Rob: Hey everyone, I am here with my
friend, Eric. We met two years ago in Florida, and I was blown away by his knowledge of the plants that he has been foraging for about a
decade. He is a plant wizard with really seemingly infinite knowledge. I know there are things that he does not know, but it seems like he knows pretty much every plant that we cross. I have been blessed to get to learn from
him. I've been with him for the last day in Maryland and have learned so much. I am excited that he is going to share some of his favorite plants to help you get foraging, and first he is going to introduce himself a bit. Eric: My name is Eric, I am a plant-lover. permaculturist, and an avid forager, and I am just really grateful to be here with you all today and share my top ten wild edible greens for the mid Atlantic. There is such an abundance of food in these fields and forests, so let us go see what we can find! (Music playing) My number one all time favorite wild edible green has to be Urtica dioica, or the mighty stinging nettle. There is a native North American species as well, Urtica gracilis, and also
Laportea canadensis. I love it for so many reasons, it offers all kinds of amazing medicine, its flavor is incredible, it can be absolutely prolific in the wild, and it is very easy to cultivate for those of us that are
gardeners. Not to mention that it will grow in full shade underneath black walnuts for the permaculturists out there. It can be made into dried green powders or blended up into pesto, or it can also be steamed and sautéed. Any kind of heat will deactivate the stinging hairs and make it edible. Definitely my number one all time favorite has to be stinging nettle. Number 2 on my list of wild edible greens has got to be chickweed. This is another great friend to really connect with and bring in to the kitchen. This is Stellaria media, the common name
is chickweed. I love this one because it is pretty easy to identify, it has these really cute little star shaped flowers on it, and opposite leaves. It is really cool and juicy and the flavor is really awesome. It is one that I do like to cook because it is a little higher in the oxalic acid department. but it also makes a great pesto and can be dried into powders. I would definitely say that number 2 on the list is chickweed. Keep an eye out for this one in the spring
and fall. It will disappear in the summer. Number 3 on my list is lambsquarters. This is one of the first friends that I really got tuned into when I was first starting to eat something wild every day. The Latin name is Chenopodium album, and is just an absolute super star from the
spinach family. It is one of the most nutritious plants
on earth. It is also one of the highest wild greens in oxalic acid. This is one that I definitely like to cook up, I like to steam it, boil it, pan fry it, anything to help cook out and denature
those oxalates. But after that, it is an absolutely flavor packed, incredible edible. This is one that should be in all of the 4 star restaurants, and it should definitely be on everyone's plate. So, Chenopodium album. Lambsquarters. Number 3. Number 4 on my list is definitely dandelions, Taraxacum officinale. This is one that most everybody is probably already familiar with. It is an absolute incredible edible. The leaves are great in salad, but they can also be boiled to remove some of the bitterness if you are not into that. They are loaded with all kinds of nutrients, tons of vitamin A, and they are the second highest source of boron of any of the wild greens, which is cool because boron helps to detoxify the body of
fluoride. It is definitely an important one for us to bring into our diets, and it is also a great one for helping to support the liver health, and helping our body to detoxify in multiple different ways. Dandelion is definitely one for everybody to tune into, and bring home to the dinner
plate. Coming in at number 5 is Alliaria petiolata, the garlic mustard. So this is a biennial plant in the brassicaceae family, the mustard family. Like the first 4 on our list, it is a European import that is very weedy and
prolific. This one in fact is allelopathic, so it competes against other plants in the
area. For that reason I really love encouraging people to consume these kinds of plants that are exotic to our region, so that we can help native habitats to thrive a little bit more, take some of the pressure off of the native plants in that
way. This one was brought over from Europe because it is very highly nutritious. There are 190 milligrams of vitamin C per a 100 gram serving, which is very easy to consume in a batch of pesto. That is definitely one of my favorite ways to bring garlic mustard into the kitchen is in pesto form. It also makes a great cooked green, sautéed or even steamed up, or you can boil it when it gets older to take some of the bitterness out. Definitely number 5 on the list, is
Alliaria petiolata. Garlic mustard. Number 6 on our list is basswood. This is the American basswood, Tilia
americana. This is a native tree in the mallow
family. I love this one because we do not get to eat a whole lot of tree leaves and this one is so mild and has such a nice flavor that it can actually be the basis for a
salad. I love greens that we can eat raw. It also makes an excellent green powder, makes a fantastic sautéed greens, steamed, anyway that you prepare it, basswood is
absolutely incredible. And the leaves also have this nice kind of mucilaginous quality to it that I think really helps to keep us hydrated in the summer time, and also makes for a wonderful tea when we have got a
sore throat. Definitely number 6 on the list is basswood, Tilia americana. For number 7 on our list we have another tree leaf, and this is one that I bet a lot of you are already familiar with because it is world famous for its
berries. And of course we are talking about the
mighty mulberry. In the mid Atlantic, that would be either Morus alba, which is the Asian species, or Morus rubra, which is the native one. They both have edible leaves. There is an introduced species, Broussonetia papyrifera, that is a lookalike that is worth looking into, it is called the paper mulberry and it is in the same family but not as edible. This one is not as ... some of them are acceptable as a salad crop but more so I think of mulberries as being great for green powders or cooked greens, either steamed, sautéed, or otherwise kind of cooked down a little bit. Yeah, I love mulberries because they are so easy to identify and they are so prolific, and they have these deep roots. They are just beautiful, amazing, awesome
trees. Number 7 is the mighty mulberry. Morus alba, Morus rubra. Coming in at number 8 on our list is purslane, Portulaca oleracea. This is a really great cooking green. It can also be added raw to salads, the flavor is great. It is kind of high in oxalic acid so I do prefer to cook it myself personally, but I have heard of people adding it to
smoothies. It has got a little bit of a sliminess to it that adds a great mucilaginous kind of throat coating quality to it. One of the other things that is amazing about this plant is its remarkably high omega-3 fat content. This is a great source of omega-3 fats from a local, wild, plant based source. Definitely let us say number 8 is Portulaca oleracea, purslane. Number 9 on our list is Asclepias syriaca. This is a native perennial that grows in open fields all throughout the country. This one is absolutely, incredibly
delicious. It is important to boil this one twice because it does have cardiac glycosides known as cardenolides in it that are
pretty toxic. So I like to boil it in 2 changes of
water. Another thing to be aware of with this plant is that it looks very similar to another native that is poisonous and that
is dogbane. This is the dogbane right here and you can see that they obviously grow in the exact same habitat and so superficially it can be difficult to tell the two of them apart, but when you get into the core of it you can see that the inside of the milkweed is hollow, where the inside of the dogbane is solid. And so that is a very key distinguishing feature that makes it easy to tell the two
apart. Asclepias syriaca, number 9. Coming in at number 10 on our list is the
mighty Bidens. Beggar's ticks, Spanish needles, and with this one we will go ahead and say the
entire genus. As far as I know, every species is edible. Some are definitely better than others I
have noticed. This one in particular is Bidens frondosa, and this one is a great weedy summer
superstar. It is in the aster family and has a little bit of a kind of bitter sappiness to it so I do prefer to either boil or steam it before using it for pesto, but an absolutely incredible cooking green. It is loaded with nutrition and also has a medicinal component to it as well being very popular as a gentle but effective
antibiotic. The common names beggars ticks and Spanish needles are a reference to the seed, and that make these very easy to identify, and you will see these all over the place once you start looking for them. Number 10, Bidens. Thank you so much for taking the time to get to know my top 10 wild edibles for the
mid atlantic. I wanted to give a special shout out to definitely Rob Greenfield and your team. Thank you so much. I definitely want to give a lot of love to the folks at Meta Creative for helping me with all of this filming and putting together all of the shots and scenes and just making this whole process so much more approachable for me. Thank you for your help and patience. I wanted to give thanks to The REED Center in Middletown, Maryland, Chesapeake Bounty in Saint Leonard, Maryland, and Plant Path Nursery in Knoxville, Maryland for hosting some of these video segments. Thank you so much.
Peace! Rob: I hope you got a lot out of this video and can now implement these things into your life. Eric is a plant educator, an earth lover, and a permaculturist with so much knowledge to share with us. Check the links in this description to
follow him. And make sure to subscribe to this channel there are many more inspirational and educational videos to come. I love you all very much, and I will see you all again real soon. Subtitles by the Amara.org community
