 24, no. 1, 2004, pp. 1\u201312.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MacDonald, D., et al. \u201cAscaridole-Less Infusions of Chenopodium Ambrosioides Contain a Nematocide(s) That Is(Are) Not Toxic to Mammalian Smooth Muscle.\u201d Journal of Ethnopharmacology<\/em>, vol. 92, no. 2\u20133, 2004, pp. 215\u201321, doi:10.1016\/j.jep.2004.02.018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marks, Copeland. False Tongues and Sunday Bread: A Guatemalan and Mayan Cookbook<\/em>. M. Evans and Company, Inc., 1985.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Molares, Soledad, and Ana Ladio. \u201cEthnobotanical Review of the Mapuche Medicinal Flora: Use Patterns on a Regional Scale.\u201d Journal of Ethnopharmacology<\/em>, vol. 122, no. 2, 2009, pp. 251\u201360, doi:10.1016\/j.jep.2009.01.003.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Montoya Cabrera, Miguel Angel, et al. \u201cEnvenenamiento Mortal Causado Por El Aceite de Epazote: Chenopodium Graveolens.\u201d Gac. M\u00e9d. M\u00e9x<\/em>, vol. 132, no. 4, 1996, pp. 433\u201337.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Owolabi, Moses S., et al. \u201cVolatile Constituents and Antibacterial Screening of the Essential Oil of Chenopodium Ambrosioides<\/em> L. Growing in Nigeria.\u201d Natural Product Communications<\/em>, vol. 4, no. 7, 2009, pp. 989\u201392.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Silva, J. D. A., et al. \u201cEthnobotanical Survey of Medicinal Plants Used by the Community of Sobradinho, Lus Correia, Piau, Brazil.\u201d Journal of Medicinal Plants Research<\/em>, vol. 9, no. 32, 2015, pp. 872\u201383, doi:10.5897\/jmpr2015.5881.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Singh, Pooja, and Abhay K. Pandey. \u201cDysphania Ambrosioides Essential Oils: From Pharmacological Agents to Uses in Modern Crop Protection\u2014a Review.\u201d Phytochemistry Reviews<\/em>, vol. 6, Springer Netherlands, 2021, doi:10.1007\/s11101-021-09752-6.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stappen, Iris, et al. \u201cAntifungal and Repellent Activities of the Essential Oils from Three Aromatic Herbs from Western Himalaya.\u201d Open Chemistry<\/em>, vol. 16, no. 1, 2018, pp. 306\u201316, doi:10.1515\/chem-2018-0028.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uotila, Pertti, et al. \u201cPhylogeny, Biogeography and Systematics of Dysphanieae (Amaranthaceae).\u201d Taxon<\/em>, vol. 70, no. 3, 2021, pp. 526\u201351, doi:10.1002\/tax.12458.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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collaboration<\/a>, <\/span>Guatemala<\/a>, <\/span>indigeneity<\/a>, <\/span>plant studies<\/a><\/div>\n\n\n

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