I have had various experiences with the wild plants in my yard and garden. Some of them are pleasant experiences, and some of them are not.  This story falls into the second category.

During our recent set of interviews with Health Tribe Forum, Diana was talking with Stephen Buhner, a world plant expert. He explained that THISTLES are actually quite good for your health. He also explained in the same breath, that Chickweed (or Lamb’s Quarters) is just wild spinach. 

 It happens that Chickweed and Canada thistle are some of the healthiest plants in my garden.  I like eating chick weed so was very interested in the thistle idea. I was intensely curious whether you could actually take away the prickles. I couldn’t imagine how this could happen.  Visions of millions of happy Canadians feasting on enormous salad bowls of this prickly plant filled my mind.  I wanted to ask about Canada Thistle in particular but didn’t want to interrupt. Perhaps I should have.

I had also heard that you can either cook or blend thistles.  Blending is easier so that is what I tried. I pulled out several young plants (because that is what you are supposed to do) and just threw them in water and blended.

Amazing – the prickles were gone.  I could not feel them with my fingers in the blender or the few cautious drops in my mouth.

But the SMELL! It started drifting up even when I first started blending and got even stronger as I went along. Imagine blending up someone else’s smelly socks knowing you were going to eat the mixture! How does your body feel as you imagine this?  This is how my body feels several hours after I tried this.

The taste was not AS bad. It didn’t have a lot of taste to begin with but the aftertaste closely resembles the smell. BAD!  I did not throw up but was well on my way!

OK so I’ve learned I can’t eat Canada thistle like this.  But what was Stephen talking about? I will certainly ask him and do some research but perhaps you, as a member of the Health Tribe Forum or Real Food for Life, can help me?  Please leave your comments below. (You can even comment on how dumb I have been.)

This is what the Health Tribe Forum is all about. – combining our own direct experience and inner intelligence with the knowledge gleaned by mankind over the ages and combining it with modern scientific understanding.

Questions that come up in my mind:

• Does my reaction mean Canada thistle is not good for me, ever?
• Would cooking or blending with something else balance this effect?  Maybe if the thistles were fried in butter and onions and a dash of salt!
  
• Is there some particular compound in Canada thistle which causes this kind of reaction?

What do you think?

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I’ve had an on /off  relationship with weeds recently ( see Dandelion Madness) and now I’m at it again. My attention has now gone to yet another weed This one’s not so pesky to your lawn and it tastes much better.   Actually it tastes almost exactly like spinach – particularly when cooked – and again, it has all kinds of nutritional value and …...it’s free.

I first heard it’s name locally as  Lamb’s Quarters.    I don’t particularly like  that name but you can also call it  Fat Hen, Nickel Greens, pig weed, dung weed or White Goosefoot.  Some of these names I also don’t love.

It now grows wild in North America – and probably most people unknowingly just pull it out of the garden. You can recognize the plant when young because the center of the top is feathery looking with a purple tint. The picture is of a younger plant.

If allowed to mature Lamb’s Quarters produces a head of thousands of black tiny seeds.  You can eat these seeds and they are highly nutritious.  Actually it’s species is closely related to Quinoa – a supergrain that many people are familiar with.  I haven’t tried harvesting the seeds yet since it is so scarce but in some parts of the world it is cultivated.  It has been eaten,  perhaps unknowingly,  since the iron age.

One cup of raw lamb’s quarter leaves contains:
~ 80 mg of Vitamin C

~ 11,600 IU of Vitamin A

~ 72 mg of Phosphorus

~ 309 mg of Calcium     …….as well as good amounts of Thiamin, Riboflavin, Niacin and Iron.

Like every food and plant – there is no PERFECT food that is 100%  good. There is always some small (or big) aspect that is not good for the body.  That is why it is best to eat a large variety of foods and to know how to combine and prepare foods properly so that that negative effect is reduced. Greens have such high levels of so many nutrients that it is not surprising that this particular green has its own particular problem .  This means you shouldn’t eat TOO much of it.  This is not likely considering how little people eat weeds but just so you know – it has high levels of oxalic acids in it.  Oxalic acid can bind with other minerals in the body causing mineral depletion and in its worse case – kidney stones.  Many foods contain this ingredient so if you are even relatively healthy there is not cause for concern.

A few raw cups of this thrown in your salad therefor is no problem – or even if you ate several cups cooked but if you were using it a lot over a long period of time than be aware.  If suddenly you are NOT attracted to eating it -  follow that advise from your body and take a vacation.  I personally liked it best when the plants were just big enough to have a head of green seeds. Seeds contain all the vitality of the whole plant.  When green and steamed they have a very delicate flavor. When they start to get brown they have a much stronger taste.

The season is getting along but I encourage you to find some young plants and try it out.  You may like it ……..and of course its free!

Canadian Thistle easily growing through 6 in. of grass mulch in one month. It's not friendly!

Another weed I will mention has NOTHING to do about nutrition other than to make trouble in my garden where I grow good nutrition.  No this is really just a rant against the Canadian Thistle.

This name ‘Canadian Thistle’ is even more inappropriate than the previous weed. There is NOTHING Canadian about this weed. Canadians are polite and friendly and always paying ‘sorry’ and ‘eh’.   This weed doesn’t say anything even when it pricks you with its MILLIONS of prickles and overruns your garden. It can also be called the creeping thistle. I am told that you can eat the leaves and the root although I can’t imagine why anyone would try. If any of you have tried please let me know how it turns out!

I’d rather hear though, about some ingenious way to get rid of this (or make peace with it) since it is now my garden’s worse invader.  I used to think this weed was a ‘wimp’ because I could very easily weed whip it down from large patches around the farm. It has a large hollow stem so I could easily get cut away but now I am pulling up younger plants from my garden and it is the most difficult. Any suggestions?

Feel free to share this post with anyone or leave your comments below.

P.S.  If you thought “Good Weed,  Bad Weed”  had anything to do with the consumption of illegal recreation substances then your head is definitely  in the 60′s !

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