WIld Edibles with Sergei Boutenko (part 1 of 4)

[Music] this morning I took the liberty of picking 23 plants here in Ashland Oregon these plants all grow in Oregon but I'm confident that you will find most if not all of these plants all over the United States and if you are a viewer from Europe or Australia or New Zealand I've traveled to your country and have found most of these plants growing so I think what I'm about to tell you is going to be very applicable to you so the idea today is that I'm just gonna take each plant and spend a few minutes talking about some of its health benefits how to identify it that kind of thing and hopefully by the end you will be a little bit more familiar with wild edibles the first plant that I would like to talk about today is this one known as lambsquarters often people get scared when I say I put lambsquarters in your smoothie because they're like well and if you really put meat in the smoothie but it's just the name I'm guessing lambs like to eat this that's called lambs quarters for that reason it's a very awesome beginner a wild edible because it's pretty mild to the taste it tastes pretty delicious you can eat it in salads it's great in smoothies literally every part is edible although I generally stay away from eating the roots of plants because they're not as delicious they're definitely not as nutritious and they're just harder to harvest they also kill the plants so I just today I'm going to mostly concentrate on eating the greens so a few identifying characteristics of lambsquarters is that it has this fine dust it's like this waxy substance on the leaves sometimes the dust is white sometimes it's purple but regardless it's full of calcium and protein and good to ingest so you don't need to wash that off you can see the the shape of the leaf is triangular it's kind of serrated although not too sharp and the stem is very fibrous and it has these white lines going up it so this is lambsquarters it's sort of like a wild spinach it's going to be high in protein high in calcium rich in iron and antioxidants which is good for killing cancer cells and it's an awesome green to use now if you're not familiar with wild edibles you're not sure what lambsquarters looks like a great resource for finding lambsquarters is organic farms lambsquarters is actually a weed that plagues all organic farms so if you have a moment you know maybe on some Saturday you can visit your local organic farm and just say hey can you please point out the weed lambsquarters and they'll happily show you you can even you know buy a bushel from them although I don't think they will charge you number two is wild strawberries and wild strawberries are easy to identify because they look just like regular strawberries except they have berries that are not super symmetrical and they're generally smaller what most people kind of figured out is that you know wild strawberries the strawberry is of course the edible part right wrong you can actually eat all parts of the plant you can eat the leaves you can eat the flowers the stems and of course the berries the leaves of wild strawberries are actually more nutritious than the berries themselves the berries are going to have lots of carbohydrates lots of sugars they'll give you energy whereas the leaves are very mineral rich and they're going to nourish your body now while strawberries in particular are rich in iron they're especially good for women who are pregnant or wanting to be pregnant because they soothe female organs and just do miracles for that wild strawberries as well as household strawberries also tighten the gums and prevent loose teeth and they have high vitamin A & C which is good for the skin so whenever you're making a smoothie maybe throw a couple wild strawberry leaves in or if you get strawberries that are organic from the store make sure that you blend the green part with the berry okay next we have miner's lettuce and this is probably a staple wild edible in my diet during the spring months it's readily available very easy to identify and very delicious it has very minors lettuce has a very unique structure it's got this well-defined stem that goes right through the center of the leaf it continues growing and then it will develop flowers and fruits of course fruits it's not going to be like a grape or a banana it's just going to be like little berries of the miner's lettuce so this so we're clear on that so there's the stem that goes straight through the leaves and it's very juicy very high in water so it can actually hydrate your body it has a pretty plain taste there was a great plant throughout history people would just eat it as a salad green miner's lettuce is most famous for preventing experiment unev vitamin C in it in fact in history General George Washington one of the presidents of the United States once issued an order to all his troops he said you know scurvy and other diseases and infections are running rampant in the camps and I've noticed that those camps that pick and harvest wild edibles and add them to their meals don't have the same problems they're more resistant to infections disease and so on and so forth so he actually ordered the commanding officer of every troop to go out every morning or twice a week three times a week and ration them out to all the troops so miner's lettuce is high in vitamin C it's good for the heart and also in vitamin A which is good for our eyes and our skin you can see that it also has a unique growing structure in that the plant has one root and then all the the different stems spread out from that root growing tall sometimes sprawling along the ground and it doesn't matter it if you find one with a big leaf or a small leaf because you know the structure is the same the stem goes directly through a circular disc like leaf plant number four is dandelions and dandelions are probably the most common found wild edible I'm pretty sure in this day and age everybody knows what a dandelion is however I'm here to change your guys's opinion of them today dandelions are one of the healthiest wild edibles that I'm aware of although it's hard to say that because literally every wild edible here is going to be very nutritious there are roughly 300 varieties of dandelions and all of them are edible there's no poisonous look-alikes which means that if you eat something that you think is a dandelion and you make a mistake you're still guaranteed health benefits there's nothing poisonous one sure way to identify a dandelion versus something else is to pick a leaf or leave it on the plant and run your finger along the underbelly of the leaf along the main vein and if it's smooth it's a dandelion if it's not smooth it's a dandelion look alike so whether the Leafs they're pointy or lobed or very sharp as long as the stem is smooth it's a dandelion now sometimes people say well I've heard that the white sap that comes from a dandelion is poisonous that is completely false it's not true whatsoever dandelions are bitter by nature and we need bitters in our diet to be healthy the bitter taste that is prevalent in dandelions is good for cleansing all of our organs our pancreas our kidneys our liver our gull bladder and so we need to get those bitters into our diet if you're not so keen on bitters try eating the smaller leaves again the smaller the leaf the less bitter it's going to be another good way to trick your body into liking dandelions is to blend bitter tastes with some kind of oil or fat so for example making pesto and adding dandelions to the pesto is one great way to consume dandelions another excellent way is to consume dandelions in a green smoothie because the fruits will cut the taste of the bitter and also don't forget to eat dandelion flowers they're very sweet they're very delicious they have the same benefits as dandelions although they're much more palatable and you can just pluck the flower and eat it straight off like that this next plant is a newly discovered plant to me it's called wild sweet peas or wild peas and it was I became aware of it when my friend and fellow wild edible enthusiast John Kahless had us eating it and it basically is just a wild pea ironically this wild pea the pods that will develop on it taste horrible they're very hard they're bitter and I generally don't eat them same with the majority of the plant it's pretty firm it's not that pleasant to eat however the very tip is super tender and super delicious and you just pluck it off stick it in your mouth it's delicious as a trailside nibble you can throw it in wraps salads smoothies that kind of thing so basically any part that's tender is fair game [Music]

Channel: BoutenkoFilms

Views: 95,503

Rating: 4.9631448 out of 5

Keywords: WIld edibles, edible weeds, Sergei Boutenko, healthy food, raw food, living food, greens, green smoothie, green smoothies, lamb's quarters, wild strawberry, miners lettuce, dandelion, wild sweet pea, garden, flower, plant, free, food, free food, powered by green smoothies, Boutenkos, Educational, Recipe, Flowers, Cooking

Id: 3patCDVUooc

Length: 11min 9sec (669 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 13 2011

Reddit Comments

[u/DrBanjo585]

This is a very well done video! have really been interested in getting into foraging. Does anyone have any other resources for getting into foraging?