It's poisonous but people eat it!
There is a plant that grows in the Ozarks that the locals eat every year. I totally don't get it. It's labeled by all agriculture authorities as poisonous...and yet they say its edible...sort of. Many of the locals around here eat it every year and every year I'm cutting it down and trying to get rid of it on my homestead.
It's way too much work. To make the plant safe to eat, you have to boil it at least twice but preferably 3 times pouring off and adding new water each time.
At the time of year this plant is growing in the spring and summer, there are literally dozens of wild edible options that you can eat raw if you choose. Not to mention your regular garden. WHY ON EARTH WOULD YOU EAT THIS?
I'm genuinely curious. Please help me out.
ENJOY THE VIDEO!
Visit Us Online: http://AnAmericanHomestead.com
EVERYTHING IN THIS POST POWERED BY SOLAR
Now I'm actually just really curious to try it and see what it tastes like!!! Is it like a status thing, like eating really hot chilis to prove how hard you are? Like Chuck Norris is so hard he eats poke weed? Or maybe it's a really delicious delicacy (bearing in mind most 'delicacies' are often thought of as kind of disgusting upon first encounter - jellied moose nose anyone?). Maybe there's some sort of cultural identity being maintained through the practice? why don't you ask your neighbours why and then you can report back. Steem on!
BTW, I am tagging you in the foragingscavengerhunt1 steemitgame being run by @haphazard-hstead of the @foraging-trail (#FSH1-1).
I grew up eating this , every spring . I have always liked it . It does not have a distinct taste . Like mustard or collard greens , it's just a ' green ' . As kids , we always made ' ink ' out of the berries . Parents and teachers always liked how the ink lasted so long on our skin . ( sarcasm ) It's a Southern thing I guess .
Thank you Sue. Does it give you fond memories of childhood to eat it now?
Chuck Norris is so hardcore that when he picks pokeweed, the plant gets sick.
I'm assuming it dates back to the depression. It's just been passed down. There are a lot of family landowners around here who's ancestors settled this area over 100 years ago. So when you couldn't buy food, you had to do what you needed to and survive.
Waow - so cool that they're continuing those traditions. A lot of places people don't like to be seen eating "famine foods" as they aspire to be seen as the well-off types that buy food.
btw, Chuck Norris can pick oranges from an apple tree and make the best lemonade youve ever tasted.
its correctly called (poke sallet) You have to pick it when the plant is really young that's when its the least toxic. The second Saturday of May each year the town of Blanchard Louisiana has a Poke Salad Festival.
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/8527
Thank you it was very interesting.
To each his own....I will try it next spring and even do it on video. I may try the berries and a number of people have told me they eat them for lots of reasons like arthritis.
That is the wierdest thing I've heard of and that is saying something because I grew up with fried dandelions.
I think I'd be quicker to try fried dandelions...I bet they've never killed anyone.
It actually tasted pretty decent, but like anything else fried seasoning was probably the bulk of the flavor. Fried grasshoppers were good too, but now I know they are unclean food so I refrain.
I have a bunch of dandelion greens in the fridge now . Looks like Sunday dinner .
I've never had dandelion greens. How do you prepare them
It would have to taste REALLY, REALLY good to want to chance it and go through that much effort. And I'll be surprised if @haphazard-hstead doesn't chime in on this post. Up-voted and re-steemed.
Hey one more thing, I read this interesting and misguided article about homesteaders on ZeroHedge this morning, and thought you might like it:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-02/forbes-says-self-reliant-homesteaders-are-delusional-and-mooching-civil-society
I'm glad to be back home and on Steemit, so I can comment on this, for sure! I have picked and eaten a lot of pokeweed. I don't understand why people would not eat pokeweed, lol!
We did a blog on this very thing twelve days ago! Spoiler.. we eat it!
https://steemit.com/homesteading/@clarkfarmstead/poke-weed-wild-edibles
I know the berries (2-3) if swallowed whole are used for arthritis. And yes I grow it. Sharing to get others to chime in!
Wow, there are so many warnings online to not eat the berries...Its so weird the discrepancy.
Is it possible that it gives some kind of drug effect? Like mushrooms people eat for hallucinogenic effects. There was those magic mushrooms growing behind my school. The fist sized mushrooms with waxy white spots. The white spots were the supposed to be Strychnine, but that part was a myth apparently. It was said that you are supposed to scrape the white spots off. Kids went to the hospital because they just ate them without removing the dots. I suppose removing the dots reduces the potency. According to wiki they have "psychedelic compounds psilocybin, psilocin and baeocystin". I suppose that is a poison at too high a dose.
So maybe boiling this weed is something like that?
There's got to be a reason. LOL, maybe it tastes good?
Btw, I watch a lot of new2torah. This steemit thing is a little hard to navigate. I hope they make it a little easier. I agree, we need to get away from youtube, even as myself not being a content provider, I would fully switch and as the Bible says, not look back.
I'd like to see new2torah on here too.
I agree the Steemit is really hard to work with.
The difference is swallowed whole not chewed...
a trick i learned working in kitchens for burns, mustard! no pain, no blisters - cheers! :)
Interesting! I will try and remember that!
Honey works really good too for burns!
I ate poke berries once and it felt lie the insides of my stomach ere itching, I read once that you can smear poke berries on your solar panels and it lets sunlight through but (I think) the film prevents the panels from getting to hot (solar panels need sunlight but prefer cooler temperatures!)
LOL! I don't believe that! Someone would have to prove that to me.
It makes sense to me a couple of years ago I watched a you tube video by Dan Roahause where he took water proof solar panels and diped them in a plexy glass box that was filled with water. And he had some gague hooked up measuring the energy output, and it improved once the solar panels had gone swimming!
Love Jaimie's salsa!
I found it on the edge of one of my fields, but had to look up what it was first. It caught my attention because of the berries. I mentioned it to a coworker and they told me that some people eat it in salads (aptly named poke salad, go figure.. ). I don't have any intention of ever messing with the stuff.
I've had so many comments saying that people eat it that i may try it. If I die on camera...maybe it will be my first video that goes viral. :)
Bahaha don't die! We call it poke salad in north ga but we boil it three times. Tastes a lot like collards to me, stinks up the house when you cook it. Not sure why folks started eating it- I'd hate to be the person who figured out you need to boil is so much before eating!
And what the heck are collard greens?! Lol. I grew up in Wisconsin and have been in Texas for 6 years now and still haven't tried it (them?).
I love the style of headcovering Jamie is wearing these days! The one in this video is one of my favorite. Does she make them herself? If so I'd love the pattern. If not, where does she buy them? Our garden was horrible this year so I will have to buy the ingredients for the salsa, but I look forward to trying it! Thanks!
Many of them she makes herself. Maybe we'll do a video on that.
I'd LOVE that!! :)
Hey, if there's any way to make use of it, it's ahead of the nasty spotted knapweed we have here.
Probably a trip from that edible must be like being in the time-room like dragon ball Z where a minute is equal to a whole year.
Wander if PokeWeed can be found on Pokemon Go?
we've got it here, but i dont eat it :) i did finally get one of my moringa seeds to pop!! and 3 fig cuttings out of 10, oh well
I see pokeweed all over Michigan, I never knew it was poisonous... or edible! I wouldn't eat it. Ewww. @ironshield
Baffling. I've never tried it, and I wouldn't go through that much trouble to remove the poison from something. I'll share this on our facebook page and ask our fans.
Yessssss the Ozarks!! I got to go down there after watching netflixss original the Ozark. Minus what was portrayed in the show but for its beauty.
My mom has always picked and cooked it. I never cared for it. But I get your point about it being more trouble than it's worth, even if it did taste good.
I have never had it personally, but around here folks eat it right up until the berry shoot grows. After that you should not even compost it, I would suggest burning it! Thanks Zach, good info!
We had a huge bush pop up in our yard recently, but we had never seen it before. Doing an Internet search, we identified it as pokeweed. The info I found said that the new shoots are eaten as a salad green but that the plant become more poisonous as it gets older, especially when the stems and berries turn red or purple. Since its where kids can get into it, we'll be removing it as carefully as we can. There are a lot of plants that can be powerful for medicinal uses in very small does, but they don't have any business being where kids will be attracted to eat them.
I have some of this growing in my backyard.
was a hit with elvis polk salad annie
Hi just thought i would jump in and mention when we make our salsa i smoke the vegies on the grill first makes a nice salsa
For anyone who likes to eat greens, I think the question is why would they not eat pokeweed, lol! It's easy to identify, easy to pick, and takes care of itself.
My dad had us kids picking pokeweed when we were seven years old and I've enjoyed eating it all my life. You have no idea how happy I was to discover a giant patch, about 1/3 acre of it, under some black locust trees, when I lived in Michigan! That was good picking every year after that! :D
Nobody questions that we don't eat raw chicken or pork. And folks who like chicken or pork are willing to put up with the effort of cooking that meat in the right way. Pokeweed is a lot less trouble and risk than BBQing chicken or pork on an open grill, for sure!
My mom just parboils pokeweed shoots or young leaves once before cooking it some other way, and that's all I've ever done, too. It's no harder to prepare than any other greens that need parboiling.
Pokeweed tastes good and has fed a lot of people over generations. Allen Canning, out of Siloam Springs, Arkansas, used to sell cans of pokeweed in grocery stores, just like canned turnip greens or mustard greens. Pokeweed is real food for regular people. It's good food. I like it and that's why I eat it! :D
Those same people don't eat poison ivy too do they?
Pokeweed is one of my favorite medicinal plants.
I collect young leaves and boil them 3 times for 5 minutes each time (changing water each time). Then they can be eaten like spinach with a bit of butter and spices. I like to mix them with my scrambled eggs.
I swallow up to 3 ripe berries a day for up to 4 days a week, for relief from joint pain. Do not bite into the seeds, they are the part that is toxic, just swallow whole and the seeds will pass through your system without breaking down.. You can also make jelly from the ripe berries.
The roots can be made into a powerful pain relief tincture, just be very careful with dosages.
The stems can also be made into pickles. I don't pick leaves or stems over 12" tall. If the plants do get over that height, I let them mature to harvest the ripe berries and some of the roots.
Nutritionally, poke weed is a powerhouse: A half cup of the greens provides 35 calories (10 from fat), no cholesterol, three grams dietary fiber, and 90% of your daily need for vitamin A, 60% of vitamin C, 8% calcium, and 6% of iron. Poke weed has 8,700 IU’s of vitamin A per 100g serving.
https://thegrownetwork.com/weed-garden-pokeweed/