La comida que pisamos. Plantas silvestres comestibles (con Josep Pàmies)

In times of hunger - and there are many in the world - imaginative ideas, right? But what are we going to imagine that our grandparents, our ancestors, even thousands of years ago, did not already know all our lives? Now we're not so smart that we rediscover that knowledge, right? Today we are going to talk about those plants that we step on every day, and to which we do not give any value. But they are food that we step on and that at a given moment can help us live, because there are moments that can come or have come from many hardships and lack of food.

The food we step on A report by Miguel Figueroa I'm going to show you a few plants. Not all because the place where we are is industrially produced and, whether you like it or not, herbicides have been thrown away for years. Therefore, it is the resurgence again of many plants. Some are even re-emerging from the cement, from the tar. They have enormous resistance power, through which they are capable of destroying the tar. That's why city councils pass through tarred roads using Monsanto's herbicide - Roundup, glyphosate - so that the tar doesn't kick up. Plants are so powerful that they know how to lift the tar to live again, to give us life again.

Here we have an example of this. This is concrete on the one hand and tar on the other. Many herbs come out through that small gap. And there is a dandelion, which apart from being a great food to eat in a salad as a vegetable, is a great medicine. And now about the powerful roots it has, two scientific studies, one in England and the other in the United States, say that a 100% cure for leukemia can come from the roots of the dandelion. Simply with extract of those roots. I mean, it is a powerful food and medicine that many people are cursing who have their swimming pool with their grass and dandelion grows on it and they hate it because it can never kill it because it has a very powerful root.

From that root, if it is in your house, you may need it. Another extraordinary plant is the mallow. Mallow can be used as a great vegetable. It is even in an omelette, when you have sautéed it, when you have boiled it a little, you can make omelettes with even better taste than spinach ones. But as a vegetable, with potatoes, with onion... it is also a great plant that regenerates your intestine. It is an extraordinary plant for constipation and diarrhea. It is an intestinal regulator. And, well, it is another plant that always grows where you least expect it if there is good soil fertility.

There are grandparents who say: "If there are mallows, buy that land that is good land, because the mallow only grows in good lands. Therefore, this land that is here next to the road must be good land because the mallow grows without Nobody plants it. The hollyhocks, when they become adults, generate the flower to make their seeds and these flowers are also extraordinary for acting as laxatives and also for colds because they are very expectorant. I mean, apart from being a food - all this cooked - It also helps you with those diseases of the intestine and lung.

But this is another way to identify them. They can be the purslanes that are a little creeping, or they can be varieties that grow very tall - almost a meter - With those clusters of mauve flowers - That's why it's called mallow. One of those beautiful, pretty flowers, and very edible... I'm sorry, but I'll eat it! You'll see how... They have a taste similar to that of the hibiscus flower. They are related, but since I still don't know much about the subject, I only know that this plant makes a beautiful edible expectorant and laxative flower, mild, without causing diarrhea, far from it.

In addition, it is a great food, with all the minerals and vitamins it contains. Cooked like any other vegetable. This other plant here is called grass. It would be a substitute for current lawns that you have to reseed from time to time. You could plant them from that plant and it would be perennial, for life. You will never lose a lawn if you have it planted with grass because they can be planted by cuttings from below that have infinite roots, or from above by these seeds that they generate. But, in addition, its roots are a powerful diuretic.

And, how many diuretic medications do they make us take to lower our blood pressure? Well, this plant, grass, due to its roots, is one of the most powerful diuretics that exists in nature. And it's also considered a weed, right? In quotes, since there are none of weeds. All of them can provide us - even the most toxic ones, in minimal doses - with solutions, both nutritional and healing. As with everything, there is no need to rush. You have to learn from those things. I am constantly learning. I am already completely sure of the plants I am talking about, because I have researched them.

And I have known from my parents, from my grandparents, that they used them. But before using them, recognize them well. I am giving the scientific name of most of them. Google, nowadays, is a beauty, because you put the scientific name and it comes up with the perfect image that you can copy, in color if necessary, and recognize a plant. Recognizing a plant one day can often help you solve a serious problem tomorrow, both at a nutritional and health level. But please, identify them well, don't be in a hurry. In other words, we are going to gradually assimilate knowledge.

That, once you have them inside, they are never forgotten. That other plant is called pigweed or chenopodium. It always also appears in areas where there is organic matter or very fertile lands. In most fertile orchards there is chenopodium or pigweed. This is a great plant as a vegetable as well. And when it is tender, these sprouts can be perfectly eaten as a salad. But cooked, they taste better than spinach. And it also has extraordinary nutritional properties. It is also an intestinal and digestive softener. And it is a weed, also again in quotes. Imagine if there are vegetables here for a family to eat!

Instead, they have to go shopping at the supermarket and pollute, many times. Well, these herbs come out on their own. Nobody treats them, nobody fertilizes them, nobody sprays them with anything. Well, go to the field, you help the farmer get these herbs, and you take them home as the best vegetables, right? Or, if not, if you find it by chance, you don't even need to ask permission because no one is going to criticize you for taking a weed, right? Again in quotes. Here we have another plant next to it. This plant, which is next to the chenopodium or pigweed, is called butcher's weed.

The other day, one of those domestic dogs that had never left the house, the lady told me that he ate this plant and, alarmed, she said: "What does he eat? What does that dog eat?" Well, he surely knows what he eats. And he only wanted to eat those plants that were inside the greenhouse. This plant is one of the most powerful medicinally available, and the dog knew how to recognize them. We do not. So the dog - poor poodle dog - was more intelligent than us humans, he knew what plant that was and what it could be used for.

We don't know what was happening to the dog. Surely he had some stomach pain or some problem. But he knew what he had to eat. He didn't eat anything else, he ate only this one. Erigeron canadiensis or butcher's weed. Therefore, it is another plant that even dogs eat. We do not know if as food or as medicine. As medicine it is super proven. You can eat it and it is not toxic. Probably also as food. I'm still getting started on those topics. I was a farmer who killed them all and now I'm rediscovering them, right? And now I'm glad to see herbs.

This is wild lettuce -lactuca virosa-. First the PP government and then the socialist government have banned its sale in herbalists. Well, this plant is consumed - when it is tender, when it comes out in the spring - like lettuce, like just another lettuce, from the field. It is a wild lettuce. Well, this plant, in addition to being food, is also a great medicine. With a few leaves of this plant that sting a little. You will see the spike below. This is lettuce. The mother of all lettuces is this: lactuca virosa. Well, with a few leaves of this, infused, half an hour before going to sleep, many insomnia are controlled, because it is a narcotic -in quotes-.

That's why the administration has banned it. If you look at milk, lettuce also makes it. So we shouldn't eat a lot of lettuce either since it might make us narcotic, right? Either we are imbeciles, or the governments are, but we really believe it all: that if a plant is prohibited it is because there must be something bad about it. This plant, what you have to try to do is not eat an entire bush. Because then maybe you do get too drugged. But we don't have to fear it. You have to respect it, you have to know how to take it.

When it is tender it is a good lettuce, and when it is adult, it is more bitter and it is better to drink it more as an infusion to resolve insomnia. This is a variant of lactuca virosa, but with the same properties. It is also the same: it is another wild lettuce that instead of having a leaf like the previous one, smooth, has like teeth - like a dandelion. Well, this one and that one are from the same family. They have different blades but the same functions. This one here is an amaranth. The leaf is eaten both - when it is tender, in a salad - and boiled.

But it also makes seeds, black seeds that are similar to the seeds of amaranth, which is grown in Latin American countries. This variety is extraordinary in terms of proliferation, in addition to being a great food, it is our ally to fight against Monsanto because, with the regular use of herbicides from this firm, used with transgenic corn, this plant has managed to be resistant to that herbicide. and now it is creating problems for American farmers since they sulfate with that total herbicide with which they sprayed the jungles of Vietnam with which they killed all the trees in order to kill all the camouflaged Vietnamese.

A simple plant, based on years and years, is has made it resistant to that terrible herbicide. And now it is being a serious problem for poor American farmers, who can no longer use genetically modified corn because it has become resistant to Monsanto's herbicide. So this plant, in addition to being a great food, is our ally in the fight against GMOs. That beautiful plant is called purslane. I don't remember the scientific name, but if you search for purslane on the internet, it is a very common plant. In all fertile gardens it exists and it is a big problem because it develops in a way... with millions of seeds per plant and, furthermore, when you cut a plant, even if it is in the air for two months, hanging like this, it does not die. . because?

Because it has a quantity of water in here and a consistency in its stems, that does not die. Humidity is more harmful because it rots, but drought is not. Then, after two months, that plant falls to the ground and lives again. That is why it is so difficult and is so hated - in quotes - by many gardeners, because it is a plant that surpasses in growth all the others that we want to plant and we hate it, right? Or we hated it... I can't hate it so much now, because I know its properties. The properties are extraordinary, both as food and as medicine.

As a food, because it is very rich in omega 3, and in other mineral principles that you can see if you investigate this plant in more depth, and, also, because it has already come to me from comments from older people that in ancient times when women had little milk, since they were given purslane to increase their milk production. They say that it is galactogenic, which also helps women to have milk. This plant can be eaten in a salad -as I said before-, or as a vegetable. As a salad... it has a pleasant taste. These trunks are very tasty and edible.

They have a slight acidic taste. They are exquisite, and well... you have to bring those herbs to the table. It's so easy it seems impossible! It's hard for me because the easiest thing is to grow lettuce or salads. But hey, there are days when I take one of those plants home, and come on... enjoy another flavor. Having this knowledge is a way to resist the current crisis. There is fear in case we don't have food to eat. But how can we not eat, if we have food everywhere? A lot is thrown away in containers, but also if you go out to the fields, we farmers have many plants that are edible.

So don't worry, we're not going to die of hunger, right? This other plant that always knows the side of slightly damp walls is the horsetail. Horsetail is also extraordinary for the kidney and for cancer processes. This is a plant that is identified by these shapes it has. They don't have leaves, they have like twigs, and when you tear off a knot you can palm it again. You see? It seems he's alive again. You start it and it always comes out in knots. When there is confusion as to whether it is or not... it can be put back together.

If you look for horsetail you will see that it is a great medicinal plant, very diuretic... but very diuretic. Here we have two plants: the plantago ovalata -or plantain-, and a clover. A three-leaf clover; everyone knows it. Both are edible plants, and this one is also super medicinal. Plantago can be eaten when the leaf is tender, as if it were a vegetable. When you stretch, nerves appear. It can be eaten... As a salad or as a vegetable. It is also a great regenerator of the intestine and lungs. It is good for purifying bodies with cancer. It heals wounds if you chew it and put it on the wound or a spot with cancer.

It is a very powerful plant and, furthermore, a food. And clover is a legume that has properties similar to alfalfa. And, like alfalfa,It is also a great source of protein. And also, being a legume, it helps fix nitrogen from the air into the soil. A spontaneous focus of gallium... that in other times I would have come with the backpack sulphating machine and burned it because it was so hateful to me years ago. Well, here there is a nature reserve for dozens of thyroid patients and oral, tongue and neck cancers. Does that seem little to you?

Do we want to ask more from nature? When these plants are tender they can be eaten. They are called galium aparine and galium verum. They are plants that get hooked. They have like hairs... and they get stuck. They are scratchy. When they are tender you can eat well. But this plant is also extraordinary on a medicinal level, apart from the fact that it is good to eat. She makes these floral bouquets, see? Which then makes like beans that are a coffee substitute. When the seeds swell - they have little black balls - and when they dry...

Look, here are some. They are like coffee substitutes. At each latitude and in each season there are different plants. In each season there are certain plants. Now, at this moment, we have talked about purslane, amaranths, chenopodiums or pigweed... the dandelion that lasts all year round... it is a beast, a beast! And others, right? On the other hand, in winter there are other plants: sorrel, pimpernels, and other plants. I mean, there are many more, and you just need to Google: "edible plants" or "edible weeds." You are going to find a lot of information. Now I make a living selling lettuce, but the day - which we hope will not come - when there is not enough energy to be able to water, that there is not enough mineral fertilizer, that there is not enough plastic to mulch the ground and avoid using herbicides to plant those plants.

I'll have to resort to traditional systems like the hoe again, right? And this tends to make the product more expensive, in the terms in which we know it today, or simply having that knowledge of knowing how to eat your own herbs. That is to say, if I, as a farmer, have a little land, even if I don't have the money to industrially cultivate my land, I will know how to live off the plants that will spontaneously - at no cost - grow for me. And that's what I try to convey to everyone: that you have to have this knowledge just in case.

We always have those fears that "what if I don't have money to eat?" Well, don't worry, you'll be able to eat. Nature gives it to you for free, without any cost.