I harvest stinging nettle to use as a spinach replacement
I’m going to try to make maple syrup from big leaf maples this year too!
i enjoy high fructose corn syrup too
Submitted 3 weeks ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
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Comments
Montagge@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
RedSnt@feddit.dk 3 weeks ago
I mostly eat spinach now for potassium, but I just looked it up and stinging needle has only 25% lower potassium content than spinach, so at least for my use case it seems like a fairly good substitute seeing as how well stinging needle grow.
Vathsade@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
How do they taste? Do they not, uh, sting with the little spikes?
I got then popping up all around.
Damage@feddit.it 2 weeks ago
If you cook them they stop stinging.
My mother makes pasta with them too, puts them in the dough.
Montagge@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
I blanch them and then freeze them. So no stinging!
punksnotdead@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
How to harvest, dry, and make tea with nettles:
If you have arthritis or hayfever they’ve been shown to help with that. Science has confirmed the old wives tales traditional herbal remedy works for this one. Not as effectively as modern medicine of course but if it’s all you can afford, or whatever, then something is better than nothing.
irelephant@anarchist.nexus 2 weeks ago
if you crush them, or flatten them, they don’t sting.
Bluewing@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You would harvest the leaves when they are small and young. And they would be one of the first fresh greens available in the spring. But their season quickly passes as the plants grow pretty fast.
FellowEnt@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
You can make them into patties and fry them up, surprisingly good.
MrFinnbean@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I mean there probably are lots of reasons why we farm only certain plants.
For example dewberries have short harvest window and as far as i know they need to be hand picked.
jol@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
There are many reasons, but it all comes down to economics: how easy and cheap it is to farm and harvest, yield size, does it require refrigeration during transport, what’s the shelf life, etc. Unfortunately optimizing for economics rarely pairs well with user interests, e.g. How nutricious the food is.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
About shelf life:
There’s this weird little apple tree, Prime Rouge. Every two years, he’s choke full (the other empty) of perfectly formed, perfectly red apples, optical flaws are rare. They are already edible in summer but get really succulent taste and a white flesh about two months later. The best apple breed i know, in texture, taste and look.Buut they only keep about two months max, unlike the other breeds you have in your supermarket.
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Which is why until modern farming some of the most nutritionally balanced people’s were hunter gatherers and pastoralists. The big advantage of farming vs ranching or pastoralism is that you can feed a lot of people for relatively little work, this rule of thumb is still true it’s just that we can now do it on such a massive scale that a lot of the downsides have simply been overwhelmed.
bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
Even if two species existed that had similar soil, water and sun requirements, had similar properties regarding taste, processability, etc., it would still be easier to farm just one instead of breeding both for milennia and splitting the means of production.
Johandea@feddit.nu 2 weeks ago
Until a disease pops up, that targets your only crop. Example A: bananas.
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Or why don’t we use all our technological, scientific and research knowledge to good use and engineer fruits and vegetables that can grow in less hospitable environments and can grow larger yields, have a longer growing season and have plenty of nutritional value.
Instead, we use all our knowledge and ability to build bigger, faster, more deadly weapons of war or AI that can micromonitor everyone’s lives or create slop and porn.
phdepressed@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
We do both. The problem is corporations and stupid people. See Monsanto, the non-GMO push and the results of golden rice or similar.
joshcodes@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Hi, I’m engaged to someone who studies chickpea and other legumes. Shitloads of money goes into agriculture every year and from my understanding, what you’re describing is being done by some brilliant people (I’m a bit biased). However there’s so many concerns around GMOs doing damage to the environment that it is tightly regulated. Doubly also, Americans don’t have the same ready access to grocery stores that
otherfirst world countries have.Plus the equivalent of flat earthers exist that believe that GMOs will kill us all and we need to go back to eating only what nature created (somewhat hyperbole, there are valid concerns but people have been irrational).
An example is that chickpea and other legumes reintroduces nitrogen into soil after it the soil loses vitality, which makes chickpea a good intermediate crop that can be grown in between others. Its high in nutrients. So yeah, stop eating corn and eat legumes.
(I’m not the molecular biologist so if I got stuff wrong, sorry, I will pay more attention when my partner speaks)
MrFinnbean@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Im not geneticist, but i grew up on a farm. I always grind my teeth when people talk about miragle plants with high yields.
The plants need to get their energy and nutritions from somewhere. If you just create gmo plant that can absorb nutrition better from soil it also means you need to fertilize that soil that much more and make the crop rotation that much faster, or risk making the fields arid.
But plants that survive larger temperature shifts, more extreme weathers and pest might be necessary for us in the not so far future. Lets just hope in the future those are used for humanitys betterment and not making rich richer.
auraithx@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Blackberries are pretty rampant here in the UK. Always wondered why you guys didn’t have it- Seems they were banned in the US until recently due to some fungus.
RavingGrob@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
Just to be clear, you mean blackcurrants, yes? Blackberry means something quite different, at least over here.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Yeah, I pick some every year. Also cherry plums grow quite a bit near me, along with some apple trees and loads of sloes.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Eat your weeds… This is Common Purslane:
It grows mostly everywhere and is a huge source of Omega 3 fatty acids. It’s much better cooked in my opinion. Also it’s best to find them in a field and not by the roadside where it may be leeching up god knows what hydrocarbon adjacent type of poisons.
LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Omg people can eat these??? My horse goes absolutely crazy for these things
Now I gotta try some and see what all the fuss is about
pseudo@jlai.lu 2 weeks ago
I want to see your horse face when it sees you eating it!
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I think I have these in my yard. The ones I have grow along the ground like vines almost, strong stems and such. I’ll have to check when I get home but thats really cool, thanks for sharing!
Danquebec@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
There are fairly similar plants, so make sure to do your research. I get similar plants each year in my garden but I know they’re not purslane.
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I pulled so many of these boogers out of the garden this summer
bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 2 weeks ago
Gotta make sure it’s actually the edible specie tho.
ayyy@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Why is there a crummy phone ad in your picture?
luciferofastora@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Samsung’s pre-installed photo apps do that by default, I believe, unless you spot it and go digging where to turn it off (which seems do differ between some models, if I recall correctly)
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
probably dont eat ones growing on the streets.
ieatpwns@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
“ CaPiTaLiSm bReEdS InNoVaTiOn “
v4ld1z@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Non-vegans when you let them know there’s more you can eat outside meat and dairy products
BeardedGingerWonder@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
I can’t say I know anyone that loves on an entirely meat and dairy diet.
vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Even I eat potatoes sometimes.
Le_Wokisme@hexbear.net 2 weeks ago
Rekorse@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I’m a vegan and I barely know about all this stuff. I love all the tips everyone’s sharing here though!
ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online 2 weeks ago
I hate to bring race and racism into this, but one reason why I laugh at many racists, especially European racists, is how they claim they love their own national culture but do jack shit to have ANYTHING to do with its pre-colonial cuisine. Take British cuisine for example. While obviously people in medieval England (even the richest people at the time) had far fewer options than most people in the UK today, but they still used many herbs and plants for seasonings that are only being rediscovered by reenactors in recent years, and they are actually quite good.
More than just culture, the dangers of over-reliance on a handful of crops and cultivars is also dangerous. The Irish potato famine happened in the 1840s due to Irish potato corps just being a few kinds instead of the hundreds of varieties that you would find in South America. The result of this is that a blight that would have had a negligible effect in South America absolutely devastated Ireland. More recently in the 20th century, we have a near complete destruction of the Gros Michel banana in the 1950s. When you go to your typical supermarket, the bananas you see there are more than likely going to be Cavendish Bananas, which were considered inferior to Gros Michel in the past, but due to disease rendering Gros Michel bananas commercially nonviable they were chosen because they were all we got…
and the same shit could happen at any time to the Cavendish banana, too.
ayyy@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I have to correct you on your terrible misunderstanding of the Irish Genocide. Your misinformation is almost certainly not your fault, as I was uncritically taught the same utter bullshit in my primary school curriculum in the USA. The Irish genocide that you refer to as using the colonizer’s term “Irish Potato Famine” had absolutely fuckall to do with potatoes or the Irish. The absent landlords in England extracted mandatory “tax” in the form of literally every food crop that the Irish
slavestenants grew. There was ALWAYS, literally at ALL POINTS IN TIME, enough food to feed the people of Ireland. The food was physically stolen with violence and exported to cover “rent” to English “landlords” that never set foot in the country. Potatoes were grown in an act of extreme desperation as they were not a crop that was consideredthefttax-worthy and therefore the Irish did their best to feed themselves.Think critically about it for like one second. Do you really believe that it was just a bunch of silly dumb Irishmen that only ever thought to grow literally a single crop for all of their food? In such a lush and nutrient rich area that is still famous for like a dozen high quality staples in different food groups? Or did you just get duped by racists that still spread their bullshit successfully?
okmko@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I heard recently that Gros Michel can be ordered online for an arm and a leg. I’ve always wanted to try it.
carmo55@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Extinct!
dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Ok I’ll bite (literally), how does a person break into this niche, since it is definitely not a market? My engineering degrees did not heavily cover edible plants in my area? I can go find morel mushrooms and identify sassafras but that about covers it.
If I could buy like a ring of +4 to local botany that would be best I think.
Screamium@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
On android you can use an app called “PlantNet” to take a picture of a plant and find out what it is. I’ve learned about many of the plants growing around me this way and have found new edible things. Garlic mustard is a good example. It’s invasive but edible and pretty good, so eating it is also protecting local ecology.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
Chanterelles and at least some species of Leccinum are pretty good too.
Look into local berries. Maybe something is edible.
Best is to find people who live off the land and still remember what their forefathers taught them about edible plants or mushrooms. If you’re in the US and have a reservation nearby, maybe they keep the old wisdom alive? Idk I’m not American, the only thing I got off a native American was weed.
In countries where there are people dedicated to keeping tradition alive, it’s easier to find someone to ask I think. Here in Estonia a lot of people collect mushrooms and shit, so a lot of passionate people to ask about their hobby.
fossilesque@mander.xyz 2 weeks ago
For those in the UK: www.wildfooduk.com
Ephera@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
For me, it helped expand my cosmos by leaving things out and looking for alternatives.
Like, I found out about a world of legumes by going vegan. And earlier this year, I stopped eating wheat for health reasons, and only then started to appreciate the existence of millet, quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat etc…I am probably still within the range of “usual” foods, all things considered, but at least I’m breaking out of a tiny subset of those…
sobchak@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Tbf, many are kinda disgusting to modern palettes. Lamb’s quarter sucks compared to stuff like spinach, kale, or collards. Pokeweed needs extensive preparation to make it safe. Wood sorrel, horseherb, and prickly pear grows where I currently live, but I haven’t tried them yet. My dog likes horseherb despite the little spines for some reason. My grandmother used to fry dandelions and plaintain which was pretty good.
phoenixpinkmyn@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Wood sorrel is an interesting case. In the US, we don’t commonly eat our native wood sorrel, i.e. the thing that looks like clover. But we do eat starfruit. Starfruit is also a type of wood sorrel, just one that has a much larger, sweeter fruit, that’s been selectively bred for agriculture. But if you look at the fruits of our native plant, they do look like tiny starfruit! link
They’re still tasty. They’re very tart, but with no sweetness. They could be good to top a salad. But you’d have to pick hundreds of them to get as much food as you get from one starfruit, and it wouldn’t be as tasty as a fruit. Like eating a lemon instead of an orange.
That said, I still love them! The leaves and stems also have a good taste. They’re everywhere and have a lovely burst of flavor. Just be careful if you have kidney stones or kidney disease, any kind of wood sorrel - including starfruit - has oxalic acid which can be tough on kidneys.
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
For another example of a plant that just didn’t make it into modern society at scale, there are skirrets. Carrots, parsnips, and skirrets were related umbellifer plants with edible, nutritious roots, cultivated over the centuries as food. Carrots and parsnips were responsive to breeding for root size, and could produce comparatively huge roots, but skirrets never really did. Once the potato was brought over from the new world, the skirret fell out of favor.
Strawberry@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
How do you get dandelions to not taste like poison?
irelephant@anarchist.nexus 3 weeks ago
I recently found out you can eat nettles (the ones that sting you), and they actually taste nice.
lots of iron in them
Zwiebel@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
Can make tea out of them aswell
RedSnt@feddit.dk 2 weeks ago
Good source of potassium as well. Although you’d need to eat 1.25 kilo to reach 100% recommended daily intake.
brianary@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Transportability is a huge consideration. Pawpaws can’t be transported nationally, for example. The plants we eat have been bred for maximum marketability, which includes getting the produce from where it grows to where people need it.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Every September, I make a year’s supply of beautyberry jelly.
I do something that I don’t recommend people do: I can it. I’m like 5 years in, and I haven’t had a problem yet. There’s a series of pages in my Ball canning recipe book that the beautyberry jelly recipe I use conforms pretty close to, but it isn’t USDA approved or otherwise published by some authority as safe for canning, I’m going to recommend you avoid this.
Beautyberries, if you’re not familiar with them, are a bush/shrub native to the American southeast. The plant looks like a bunch of stems with leaves that grow along them, along with clusters of tiny white flowers in the spring at the base of each pair of leaves, that turn into vivid purple berries in the fall. The leaves can be used as a mosquito repellent if rubbed on clothing, and the berries are edible…although they’re bitter and astringent. Boiling them in water to make an extract and making jelly from that extract results in a bright red jelly that tastes like strawberry and tea.
It’s something of a pain to harvest, so it pretty much isn’t commercially done.
xylogx@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Paw paws grow naturally in the area I live and are a delicious fruit. Due to cultivation and transport issues you will never find them in stores.
harcesz@szmer.info 2 weeks ago
For Polish speakers theres this: lukaszluczaj.pl/dzikie-rosliny-jadalne-polski-pel… - every plant that grows in our region and can be eaten.
CrayonDevourer@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
My daughter is kind of becoming a horticulturalist and recently taught me that sumac (there are non-poison varieties) can make something akin to lemonade if you dip the berries into water and then filter the water back. They have a citric-acid-like outer shell that dissolves in water.
And we’ve eaten so many mushrooms and stuff - thanks to communities on the internet who have categorized lookalikes, where to steer clear of certain types (white mushrooms, don’t even bother. Half of them will kill you)
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
alot of tropical ones tend to be poisonous too, because so much diversity of insects, trying to eat them develop toxins in thier parts. also some plants have to super poisonous because insects evolve to build resistance them, so plants have to respond by becoming more toxic.
knowone@slrpnk.net 3 weeks ago
There’s so much hogweed all over the UK that’s just sitting there, uneaten. Not the giant stuff, that’s not a fun time. But the regular stuff has good flavour
jackr@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 weeks ago
there are some other problems too. I would love to scavenge or grow things here, but the town I live in is basically built on a gigantic industrial waste dump, so eating anything out of the ground here is a bad idea.
sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Dewberries are so fucking delicious. I used to go pick them and make dewberry pie as a kid. God I miss that, ghey don’t grow where I live rn 😔
MxRemy@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
This is a very timely meme for me. Specifically because today, after many years of trial and error, I have finally managed to successfully cook Phaseolus polystachios beans!
Mine are natirally very bitter and tough, not sure how widely that varies from specimen to specimen. Also presumably chock full of toxins/anti-nutrients… I’ve been taking the bitterness as an analogue for how much of that remains, for lack of any other other way to tell.
Today, for the first time, I’ve managed to make them tender and not bitter at all. They taste pretty good!
rumba@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
So… cool story
Ann Reardon from How to Cook That, took Coke, and tested it for HFCS, it of course indicated it was in there, then she took a Mexican Coke, and it also indicated, but it claims not to use it.
Apparently, the acid in the Coke breaks down the sucrose in the cane sugar, making the product very close to the HFCS variant. She followed up with a blind taste test (very limited size, just her family) and found they were very close in flavor.
It would appear that we do to some decent extent enjoy HFCS.
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Although RFKjr has some crazy ideas, not adding food colouring to the balanced diet pyramid is not one of them, and one that any other GOP fascist loyalist, given the job, would gladly do it if given a dollar for it. Energy secretary as an example is full oligarchist energy protectionism.
BlushedPotatoPlayers@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
You guys don’t eat sorrel?
AceOnTrack@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
Can’t have biodiversity when you’re packing people to live in these
rabbit hutchesbig cities ‘to save the planet’ as they say.You need that factory farmed samey shit because without it you wouldn’t have the ability to feed the people living in these sad places.
You know who enjoys biodiversity? People who have access to their own garden to grow stuff :3 (capitalists hate this trick)
fireweed@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
You only need to plant sorrel in your garden once. It’s the ultimate volunteer crop. Quite winter-hardy too, and perennial, plus it tastes like lemon. Halfway between an herb and a green.
b_tr3e@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
If you can’t kill it or fuck it then eat it. It’s that easy.
hansolo@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
A lot of Lebanese shops sell sorrel. Sorrel is just clovers. 50% of people setting this meme are 100 meters or less from sorrel right now.
RBWells@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I live in a subtropical climate and it seems like most typical garden plants are not really good for our weather, it’s too hot for some and too wet for many who like hot.
Our winners are:
Trees- starfruit, longan, mango, papaya all do well.
Garden -
summer, wet season - Okra mostly. Hong Tsoi, Eggplant (little ones) Watermelon (little ones) sweet potato (Stokes Purple), tomatoes, basil.
winter, dry season- Collards, peppers, broccoli (Green Magic) cauliflower, arugula, fennel, lettuce, radishes. Cilantro, or dill. A lot of the typical northern summer plants can be started in December or January to grow in the “spring” that runs from January to April ish.
In between - peppers, fennel, mustard greens, eggplant, pumpkin type squash (but bugs always eat it) tomatoes.
Jhogenbaum@leminal.space 2 weeks ago
Define edible
Barabas@hexbear.net 2 weeks ago
It isn’t all industrial agriculture. There is also the enclosure of the commons meaning that foraging is illegal in a lot of places.
Gladaed@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
This is dumb. Most plants resist cultivation. Bragging about being able to afford them does not make you Superior.
Eq0@literature.cafe 3 weeks ago
Resist cultivation or have some other undesirable properties. Often low yield, short harvest, low yield, difficult picking or transporting.
A favorite example of mine: oak’s acorns are sometimes edible. Roughly one in ten oaks produce edible acorns. They are indistinguishable from inedible ones unless you try them out - but inedible ones are fairly poisonous. The gene for edible acorns is recessive and it takes at least a decade before you know if a newly planted oak produces edible acorns or not, with a 10% probability of the former. It is just practically impossible to select for this criterion. Thus, we don’t eat acorns.
danekrae@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
And let’s not forget, low yield.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 2 weeks ago
You just remove the tannins by soaking them, it’s not really a major problem. I tried it before, they were fine but fairly bland.
infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 2 weeks ago
Isn’t acorn flour edible after you rinse out the toxins?
shalafi@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Let the deer and squirrels and wild pigs eat the acorns, then eat the deer and squirrels and wild pigs. Easy!
Bassman1805@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Acorns are like the easiest thing to forage, though.
They are high in tannins, which your body is pretty good at processing in reasonable quantities (they’re in tea, coffee, and wine), but many acorns DO have unreasonable quantities of them and they can cause organ damage. Luckily, tannins are water soluble, so you just need to crack them open and soak them in water for a few days, then rinse and they’re safe to eat.
someacnt@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
I thought we eat acorns after processing them? There are cuisines which involve acorns as main ingredient.
Gladaed@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Also acorns ain’t particularly nutritious.
rayyy@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Not sure that acorns are inedible. They just that they need to be processed.
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
I mean, I think that goes back to the whole “industrial farming” point. If it can’t be farmed, it won’t be commercially available. But there are plenty of plants that you could scavenge, if you knew what to look for.
One of my personal favorite niche plants is osha root. It’s one of the best cures for a sore throat. It tastes a little bit like dirty root beer, and it’ll numb your entire throat when you chew on it. Native Americans kept some around for medicine. You can even grind it up and smear it on shallow scrapes to numb the area. You can find it in teas like Throat Coat, which is a sort of secret weapon for performers and public speakers whenever they have a sore throat.
But it can’t be commercially farmed, because it exclusively grows in the Rocky Mountains where a specific type of fungus helps it thrive. It isn’t commercially viable to market to the masses like throat lozenges, (even though it is just as effective in reducing sore throats) because it has to be scavenged.
ayyy@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
But what happens when “you” becomes a million people? A hundred million people? A billion people? Where I live, we can’t even have a nice field of flowers because a hundred Instagram models will trample and ruin it before spring is over. Scavenging and foraging literally cannot feed the 7 billion human mouths on this planet.
Gladaed@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
If it can’t be farmed there cannot be enough for everyone, but it will be exclusive to a select few. How they are selected is irrelevant.
sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Isn’t that what they meant by industrial agriculture preventing widespread use?
Donkter@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I think the point is it doesn’t prevent wide spread use. If a plant resists cultivation then it’s not worth it to try to farm, either industrially or in your back yard. Especially if you’re trying to farm for sustenance.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
Our current style of industrialized agriculture isn’t viable long-term (meaning: millenia); too much damage to the ecosystem or too much effort with mixed crops to pay off. Either south-american style farming-with-scavenging or industrialized vertical farming is the way to go, imo.
AceOnTrack@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 weeks ago
It’s the kind of farming you need in order to provide for the high density
rabbit hutchescities that are supposed to save the planetmuhyb@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Lamb’s lettuce superiority! They don’t need cultivation, grow everywhere even if you don’t want them to grow, and they are quite edible, also delicious.