Though I talk about food in my book Zero Cost Living, the new book Eating on the Wild Side
by Jo Robinson explores the potential of fruits and vegetables,
including wild food in thorough detail. She explains that wild foods of
all kinds, including wild originals of the plants we grow in our
gardens and farms contain many more nutrients than the domesticated
crops. She writes about a host of vegetables and fruits which, if you
can find them wild, or grow wild versions in your farm or garden, (or
sometimes they are ‘just’ weeds), can stop (I hesitate to say cure)
cancer, control blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes, and
keep our bodies from many of the ailments of our ‘modern’ age – where
we live in a soup of inadequately tested chemicals – plastics,
pesticides, air and water pollutants, etc.
Many of these wild foods can be obtained free, and some, rare and
expensive but sold in health food stores or farmers markets are still
worth it because they may contain many time the nutrient value of
ordinary farm grown, domesticated crops.
Here is a short summary of foods she recommends: purslane, lambs
quarters, crab apples, granny smith apples, wild grapes and berries,
chokecherry, chokeberry, red and all dark lettuce, currants, lentils-
especially black, black beans, red kidney beans, canned kidney and pinto
beans, (her book explains why), yellow peas, black eyed peas, canned
dry beans, unsweetened cranberry juice, colored corn, red grapefruit,
avocados, organic potatoes, cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, currant
tomatoes, all dark red tomatoes, canned tomato paste, cooked whole
carrots, beets including tops (greens), red cabbage, bell peppers, kale
(she explains how to make roasted kale chips), artichokes, dark sweep
potatoes (not pale), cilantro, colored cauliflower, garlic (also useful
as a paste on infections - antibacterial), onions western yellow, sweet onions are
not as potent as non sweet0 shallots, scallions, leeks (including the
greens). Many, most of the food she recommends are the wilder, less
domesticated versions where the healthy nutrients have not been bred out
to make them sweeter and less fiberous.
I got this book at the library and made extensive notes to use when
shopping or foraging, but is well worth buying, perhaps saving your
health, and what is that worth! A field guide (or store guide) of this
book would be a good idea perhaps a little paperback you can easily
carry in a pocket. For now you’ll have to write your own by making
notes out of the book.
Detailed discussion: A key point I realized is wild berries and
plants we pass up as too bitter or just not sweet enough for us are
extremely nutritious. Chokecherries for example, which are generally
hard to eat – too tart and bitter are packed with ten times the
micronutrients of ordinary cherries. Charries are expensive,
chokecherries are free. So develop a taste for them or make a drink with
added sweetener or a food with chokecherries added into the mix and
you have a great source of super healthy food- almost like medicine.
The native Americans knew this and ate a lot of chokecherries in
pemmican, their staple long keeping travel and winter food.
Wild raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries smaller than domesticated fruit have ten times or more of the nutrient value of garden and farm varieties. In the north in mid summer - wild blueberries can be found in abundance. I let wild raspberries run wild in my yard. I didn't realize how healthy they are until I read Jo Robinson's book.
Crab apples, and all of the wild apple trees you can find in the
woods are many times more healthy than the supermarket apples such as
gala, red delicious, fuji etc, and are free of pesticides. I consider a
blemish a good thing as it means the apples have not been sprayed with
pesticides. I eat around or cut off imperfections. These are apples that
are passed up by people – though relished by deer. They cost you
nothing. I know where a dozen wild apple trees are located within 4
miles of my house. Go find yours.
So here is another step towards living zero cost - finding free wild foods in your area. If you find these sources you might want to work to preserve and enhance them. Wild apple trees for example are of no value to a developer or perhaps a new property owner who just wants a big lawn.. Maybe you can plant the seeds of a wild apple or crab apple species in your yard to keep them safe, just as gardeners save and plant the seeds of heirloom varieties of vegetables. I am fortunate that most of the wild trees I have found are in a nearby recreation area. However, the state is in process of selling off parts of it (the bastards), though they have no plans at present to sell the parts where 'my' trees are. Some trees I value are on private land , one beside a stream so far has been left alone - though a large part of the property was turned from a hill into a lake!
Wild berry patches have been wiped out by thoughtless (ignorant) land owners including a neighbor - they didn't like the thorns.
The region I live in used to have thickets of wild growing hazelnuts. They are all gone. I found one bush in a park 20 years ago. I have found none since.
It's a challenging activity finding, making use of, and saving wild sources of food.
I'll come back to this topic later. JRD
