I actually found out from the story of spruce beer. British colonists in America learned from Native peoples that spruce needles could help prevent scurvy, so they decided to make a beer out of it. But they misunderstood how it worked. To make beer, they boiled the mash with spruce needles—unfortunately, this destroyed the vitamin C. So while it was tasty, it didn’t help with scurvy.

The Indigenous method was more effective because it protected the active compound. Sometimes they’d make a spruce tea, but it was only gently heated—never boiled. They also made a lightly alcoholic, fizzy drink using maple syrup and wild yeast, but again, no boiling, and fermentation was short. That preserved the nutrients.

Not all nutrients are created equal. Some survive boiling. Some don’t. Some are enhanced by heat, others destroyed by it. Some dissolve in fat, some in water, and some barely dissolve at all. You can’t just heat things and assume the good parts will still be there.