This common plant contains an astonishing 125+ chemical constituents, including many minerals, vitamins, and amino acids. Like soy, it contains genestein, and also daidzein, daidzen, and daidzen-glycoside. This is one reason former USDA herbalist James Duke, PhD, included red clover flowers as an ingredient in his cancer prevention salad.
At Purdue University, scientists showed that an extract of red clover “significantly inhibited” a common carcinogen and decreased its binding to DNA by 30 to 40 percent.
A major active compound was then isolated from the clover and identified as biochanin A.
Red clover tea is sweet tasting and innocuous. Through summer and fall you can usually find red clover growing wild (choose a non-polluted area!). Just use one or two clover heads per cup of tea. You may also include whole fresh red clover heads in salads.