‘A Walk on the Wild (Edibles) Side’

Thinking of the soil these edibles grow in is my only concern. One never knows what kind of soil is packed under a sidewalk paver or street gutter.

Not to mention here in the land of sun nothing is watered (or cleaned) by rain on a regular basis. Our weeds are mostly brown unless you're one of those amoral water gluttens.

We have dust of urine, vomit and poop all summer long and into the winter.

To say that urban plants are organic si simply wrong, and a slap in the face of those who go to the great trouble of raising food organically. I realize that most people are ignorant of the strict and complex activities that are required to qualify as organic, but I won't give Bittman a pass on such ignorance.

Cannabis Sativa is so yesterday. Men eat real weeds!

What about the lead and other harmful trace elements in the roadside plants?
Has anyone looked into this?

I agree with Bittman that there is largely no downside in cultivating weeds in our gardens and our farms. In a rare dry growing season in our southwest Ohio village, I had one of the few successful gardens on our street of green thumbs because I cultivated weeds and transplants side by side. By reducing bare ground, the plants retained more water and flourish. Most years, I let things grow a little to prove their worth and thin as the season progresses. I compost or eat what I remove from the garden. I don't bagged yard waste to remove it from the property; I process it onsite. I internally wince whenever a fellow gardner tells me about using chemicals. It contaminates the water running thru and off the property and taints the food that they are producing (and often times ignoring). It is also a waste of perfectly good organic material.

Every time I read about foraging I think about what foraging did to the wild mushroom harvest in the Pacific Northwest. Thirty or so years ago, we thought nothing of going out and finding some nice 'shrooms. Then more and more people found out about them and the mushroom turf wars erupted, complete with real firearms. If more than a few people start foraging for other wild edibles, how will that play out? Especially if the trendy chef is willing to pay for the goods. Hard to believe there would be enough to go around, even ignoring trespass issues. Maybe we should be eating a wider variety of plants but making a habit of reaping what we do not sow is probably not the answer, dog pee or no dog pee.

In the same vane as know your farmer, know your lawn and any other land you might be tempted to forage from. There are lawns I would eat from, many others I would avoid. It's not the pee I'm worried about It. It's people who don't know what they are doing with concentrated chemicals.

Be very careful of eating any plants grown close to roadways as they can absorb, and will contain, significant amounts of lead, cadmium and other vehicle emission toxins -
The mythological romanticism behind this whole foraging genre is always attractive to those who live in large megalopolis areas -(maybe that is why there is always a version of this type of provision scavenging article rehashed over and over)
Another great name for these foodstuffs is "Armageddon Food"

The first year that we moved to our property, I harvested beautiful bouquets of mustard greens in the spring. They were gorgeous plants and, because I got them before they flowered, sweet, zingy, and not bitter. The downside was that I over harvested. By eating the plants before they could propagate, I eradicated them. They haven't grown on the property since. Now I have to forage elsewhere for mustard greens and it's harder to get them at peak flavor. So if like me you enjoy foraged food, be respectful and leave some for posterity.

As a soil scientist and one who worked with Green Thumb in NYC and Cornell University on their Healthy Soil, Healthy Gardens initiative, I can say with the utmost confidence that the statement in the video about plants not taking up lead or any of the other heavy metals is downright false. Plants will behave differently in different soils, and specifically when we are talking about the acidity of the soil, the pH. Add species to the question and it gets even more complex. It is crucial that people understand that. By making some unequivocal false statement as your friend does, it is a disservice to scientists like those at Cornell, U of Michigan, Minnesota, and Washington, who are trying to fix a HUGE problem to make urban gardening a possibility given what we've got. To add to the confusion, the tolerable levels for the big three metals is not agreed upon by the WHO and the FDA.

Thanks Mark and friends. So true. I've been eating weeds in Connecticut for decades. I appreciate the farmer's words in the video. See my recent blog about cultivating dandelions on our farm. http://ctnofa1982.blogspot.com/2015_05_01_archive.html

I wonder about the video ad for Roundup that came with the weed video. Seems kind of awful. Monsanto can't give up the notion that weeds need to be killed with a very dangerous chemical.

Ever read Euell Gibbons' Stalking the Wild Asparagus? Published in 1962, this and his other books about foraging (Stalking the Blue Eyed Scallop, Stalking Far Away Places and more) have been on my bookshelf for decades, and about the only books I won't lend. What's old is new and I'm encouraged that today, there is more that a movement, but a real market for locally grown...or wild....edibles.

Thanks for this reporting.

Best non-Onion Onion article of the last 36 hours.

Lead and other heavy metals are a serious concern in urban soil (the NYT wrote about this in 2009: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/garden/14lead.html). In the yards and verges I've tested or seen the results for in my DC neighborhood, lead alone is detectable at up to 550 parts per million, 200+ over what the USDA and our local agricultural extension recommend as safe for gardening. Small amounts of foraging - or foraging on tested ground - isn't harmful, but urban flora cannot blithely be assumed to be 'organic'.

This is my neighborhood. 14years. While I love the idea of eating weeds and have done so for years. Dandelions a personal favorite.

However; here they are framing this neighborhood with the worst of it... look paint cans ect. and poke theirs heads into barren yards. The article fails to frame the thriving urban garden a door down. Yes weeds can help anyone put something edible onto their plate in time of need. they can. But I think urban Farms such as City Slickers or WOW farms (both 5 blocks away) do more than say here eat this dog stained weed, they empower all to get access to excellent food that is not contaminated and offer skills.

West Oakland is contaminated. Diesel fumes form the port, Lead Paint from all of the houses. and so on. Yes you can grow weeds well, easily and often simply in a drought effected climate. Yet I would NOT eat they weeds they so happily munch on. I have had soil tested. It's hit or miss. Some of west Oakland is a Superfund site. Some of it dumped on for years. Intentionally. but not to rid plants of pests but for other intentions! To say you can just wash them off and be fine is to ridicule all of the efforts being made to actually clean the neighborhood of all this 'intentional' pollution.

I would also say 'weed eating' is nothing new, only new to a society/culture that traditional depends on corporate monoculture. Natives have been eating weeds for years. Finally the like kombucha, its Trendy. Yes! nature is celebrating. Yet choose wisely.

I moved to Tucson 2 years ago and am discovering with the help of locals and an interesting seed librarian who works with the Pima County Library that there is a lot that is edible off the street or out in the desert. Prickly Pear cactus provide fruit that can be made into juice and other things. The pods from Mesquite and Palo Verde trees, abundant out here are harvested, ground into a tasty and gluten free flour that can be used for making bread, tortillas, pancakes and waffles just to name a few things.
When I visited the city of Oaxaca in Mexico, people harvested large flying ants, crickets and grasshoppers for ancient traditional delicacies. We are so hung up about food and farming. I know people who love to eat meat, but would NEVER eat lamb, or even eat goat cheese or cheese from sheep. When I lived-in the Midwest many people picked dandelion greens out of my yard. Of course taste is not only personal but regional, national, and full of biases. It's good to challenge those long accepted norms and try something new. It could be both good for the consumer and the earth.

I appreciate that the author is encouraging the public to eat weedy species! I would like to comment that learning some botany and basic plant ID skills is extremely useful for those interested in edible plants. There are many tasty, weedy edible species that are difficult to distinguish from bad-tasting, rare, or even toxic native or non-native species without a little instruction and/or research. Finally, keep in mind that some wild edibles are slow-growing and their populations are vulnerable to over-harvesting. Also, a small correction, I believe yarrow is considered native to the US, at least according to the USDA.

Most wild plants are edible especially slow cooked several times but it just take too much time to wash and cook I'm not sure if it's worthwhile!

Yikes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_contamination_in_Oakland#West_Oakland

A word of warning: The highly toxic poison hemlock (Conium maculatm) can easily be mistaken for fennel (Foeniculum vulgare). Both are in the carrot family, which includes many poisonous plants. It is dangerous for a novice to just go grazing down the street.

I missed wild plum season this year.

BTW, just because you found it by the sidewalk doesn't mean it's uncontaminated. I'll recommend a bit more caution.

Let's not forget Claytonia perfoliata (miner's lettuce) and Portulaca oleracea (purslane), both of which grow in the Bay area.

Wonderful idea. Nature must be rejoicing.

As the owner of a dog, and as someone who now watches where all dogs taken for walks pee, I'd be pretty wary of eating anything growing along a city street.

"There is simply no downside here."
...other than eating something off the streets of West Oakland.

(They may be soiled by whatever happens on the street, but they’re not intentionally doused with chemicals.)

In cities that spray for mosquitoes these edible wilds are intentionally doused with chemicals that can kill tadpoles.

Dandelion blossoms are easier to find than dandelion buds at great distance, and they are very tasty and filling when breaded and fried in olive oil.

As a Californian, I agree that the climate in CA is an advantage for certain plants. But unfortunately Mr. Bittman seems to have ignored similar opportunities to discover wild edibles on the East coast (where I currently live). Maybe it is Bittman's "I've moved to California" honeymoon period, but let's not forget that there are edible wild plant species common throughout the US, but others are actually more common in the NY/New England area than in CA.

As for the spurious claim that wild plants are "nutritionally superior" to domesticated relatives, this goes down the simplistic "natural must be better" path of fallacy--some wild relatives of edible domestic plants are actually toxic (domestication was not undertaken solely to increase yields, after all). There are many good reasons for foraging for wild edibles, but the "nutritionally superior" argument is not one of them.