by Mark McDonald
Genesis 1:29 “Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is on the face of all the Earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.”
Foraging for wild edible, medicinal plants can be fun and rewarding in both nutrition, exercise, and taste of the food. There are also dangers in foraging wild plants due to confusion and misunderstanding of edible parts, plant identity, plants polluted by chemicals or plants carrying disease and parasites harmful to humans.
Having almost died from e-coli from fresh leafy greens out of California organic farms and sold in a common grocery store, this problem is not isolated to wild plants. Washing the food does not eliminate all the parasites, bacteria or even start to eliminate chemical pollutants. After almost dying and much suffering from e-coli and again from chemicals on fresh fruits in the grocery store, I chose to forage for my greens, grow a garden and pick wild fruit and berries more often.
Some folks ask me “Aren’t there too many poisonous plants in the wild”? My answer is “there are 46 plants in East Texas that have all or part of the plant containing toxic chemicals. Two of them are in your garden- tomatoes and white potatoes. The leaves, stems and flowers of a potato plant are extremely poisonous, and the leaves, stems, and roots of a tomato are extremely poisonous. So, you have the knowledge to eat a tomato and potato safely don’t you? Well, there are some entire plants you can learn to identify easily in the wild that the entire plant is edible and safe. This includes roots, leaves, stems, flowers and seeds in all stages of growth.
Today my article is to teach only one plant and its subspecies, curl dock, yellow dock and Rumex Crispus.
I chose this plant because it’s so easy to identify. It primarily grows in the fall and spring and every portion of it is edible. In the summer you can easily harvest the seed stems and crush them or grind them to make flour for bread, pancakes or cook a crust for fish or chicken. In the spring you can pick the young leaves and eat them raw in a salad. I suggest washing them and using vinegar & oil based salad dressing to kill bacteria or parasites. Never pick the plants near highline right of ways, pipelines, or roadways that have been recently herbicided or fencerows that have been herbicided. Never harvest from land that has been rooted-up or had many wild hogs foraging on it. Never harvest from septic line areas or other polluted water courses. You can usually find it in ungrazed pastures but cattle and horses love it and eat it pretty quick. It can be found in gardens, front yards, barn lots and farm roadways etc.
Once, I found 50 acres of it on a grazed over pasture in Van Zandt County that cattle had been kept out of for 6 months. In the 1800’s it would have been an Indian’s dream. I harvested and froze enough for a year in less than 1 hour and I was able to gather seed for flour & planting at the same time.
The leaves & stems can be cut-up as you would mustard or turnip greens and cooked in the same way.
You don’t have to drain the water like you do on other wild greens like poke salad. No need to add butter or bacon as they have a natural buttery taste. You can also stir fry them with a drop or two of olive oil and onion and bell peppers. My wife’s favorite way to cook them is in an egg omelet with other omelet ingredients added as desired.
The roots can be cooked and eaten and are not bad, but they can be used more effectively for medicinal herb purposes. It helps treat skin conditions, it is high in iron, and works as a mild laxative.
The preparation of the roots is to chop them, or grind them & mix with olive oil for topical skin problems such as eczema or psoriasis. The root can also be used as a tea for liver cleansing.
The nutritional value of this plant is that it contains vitamin B-complex, C, D3, K and its mineral contents include calcium, magnesium, potassium, iron, zinc, copper (low levels), manganese, selenium and other trace elements. In an emergency survival situation it provides all the nutrition and minerals for survival, except protein, which you can get from other plants or animals in the wild such as greenbriar, oak, or fish and wild game.
You can plant it in your garden for a fall, winter or spring crop and if you don’t grow anything in those seasons it will generally be growing on its own in your garden.
I hope you enjoy it and may God bless you. In later articles I will teach you wild mustard and other safe plants.
Scripture: Psalm 104 ‘Herbs for the service of man’
Ezekiel 47:12
