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Chickweed - Stellaria media tastes pleasant and green but has twice the iron of spinach, plus Vitamins A and C
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Don’t toss those weeds unless it’s into a salad!
I’ve just come across a really interesting story about a man
in North West Tasmania, Bruce French, who has been collecting data on the
nutritional aspects of weeds in many countries with the aim of “helping the hungry to feed themselves.”
While the main purpose of Bruce’s work and the organisation
he works with has been to catalogue information about traditional sources of food
in poorer countries and to examine their nutritional value, it also has lessons
for people in wealthy countries. As he
said in his Henry Somerset Reserve Lecture*
“What
we have been busily, and I think unwisely doing over recent years, is reducing
the range of plants that we grow and use as food. I think it leads to poor
diets, poor ecology and unsustainable agriculture. The tide is turning fairly
fast and instead of filling up bellies with the same bland few species and
varieties, many people are again looking at ecologically sound, diverse food
crop production. We have just about used up enough chemicals and sprays and
water trying to prop up our narrow range of varieties, and the time has come
for a fresh agro -ecological approach to food production.
In a small section of
the world where this narrow diet range is producing unprecedented obesity while
the other half of the world dies of under-nutrition, it is time for us to show
a social conscience. One child dying of malnutrition every 4-5 seconds is an
obscenity. It is also unnecessary. Malnutrition of both the obesity and
under-nutrition varieties is limiting lifestyles as well as life-spans. In
terms of human dignity and human potential that is tragic.”
And let’s not forget
those poor people in wealthy countries either, whose diet is often less than
optimal too. Not everyone can afford to be a locavore, shopat farmer's markets or buy expensive
organics.
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Sow Thistle - Soncheus Oleraceous - Young leaves are good in salads and soups. they contain iron, calcium and vitamins
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I am not going to suggest using native plants because we
have too few of those already, only those European plants which have become naturalised
here. Nor am I going to suggest foraging, especially not from roadsides or
waste ground, because you don’t know if they’ve been sprayed or affected by
other contaminants such as lead, heavy metals or animal waste. It’s much better
to leave a little wild space somewhere in your garden or even a planter box into
which you can sprinkle a few seeds. Nor
should you eat anything you don’t know. Ask a nursery or your local Botanic
Garden if you aren’t sure. Some plants though not poisonous, naturally contain
chemicals such as oxalates to which some people may be allergic. Always try a
small quantity first and always wash them well too. No responsibility
or liability is accepted for any ill effects.
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Dandelion - Taraxacum officinale - A tenacious dandelion struggled up through dead vegetation.Young leaves are good in salads, the root is often roasted and ground as a coffee substitute. It is rich in iron and calcium and has many Vitamins including A, B6, E and K.
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In Germany people used to have a green soup in early spring
to cleanse the body after the heavy food of winter – the salt meats and rich
cakes. My favourites for that are nettles, chickweed, sorrel and young sow
thistles. Most of these greens also work well in smoothies or omelettes or just
as an addition or replacement for silver beet and lettuce which usually aren’t
abundant yet. The French have long used tender shoots of dandelion as a staple
in their salads and cultivate them especially for that. In other words, they
treat them as we do celery and cover them to keep them pale and tender. Sometimes scorned as “bed wetters’ in
Australia, the onion smelling weed with triangular leaves and green striped
white bell flowers, not to be confused with snowdrops, are highly sought after
in Denmark as wild garlic. Please check with someone first though as many bulbs
are toxic. Sorrel adds a sharp lemony tang to potato soup or something bland
like cottage cheese, but use sparingly as too much oxalate isn’t that good for
you. Nasturtium leaves add a fresh peppery flavour to salads and are excellent
on egg sandwiches. Fennel seed can be used in place of caraway particularly in
pickles and the green fronds are delicious with fish. They are said to hold the
scales together as well as making it easy to digest. Be careful with the seeds. Although bees love it, fennel is regarded as
a pest so don’t let them fall to the ground.
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Wood
Sorrel has a sour taste and lots of Vitamin C. It was widely used in
England before much larger French Sorrel became available
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It’s true that some weeds can become pests or out -compete the
cultivated plants we try to grow, but to my mind, that means we aren’t eating
them fast enough. If we can make use of them we not only add new flavours and some
variety to our diet, but keep their populations in check. Some are now being
specifically grown for the supermarket and restaurant trade. Think of Mesclun
salad for example, what is it but a mixture of assorted leaves and sometimes
flowers?
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Nasturtium - Tropaleum Majus. Both leaves and flowers add peppery zing to salads and egg dishes and the flowers can also be stuffed with cream cheese for a colourful appetiser and one that's packed with vitamins too
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I have always been a weed lover, and not just because I am a
lazy gardener. Where the ground is loose, they bind the soil and retain water.
Where it’s heavy or hard -packed clay, weeds will send their roots down and
break up the soil for other plants. They also draw up nutrients and provide shelter
from wind and sun for young seedlings. They attract bees and other pollinators
and some weeds can even repel insects or attract them so that they leave other
crops alone. A mosaic of plants also
tends to discourage the spread of disease and pests. Though it does make
harvesting more difficult and lowers crop yields, it is much better than no
crop at all. The fact that weeds also
have nutritional and even medicinal benefits is a bonus.
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Pot Marigold or Calendula - Calendula officinalis- makes a lovely addition to the garden or a salad. In England before the arrival of saffron, the petals were used to colour cakes so they would look as if they had been made with a lot of eggs.
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For many more non -native suggestions for Australia see "The Forager's Handbook," by Adam Grubb and Annie Raser -Rowland, Hyland House, 2012, 2013, 2014