Edible Planet

I have to teach a lesson in edible plants next week at camp, and since I have this week off (hallelujah!), I thought I'd take advantage of it and learn something of value that I can actually bring back and engage 12 year-olds with. I thought I'd look up a few things and be done, but ended up diving into a world of edible plants that I can't seem to pry myself away from. The earth is so cool. I'd love to apprentice an herbalist someday.

Anywho, here are some fun things I've run across:

Cattails: pretty much every part of a cattail is edible at some point during the year. In addition to eating them,

• the heads make great torches when you soak them in torch oil,
• burning them wards off mosquitoes and other insects,
• the sticky juice between the layers of the stalk is a great healing agent and antiseptic to put on cuts and abrasions,
• its flour -- which you can harvest from its pollen -- when mixed with water, works well on bites, stings, burns, and rashes, and can be used as toothpaste.
• The flour can also be used as a soup thickener or in baked goods. It's highly nutritious and
• can reduce stress

If you're interested, here's part 1 (out of 6) of a pretty informative video series on different parts of the cattail to harvest and different ways of cooking them. The guy in the video has a pretty kick ass accent, which ups the vid quality significantly as well.

*Note:  Water  Iris  is  a  lookalike  plant  to  cattail  that  happens  to  be  poisonous.  They're  pretty  easy  to  tell  apart  if  you  know  what  you're  looking  for,  but  pretty  easy  to  mistake  if  you  don't.  Kick-Ass  Accent  Man  explains  how  to  tell  them  apart  2  minutes  into  the  video.

 Pine Needle Tea: I just took my last swig of the mug I made this morning from pine needles I picked across the street.

Pine Needle Tea is loaded with vitamin C (more than fresh squeezed orange juice... crazy, right?) and Vitamin A. It's also a good decongestant and it tastes good, to boot.

You can use pretty much any kind of pine needle and each variety has its own distinct flavor, but the thing you need to be mindful of is that not all evergreen trees are pine trees. If you're not an expert in tree identification, a solid way to figure out whether or not the needles are safe is to take a needle and bite into it. If it tastes citrus-y, you're good to go. If it tastes like turpentine (or rather, if the taste reminds you of the smell of paint thinner), then that's a no go. The little taste test won't hurt you, but you don't want to drink a cup full of tea brewed from the latter.

Once you've got your hands on some good pine needles, it's not much work:

1. Gather a handful of pine needles (1/8 - 1/4 cup), removing and discarding (preferably in the ground, not your garbage can) any of the brown, papery material at their base.

2. Wash the needles and chop the finely (to help release the vitamins)

3. Add them to already boiled water (as opposed to putting them in while boiling... this preserves the integrity of the vitamin C) and steep for anywhere from 5 minutes to half an hour. You can play around with the steeping time and decide how potent you like your tea.

4. Strain out the pine needles and enjoy. You can use sweetener, but it doesn't necessarily need it, especially if you've used fresh, young pine needles.

Honey:

Pretty  commonly  known  fact  about  honey: It's super good for you. It builds your immune system, boosts your energy, and is a remedy for all sorts of ailments.

Less  commonly  known  fact  about  honey: Putting it in boiling water drastically lessens a lot of honey's health benefits. Hot water destroys honey's enzymes, diluting its medicinal value. It's much better stirred into warm water. This will probably not stop me from putting honey in my tea, nor from telling myself I'm being healthier by using honey as opposed to sugar in my steaming hot beverages, but at least now I am enlightened if I choose to be.