Supplements and Herbs

Tips for harvesting and cooking with wild herbs

For background on the health value of wild herbs, see Wild herbs are both food and powerful medicine.

Foraging for wild herbs

Only gather herbs in unpolluted locations (your own garden, balcony, or meadows at least 100 yards away from roads).

Only pick young, tender, light green parts of the plant or the upper shoots (e.g. nettle) so that the plant can regenerate and you have "fresh vegetables" for the entire growing season.

Taste and feel which plants you should take a lot of and which you should take less of. Neutral-tasting herbs that occur in large quantities such as nettle and ground elder often are ideal.

Only harvest plants that you know well and have identified with certainty. Get yourself a good field guide to edible wild plants.

Preparing and cooking with wild herbs

Wash the wild herbs well and use them immediately if possible or store them in the fridge for a short time. Freezing is possible, although not ideal.

Eat the wild herbs raw if possible and only sprinkle them on warm dishes at the end (do not stir them in). Although nettle soup is a traditional dish in some countries, it is best to add at least some of the herbs raw.

Start with small quantities to get used to the slightly bitter (but digestive) taste. Chop the herbs very fine at the beginning and sprinkle them over your dishes, salads, on cottage cheese, on sandwiches....

Later, use them to dress whole salads (avoid lettuce) by chopping the herbs roughly and combining them with vegetables or fruit of your choice.

Add a chopped apple or some raisins or banana pieces to wild salads to take away the slight bitterness.

Create a delicious salad cream with nut, almond or sesame butter, lemon, yoghurt or similar things.

If you don't tolerate fruit well, eat some wild herbs with it—their high mineral content helps to neutralize acidity. Despite its acidity, fruit is normally metabolized as an alkaline in a healthy organism.

Snack on flowers and decorate your dishes with them! Some believe that in addition to the energy of light, you are also providing yourself with the information of “beauty”: It is not for nothing that some say that eating flowers makes you beautiful.

If you are collecting for medicinal herbal teas, the herbs must not be washed before drying, i.e. gather them in the cleanest possible locations and not close to the ground.

More wild herb recipes

Wild herb salad I
Collect young, tender wild herbs (larger quantity), aromatic herbs (smaller quantity) and some edible flowers from the garden (balcony etc.), wash and chop coarsely. Mix in a bowl with pieces of apple or banana or some raisins, season with lemon, a little honey and good oil (olive oil, linseed oil, rapeseed oil, wheat germ oil) or nut butter. Add sunflower seeds or nuts / almonds.

Wild herb salad II
Prepare wild herbs as above and combine with chopped vegetables (tomato / cucumber / zucchini or root vegetables, sugar snaps etc.) with salad dressing or avocado salad cream.

Salad dressing
Mix lemon juice or balsamic vinegar, olive oil, shoyu or tamari, a little water and seasoning if desired.

Green beauty drink—instead of supper, for a real “rejuvenating sleep” or as a “morning starter”
Blend milk/soy milk/goat's milk or yogurt/kefir, banana and lots of wild herbs until creamy. Variations: mix in some honey, pollen, wheat germ, sunflower seeds, linseed, almond butter, linseed or wheat germ oil or similar. Spoon slowly ("chew").

Nightcap (helps to produce the sleep-promoting hormone melatonin)
Mix 1 cup of milk/yoghurt, 1 banana, 2 dates or 1 tsp of honey, ground poppy seeds, calming herbs such as lemon balm, borage, lavender, peppermint, hop shoots.

Wild herb spinach
Wash and blanch (briefly in hot water) or steam a large quantity of wild herbs (especially nettle and ground elder), then puree in a blender or with a hand blender. Sauté the onions in olive oil until translucent, add some wholemeal flour and add the green mixture, season with sour cream, salt and nutmeg. Serve with potatoes or wholegrain pasta.

Wild herb pesto: multivitamins for seasoning, for pasta or on bread
Puree various wild herbs, e.g. ground elder, stinging nettle, lots of garlic mustard very finely with a little sea salt or shoyu and good olive oil (add garlic or other aromatic kitchen herbs and sunflower seeds if desired). Pour into a jar, cover with olive oil, refrigerate and consume quickly.

Wild herb quark / cottage cheese
Mix low-fat quark with salt, fresh linseed oil and plenty of coarsely chopped wild herbs, served with jacket potatoes or wholemeal bread.

Always remember to chew well

Thorough mastication is a basic measure to help ensure that the nutrients contained in your food are absorbed as well as possible. Similarly to the underappreciated value of wild herbs, this is another excellent example of how the most basic things in life can make or break a person's health. While the Japanese seem to always have known and taught the importance of chewing well, Western people owe the propagation of the health-restoring and preserving value of thorough chewing to Horace Fletcher (1849–1919) who recovered his health thanks to this simple practice, and more recently to Austrian doctor Franz Xaver Mayr. Among other astounding benefits, chewing well has helped release people from addiction to alcohol and nicotine.

Last but not least...

Take your time and turn herb collecting into a meditation. Enjoy the free "treasures" in your garden (or on your balcony, in your vicinity...), get in touch with each plant and thank it! This conscious approach to plant life alone will bring you health benefits. Observe how the herbal flora in your garden or environment changes: Centuries-old lore says that the herbs that come into our immediate environment are always exactly those that we need at the moment, but also those that we can accept and appreciate. I can confirm this from my own experience: since wild herbs have been part of my daily diet from March to October, the diversity of species in my garden has increased noticeably. And I no longer have any problems with "weeds"!

Even "desired herbs" (e.g. garlic mustard and motherwort—never seen in my garden before) suddenly appeared. And new species are added every year. As if they sense that they are needed and appreciated here...

The above text was adapted and translated from an article found at https://www.initiative.cc/Artikel/2008_05_23%20Wilkraeuter.htm. .

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