Juniper berries sometimes given the same treatment as anise?

 As I've blogged about before, I've had store-bought juniper berries in the past that contained something that allowed me to lose weight. I have tried (and failed) many times to duplicate that effect with juniper berries from bushes in my community.

According to my records, I might have repeated the weight-loss effect when I used anise seed (again, store-bought) in a way similar to how I used the store-bought juniper berries. I have only noticed the plateau-breaking effect with anise three times now, and it is too soon to be certain. But it might be progress, so I'm blogging about it.

An interesting thing about anise seed is that it tastes like two other substances: licorice root and fennel. That means that whatever weight loss compounds that might be included in some packaged anise seeds could also be included in licorice candies and salad components that contain fennel. That would make figuring out the source of weight loss very difficult, if so. Breads, candies, and salads are three very different categories of food!

Another interesting thing about anise is that it is the name of the most famous villain of American cinema, Ani S., also known as Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader (from the Star Wars films). Realizing that made me wonder if there was a parallel for juniper berries in Icelandic cinema. 

About the only Icelandic show known outside of Iceland is the children's show LazyTown (Icelandic: Latibær). The villain of LazyTown is Robbie Rotten (Icelandic: Glanni Glæpur), who wears a dark blue, maroon, and purple ensemble; those are coincidentally the colors of juniper berries. If one does a double cancellation of repeated sounds (not necessarily of letters, just sounds, for this is a kid's show and literacy is not a requirement to be its audience), one ends up with "anni aepur" which looks a lot like "einiber", the Icelandic word for juniper berry. From what I have read, the letter "b" in Icelandic often sounds more like our English "p" than our English "b", especially in the middle or at the end of a word.

So, two different herbs. Both that show up in their national cinema as primary villains. Both herbs that--when mixed with butter and then put on just-microwaved dill weed over dry cocoa powder, with the whole compound being eaten around the same time as cabbage--I have found to contribute to my going down from a weight loss plateau. But so far the herbs only work with selected store-bought versions.