Once & For All: How Much Vitamin C Is In Pine Needles?

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It seems like every day that I hear another stretched-out, unsourced conclusion on the ascorbic acid content of pine needles. "Between three to five lemons" is common, so is "as much as a glass of orange juice."

Buried in the factually-void archives of Yahoo Answers, a shrugged-shouldered remark came about that said that pine needles contain about as much vitamin C as "half a dozen lemons."

First off, not only citrus fruits contain vitamin C; Vegetables, and other fruits, do as well. But anyway. In all of these varied responses, all unsourced without an iota of information, it seems like it’d be agreed that nothing can be agreed; it seems as though you’d conclude that there’s no information available, all guesses.

But if you keep looking, you will find real, normal, beautiful data from the USDA (see PDF on page) which tells us that pine needles of the eastern white pine (Pinus strobus) contain between 0.72 mg./g. to 1.87 mg./g, depending on age, with older needles containing more than younger needles. Also written is that ascorbic acid levels do not fluctuate much, compared to carbohydrate levels.

So there you have it. But, to those unfamiliar with all that above, I’ll make it easier to understand.

As mentioned above, orange juice is commonly used to compare these two beverages. After all, what do you do when you have a cold, and seek to get vitamin C in your body? You drink orange juice. But while orange juice has 76% as much sugar as a can of Pepsi, pine needle tea has no sugar, it’s local, it’s organic, it’s fairly tasty, and it’s free.

Orange juice has a little over a hundred milligrams of vitamin C per 12 ounces. A twelve ounce glass of pine needle tea, prepared with 100 grams (about 3.5 ounces) of pine needles, will contain between 72 mg, all the way to 187 mg.

That means that while orange juice has more vitamin C than some pine needles, the older pine needles have twice the amount.

Now, orange juice ought to be considered a dessert of sorts, not drank like water or tea. But the occasional glass, or really a glass an hour for all I care, so long as it is not seen as the sole source of vitamin C, while pines are trodden over.

Other research on ascorbic acid in Pinus strobus needles does also exist, and can be found here. Additionally, lots more research exists on both vitamin C in other species’ of pine, and on other health benefits of pine. Check out the News and Forum sections of this website for more content like that.

With all research, it should be noted that extraction methods are usually not simply plain hot water. Ethanol might have been used, which is not safe for consumption. Also, levels do fluctuate, due to temperature, due to pollutents, due to age, and due to general location. Thus, while preparing pine needle tea, you should not expect that the pine in the USDA’s research will be exactly the same as the pine in your woods.