We really scored on our camp spot. The ground is absolutely covered in dandelions! Yay! They are definately on the menu today.
There are so many reasons to add dandelions to your diet:
- they’re free
- they grow everywhere
- they’re loaded with vitamin A, C, K and minerals magnesium, iron, calcium, potassium
- they contain a special sugar that promotes the growth of good bacteria in your gut
And one of the most important things about dandelion greens as a food is that they’re bitter. Experiencing the taste of bitter foods positively stimulates the vagus nerve, the most important nerve in your body… interested? Read on!
The vagus nerve is a long meandering bundle of motor and sensory fibers that links the brain stem to the heart, lungs, and gut. It also branches out to touch and interact with the liver, spleen, gallbladder, ureter, female fertility organs, neck, ears, tongue, and kidneys. It powers up our involuntary nerve center—the parasympathetic nervous system—and controls unconscious body functions, as well as everything from keeping our heart rate constant and food digestion to breathing and sweating. It also helps regulate blood pressure and blood glucose balance, promotes general kidney function, helps release bile and testosterone, stimulates the secretion of saliva, assists in controlling taste and releasing tears, and plays a major role in fertility issues and orgasms in women.
upliftconnect.com
So how many bitter foods did you eat today? Or ever? Not many I’ll hazard to guess. But our prehistoric ancestors would have had heaps of bitter tastes in their daily diet before modern agriculture bred bitterness out of our greens. Perhaps this is a contributing factor to why the human race is so collectively unhealthy? Dandelions can really give that poor deprived vagus nerve a good wake-up!
So hopefully I’ve convinced you to jump on the bandwagon and your wondering how to go about finding them? Well dandelions love to grow in short grassy areas that are prone to compaction, I.e. sports fields, sidewalks, empty housing lots.. As always when harvesting wild foods make sure that wherever your harvesting hasn’t been sprayed (look for localised brown patches around fencelines and hard to mow areas) or otherwise contaminated.
Dandelions grow toothed leaves out from one central point in a crown formation. They have quite a few look-alikes but none of them are poisonous and actually all of them are somewhat nutritious aswell so you can’t really go wrong! To be certain you’re getting the real deal though look for these tell tale markers:
- Dandelion leaves are hairless
- The teeth all point towards the centre
- All parts exude a milky sap when broken
- The flowers are just one single flower on a long hollow stem (as opposed the some look-alikes which can have multiple flowers on the same or various stems)
They pretty much always grow in groups so you can usually get a decent harvest. We picked these from just a few metres radius around our camp:
Yilla got really into the picking aswell, just by watching me she recognised how to differentiate between the dandelion greens and the rest of the plants in the grass. Needless to say I am one proud mama!
So straight from the ground and into the pot they go with some pumpkin, chickpeas, garlic, and cinnamon. This was so delish we made it again the next day aswell!
Food Oasis 