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HomeSurvivalFood and Cooking

Unsung Foodstock!

Grey Man of the Woods

 
One of the most common of edible greens found is also one of the most despised "weeds". The Dandelion! Look at any prepacked bag of salad greens & you will see a very familiar leaf, that of the backyard/meadowland dandelion. Funny how you are told it is weed that must be destroyed, yet the food industry will sell it to you by the bag full!
Edible Parts: Leaves, Roots, Flowers (basic yellow, though it is said the seed of the cotton ball variety is edible as well).

Another common "weed" is clover. Both the leaves and flower are food.

We all heard about the first lady of the U.S. planting a garden at the white house, but did you know they already had a food garden growing that was well known of long before the Obama's came to office? Ever hear of the Rose Garden?? Rose (wild or cultivated) leaves & flowers are food. the hips (that part where the flower blooms from the stem) is also what is used to make "Rose Hip Tea" which is known to have a soothing effect on the stomach.

Common yard grass seed can be gathered to make millet for breads or filler for soups & stews. It has the same nutritional value as corn without the sugar (in case you're diabetic). Which is to say, NONE. But it makes a great stomach filler along with other things added to the soups/stews.

Snakeberrys a.k.a wild strawberry are a common meadowland fruit.

MOST Pine trees: Inner bark & roots (I hear even the needles though never tried them yet). The cone can be roasted with the seeds in it & the seeds removed as they are the food.

Acorns from the oak, Walnuts, Chestnuts, etc. Are excellent sources of food. First remove outer shell (pulp) & roast inner shell over fire (acorns you can just throw into the roaster straight from tree or ground).

Many plants, though food, may need special preparation to make it edible. Like the asparagus plant, they are poison until cooked completely. Others like the wild carrot should only be considered by those that REALLY can spot the difference in it from a similar plant as the similar plant may be deadly. The wild carrot is a cousin to hemlock & in the wild the two can be very similar. Some botanists have died of poison thinking they were just eating a fresh wild green due to misidentification.

Watch the animals, if just one species of animal or none eat a plant DO NOT EAT IT. It is either of no food value or poison (remember the koala eats eucalyptus - a poison).