Common Weeds And Wild Edibles Of The World (full movie about foraging)

[Music] [Music] [Music] let's go on hit the trail [Music] [Music] my name is Sergei Buteyko and I'm passionate about wild edibles after doing countless lectures and workshops on edible plants all over the world I have noticed approximately a dozen edible plants that I've been able to find in North America South America Europe and Australia in this video I'm going to show you how to harvest and prepare the most common wild edible plants Before we jump in let's cover some basic ground rules number one don't eat something if you don't know what it is I cannot stress this enough wildcrafting can be safe and easy if you follow this one basic rule so be sure you can positively identify all the distinguishing characteristics of a wild edible plant before you consume it number two try all new plants in small amounts all of our bodies are different and thus may have different reactions to perfectly edible plants to avoid allergic reactions and other mishaps when eating new plants limit consumption to just a few leaves number 3 don't mix too many wild edible plants together in a meal before you know how your body reacts to them for the purposes of this video I will be playing with lots of plants in order to demonstrate how I typically eat however if you're new to foraging I suggest that you keep your mixing to a minimum once you have some experience under your belt then go ahead and mix all the weeds you are familiar with in addition to these three rules it's also a good idea to consider the environment in which you plan to harvest wild edibles every forager should aim to avoid chemicals pesticides and other contaminated areas the following places are definite no no's for foraging railroads golf courses major roadways and public areas with heavy traffic if in doubt ask around do your research to figure out if an area is clean a responsible wild crafter is one who recognizes that he or she can negatively impact an area but over harvesting it's sensitive plant life as a conscious forager you should approach an ecosystem the way that you would a garden when collecting wild food pick only what you need for the next few meals don't stock up for the week or the month many people think that wild edibles only grow in pristine forest settings but it is often quite the opposite just as garden vegetables like warm temperatures sunlight and water so do wild edibles thus if you go looking for tasty plant life high elevations in dark forests or in regions that are arid you'll likely come home empty-handed great foraging spots are generally near water and below 4,000 feet in elevation for this reason I'm shooting this movie at my friend's organic farm here we will find the most common plants of the world and it is likely that these same plants are growing in your own backyard right now so without further ado let's dive in and pick some wild edible plants [Music] the first wild edible I'd like to introduce to you is grass as you can see there's a huge field of it behind me grass is a great beginner wild edible because it's easy to recognize and it grows everywhere worldwide there's about 300 varieties of grass and all of them are edible which sort of makes it like the perfect survival food if you don't remember anything else remember this all grasses are edible it might not be the tastiest meal you ever had but it will sustain you and nourish you all grasses are gonna be rich in chlorophyll vitamins and minerals and they're essentially the same thing as wheatgrass now because we're not livestock we're not cattle or goats it might be difficult for us to digest grass so the way that you would eat it is you pull on the top of some grass and look for the tender light green parts these tender light green parts are a great lesson in merry stems merry stems or meristematic parts are the growing parts of a plant these parts are going to be tender they're gonna be saturated with more sugars and proteins and thus they're going to be tastier and more nutritious so whenever you feel a part of a plant that's flexible maybe lighter green in color that is a meristematic part and that's the part you want to munch down on you give it a try these yellow flowers in front of me belong to a plant known as salsify or another common name is goats beard this is currently my favorite wild edible they are the only dandelion relative that's not bitter so the flowers and every other tender part of this plant is very very extremely delicious and can be eaten in salad sandwiches or as a trail side nibble it's all edible but the most tasty parts are the tender parts the meristematic parts if you will the growing parts that have a lot of sugars in them that have flex and give now all dandelions are loaded with vitamins and minerals they're especially good for our inner organs our pancreas our kidneys our liver the easiest way to identify a salsify is by the flower these flowers come in brilliant yellow and purple and the other distinguishing characteristic is that has these green sepals these big green leaves behind the flower interestingly enough this flower is only open during the morning hours so if we were to come back here around noon I'll leave these flowers would be shut so if you want to catch the flower while it's open you got to be an early bird as I go to harvest these I also want to point out my philosophy on roots there's a certain responsibility I feel as a forager to harvest plants in a manner that will save some for other animals and also allow the plant itself to keep growing so I very rarely harvest the roots of plants instead I pull out my trusty scissors and I just snip it out the top I leave the roots intact and then I throw my harvest in a bucket and perhaps this is a good time to also point out that wild edibles are very perishable and so to preserve them while harvesting it's a good idea to have a bucket with cold water as well as a little mr. so that you can miss them down and this acts as refrigeration in the field some other key features that identify a PHY are these very long grass like leaves in late summer these flowers will also turn into a huge dandelion like puff ball and so depending on which stage you get it in you can either identify it by the flowers the tall slender grass like stems or the big puff balls so I'm just gonna go through here and harvest some of the flowers as well as the other tender bits right here here's another good thing to notice this is a flower that hasn't opened yet and this part is very tasty in fact and I could just go like that mm-hmm you just go through here and pick off all the tender parts and throw those straight into salads sandwiches your mouth I would also like to point out that when you break the stem of a salsify white SAP ooze is out this sap is perfectly edible and is very good for digestion and your inner organs so don't be afraid to eat this stuff I'm excited that we got to see salsify these flowers will look beautiful in our salad later on wild mustard is best identified by our sense of smell because wild mustards always smell like mustard so if you crush up any part of this plant whether it be the flowers the leaves or the stem and give it a smell it should have a very spicy mustard like aroma wild mustard is insanely nutritious in fact my friend and fellow forager John Kahless believes that wild mustard is the number-one most nutritious plant out there it's got really nice broad leaves that are spicy and will be delicious in a stir-fry so I'm gonna go ahead and mow this guy down you [Music] directly to my right you see yellow flowers that are gumdrop shaped these flowers are part of pineapple weed and pineapple weed is essentially wild camomile just like camomile pineapple weed has soothing properties and this plant is best utilized when dried and steeped in tea the easiest way to identify a pineapple weed is by the smell and this is a great lesson in using all of our senses when foraging I advocate that all new foragers get in the practice of using all five of their senses sight hearing smell touch and taste because all of those senses will give you more information about a plant now certain plants will be easiest to identify with sight but other plants like this will require other senses pineapple weed actually has kind of a fruity smell and it smells very much like you know blend of chamomile and fruit so the easiest way to ID this plant is to crush up one of the flowers and give it a smell and it smells sort of like pineapple additional features that will help you ID it are the yellow pineapple like flowers and the tiny little leaves that are in leaflets under the flowers they look very much like dill leaves because I'm making a salad later on this weed is not going to be necessarily appropriate for the salad so I'm going to let it be in the ground but now you know that this is pineapple weed and it's all parts are edible and you could utilize it however you like [Music] when I look directly to the left of the pineapple weed right here in front of me there's another edible plant this plant right here is known as shepherd's purse and it's a type of wild mustard all wild mustards are edible mustards are all part of the Brassica family which includes plants like arugula cabbage kale and the easiest way to identify a mustard again is by smell when you crush up one of the leaves and give it a sniff it should smell kind of spicy sort of like mustard I also want to point out that it has heart-shaped seed pods and this is a great identifying feature of shepherd's purse this entire plant is edible today I'm after the tender leaves as well as the seed pods and if I'm lucky I'll even get a few of the flowers I'm gonna throw all of those in the salad to add a little bit of spice and texture now let's see what else we can find on this farm [Music] in front of me I have lambsquarters which is one of the most common plants found all over the world it's a relative of quinoa in fact if you were to see quinoa growing right near lambs quarters it would be hard to tell the two of them apart this plant is one of the richest plants in protein it's a very mild green it tastes kind of like spinach and it's a great green and salads smoothies it's very easy to eat it's very pleasant so it's a it's a great beginner wild edible and it grows rampant on organic farms and empty lots it's a common weed in gardens and it's very hard to eradicate so you can literally harvest this plant until the cows come home and without fear of worrying that you're gonna decimate the lambsquarters population the reason it's called lambs quarters is because farmers used to let their lambs graze on it so don't be afraid there's no meat products within this plant it's just a name this plant is quite easy to identify it's got a very Hardy stem the stem also has purplish-pinkish lines all over it the leaves themselves are covered with a fine whitish sometimes purplish dust and the dust kind of rubs off and feels very waxy to the touch and this is essentially calcium so you don't need to wash that off you can eat it straight with that interesting little fact the same dust that you see on the bottoms of the leaves on the leaves themselves acts as a water repellent so if you were to dunk the plant in water it would come out bone-dry because of this dust the entire plant is edible although the smaller the leaves the more nutritious and the more delicious they aren't today I'm going to harvest a bunch of this stuff so that I can prepare some tasty dishes with it later on [Music] this right here is green amaranth another tasty common weed it looks pretty similar to lambsquarters except for a key difference the seed pod at the top is very easy to identify so the key identifying characteristic with green amaranth is the seed pot at the top its spiky to the touch it has up to 15,000 seeds you don't really want to eat that part you want to eat the leaves the leaves are the the part that we're after they're very tender right in salads and so with this plant in particular I'm very interested in the leaves and not so interested with anything else now with green amaranth there is a plant that looks similar to this but you don't really want to eat it's a nightshade like a common nightshade so you really want to look for these seed pods to make sure that it's a green amaranth and not the nightshade and you want to make sure the plant has smooth stems so smooth the stems seed pod green amaranth green light [Music] in front of me I have common mallow which is a close relative of okra and it has a very okra like taste another common name for this plant is cheese's or button weed because it grows little fruits in the shape of buttons which make it very easy to ID this plant it's another great wild edible weed for beginners because it has a very subtle taste it doesn't have a very strong chlorophyll taste at all when the leaves get really big it's a nice plant to use as wraps so we could put little pieces of avocado in this plant and wrap it up maybe pour some lemon juice on it it's a very nice little snack very simple very fast the common identifying characteristics of common mallow is a long stem but the stem is not smooth it's got a little texture to it it's rough it also has leaves that are overall disc shaped but they have lobes so there are some lobes the leaves can get pretty big be mindful of that it also has white to purple flowers the best way to ID common mallow is by its little fruits also known as buttons they're little discs like fruits that have big green sepals they almost look like little hops these are very delicious these parts right here have the most okra flavor of the entire plant the entire mallow plant can be eaten you can boil it just like you would okra you can use it in Gumbo's or you could eat it raw in salads or smoothies [Music] we got purslane growing right here and purslane is the number one richest wild edible in omega-3 fatty acids which makes it a great plant to prevent any sort of heart problems Alzheimers multiple sclerosis so it's a very good for the heart and the brain purslane is a sprawling weed that grows low to the ground through commonly planted lettuces and things so you can find it almost anywhere growing in between your crops it's got a nice lemony taste to it and it's really delicious and smoothies I find that it helps the smoothies stick together better if you've ever made a green smoothie and then left it on the counter it tends to separate well if you add a green in there like firstly and it'll bind the smoothie and act as a binding agent so that you can later go back to that smoothie and it looks much more appealing and appetizing here are some identifying characteristics personally looks like a succulent and it's got a smooth stem it's got teardrop shaped leaves like I said before it sprawls along the ground so if we really look close like over here boom it has these big branches that crawl along the ground and that's perhaps the best identifying characteristic as purslane matures it tends to develop a red hue on the stem that's a great identifying characteristic the entire plant is edible the stem the flowers the greens the tender greens the meristematic parts the parts that are growing are gonna be the most nutritious and the tastiest throw the entire plant and smoothies but if you're gonna use it in salads I recommend taking just the leaves and peeling it off the plant [Music] quite often when you sit down to harvest one plant you can find other plants in close proximity for example here we have prickly lettuce dandelion and more mustard greens the prickly lettuce and the dandelions are the origin of all lettuces thousands of years ago before romaine lettuce or red leaf lettuce there was prickly lettuce and dandelions and my guess is that from those origins people hybridized lettuce because they wanted a sweeter bigger leaf so essentially they would see a dandelion growing and it was kind of bitter to the taste and they would look for that variety that was slightly sweeter and have had big leaves they'd wait for it to go to seed and plant those seeds to get even bigger sweeter leaves and they did this over and over again until now we have something that looks almost nothing like a dandelion the nice thing about these wild lettuces is that they're actually more nutritious than store-bought lettuces they generally have longer root systems those roots can go down below depleted topsoil and draw out more vital nutrients for our bodies to assimilate dandelions are perhaps one of the most underappreciated weeds out there most people would never think to eat a dandelion and in fact curse them for growing in their lawns but they're loaded with all kinds of good stuff for us and they actually make for a really tasty smoothie green they're a little bit bitter to the taste but if you blend them in a smoothie with fresh fruit no problem most people could probably identify a dandelion but let me give you some key identifying characteristics for starters the leaf has jagged like lobes in fact in French it's called don't de Lyonne which means tooth of a lion and you can kind of see that the lobes that are sharp resemble a tooth of a lion dandelions also have smooth stems and one yellow flower / stem a fun little fact is that you can eat the flowers they're very tasty they're great in salads and they actually concentrate vitamin D from the Sun and thus are a great little additive for an emotional boost in your meal a key tell to tell a true dandelion apart from its look-alikes is the main vein if you flip the leaf over and run your finger along the main vein dandelions will always have a smooth stem dandelion look-alikes will have a fuzzy or prickly stem [Music] directly to the left of the dandelion we have what's known as prickly lettuce at first glance the leaves kind of look like dandelion leaves but if you flip the leaf over you'll notice that the main vein has prickly thorns on it check this out the dandelion on the Left prickly lettuce on the right I'd also like to point out that both plants have milky white SAP because I'm making a salad today I probably won't be harvesting too much prickly lettuce but in my regular practice I often do harvest this plant and blend it in a smoothie to my right I also have some wild mustard leaves now earlier we pick some yellow mustard flowers I'm gonna pick some leaves now in order to fluff up the salad just a quick reminder that all mustard greens smell like mustard so if ever in doubt crunch a leaf up give it a smell and if it smells like mustard you're good to go [Music] here we have a wild rose all roses are edible in fact there's a saying a rose is a rose is a rose which means that a wild rose is very similar to a domesticated rose unlike domesticated roses wild roses have five petals but if you were to take a domesticated rose and let it go wild it would eventually return to its natural DNA which is five petals another great identifying characteristic of the Rose is the hardy stem with thorns all roses are edible in fact a fun little tidbit is that apples and blackberries are actually part of the rose family roses are all rich in iron so they're very good for people lacking iron the flowers can be used in salads on desserts the leaves are oval and serrated and when they're young they're very tender and can also be used in salads some plants are Sun loving and this Rose right here is a Sun loving plant at the base of the rows you see miner's lettuce and miner's lettuce is a shade loving plant so not only are we witnessing to plants that love different environments we're also witnessing a symbiotic relationship the Sun loving plant is casting shadow for the shade loving plant come in a little closer and I'll show you miner's lettuce so miner's lettuce is one of the tastiest wild edibles I know of it's very mild to the taste it doesn't have a strong chlorophyll taste it's essentially the romaine lettuce of the weed world it's very rich in vitamin C in fact one cup of this stuff has about 90 milligrams of vitamin C it's quite easy to identify it has big discs like leaves and has smooth stem that goes directly through the middle of the leaf another great identifying characteristic is that miner's lettuce all stems from the exact same place I'm going to pick this miner's lettuce add it to the salad later on and it's going to go yeah it's gonna be finger-licking good and so I'm cutting the stalks so as not to eradicate the roots and here we have a nice batch a freshly harvested miner's lettuce it's going to taste amazing in the salad [Music] now that the weeds are picked let's make a monster salad before we start chopping it's a good idea to give our wild edibles or rinse and we're gonna do this just like we would with any vegetables I'm gonna dunk them in water like so give them a nice shake this is also a great opportunity to pick through your wild edibles make sure you don't have any foreign plants in there and then we're just gonna start chopping them we got our mustard greens into the bowl they go we have some of our purslane the nice thing about fresh food is that when you have scraps you just throw them back into nature so you got our juicy purslane I find that it's easiest to just harvest it straight with some scissors into the salad and going for the juiciest leaves but the stems will give us some nice crunch a nice organic compost here we also have our green amaranth dunk now with the green amaranth we don't necessarily want the spiky seed head so I'm just gonna pop off the leaves into the salad and I'm gonna compost the seed heads sometimes it's actually faster to go with scissors so here I go again find a technique that works for you this is gonna taste really nice I've been waiting for this all day let's see what else do we got in here ah miner's lettuce this is choice salad greens and they go nice little rinse grab our scissors the stems are juicy full of vitamin C so we definitely want those in there pull out some of these roots little sticks those are just extra fiber let's see aha lambs quarters with some plants there's actually a trick to getting them off the stems and lambsquarters is one of those you could just hold the stem firmly slide your fingers along it and the leaves will pop right off I'm not a terribly picky eater I don't mind a little bit of fibrous parts so I tend to throw salads together pretty quickly if you want to spend more time and have less stems in your salad you're very welcome to do so some of this lambs quarters is nice and purple so it's going to add some color to our salad if I were to be blending this stuff in smoothies I have a very high-powered blender at home so I just chop it up either with scissors or a knife throw it straight into the blender no muss no fuss we got our common mallow over here same principle and with common mallow it really is easier to use your scissors I'm just going to come in here and chop the leaves straight in the salad I personally love the little buttons in the salad as well so I'm going to add them for texture and if you are in if you are lucky enough to have some flowers go ahead and chop those in this is going to add some really nice crunch we got some dandelion greens in here some more mustard leaves get some of those going and we have these beautiful mustard flowers right here those absolutely must go in the salad so I'm actually gonna cut them I've been misting them and all day so I don't want to rinse them otherwise they're all going to end up in the water so I'm going to cut them straight into the bowl we also have some salsify and some shepherd's purse to give that I rinse remember with the salsify all of the tender parts are edible and so all the tender parts of the stem can be utilized in the salad especially the tops the tops even if they're on unopened flower tastes very good here's another top we also have our shepherd's purse remember those are the heart-shaped ones and just like with the lambs quarters I am going to hold them by the stock and just slide them right in quickest way to harvest the seed buds all right starting to come together nicely I also brought with me some condiments today for my field dressing I'm going to use some olive oil a little balsamic vinegar a little sea salt Bragg's Liquid aminos and some nutritional yeast so just gonna dress it with olive oil I like to eyeball everything Bragg's and it looks like I forgot my balsamic vinegar so no buzz on I can integrate a little sea salt and we have some organic nutritional yeast and now we're gonna give it a good nice long mix for the finale I'm gonna put my flowers in the salad so I have my tasty salsa five flowers right there those are gonna go in on top I also have some wild rose you got my wild rose petals straight into the salad and I happened upon these daisies and daisies are part of the sunflower family which is one of the largest family of plants and all sunflowers are edible so these oxide daisies are definitely going in the salad look at that you couldn't buy a salad this good if you tried I hope that with this video I have dispelled some of the common fears about harvesting wild edibles and inspired you to explore the outdoors in a safe and conscious manner now you have the tools to take advantage of these tasty hidden treasures and you can go out and reap all the benefits that wild edibles have to offer I recently learned that a banana travels an average of 2,500 miles to get to the consumer some of the disadvantages of such practices include loss of freshness food being harvested before it's ripe and a massive waste of the Earth's finite resources wild edibles on the other hand are an entirely local food you can harvest them straight from the ground when they are fresh and the only energy expended is your own we call this energy expenditure exercise and it's recommended by health experts to be done on a daily basis in addition harvesting free food can save you lots of money on your grocery bill and from a nutritional standpoint wild food is superior to store-bought food anyway if nothing else foraging exposes you to nature and thus gets you breathing fresh air collecting vitamin D on your skin from the Sun and in an era when we spend the majority of our time in front of screens being outside with weeds is invaluable thank you for watching this video for more information on wild edibles and foraging check out my book it's available at Sergey butane cocom and in bookstores near you [Music] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: BoutenkoFilms

Views: 252,807

Rating: 4.9051003 out of 5

Keywords: wild edibles, wild, edible, food, forage, foraging, green, greens, plant, plants, garden, gardening, eat, eat the weeds, weeds, weed, salsify, lambs quarters, purlane, common mallow, dandelion, sergei boutenko, boutenko

Id: NSxjozvB43Q

Length: 43min 3sec (2583 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 07 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/vicabart]

"Oh man, I can't wait to show this educational video about wild edible picking to all my friends at the nightclub!"

reads copyright warning

"Nevermind."

[u/Deep_Roy]

might want to change the title to be less misleading to stoners

[u/HiNoKitsune]

It says "of the world", but you can't really go through all continents in 45 minutes, right? I'm from central europe, do you talk about plants commonly found there?