Weeds: Eat, Pray and Love Them

What do you do with weeds?

EAT as many weeds as you can stomach.

PRAY they don’t take over your lawn or garden.

LOVE them?

Weeds are some of the most powerful, vigorous, and nourishing plants on the earth. Wouldn’t we all like to “grow like a weed”?

Eat Weeds:

If you would bother to walk out to your lawn or garden, you can probably find enough weeds to solve many of your health problems.

Dandelion leaves for example have much more nutrition than any of the lettuces you can buy in the supermarket and most of the other greens also. It’s at a great price too! FREE!
Dandelion Root is considered one of the most useful herbs available in Chinese Medicine. It feeds and cleans the liver which deals with almost every function in your body. Clean up your liver and you will enjoy more energy, mental clarity and probably lose weight in the process.
If you have heard about resveratrol and all of its benefits, there is a weed that has much more of the nutrient than red grapes – the Japanese Giant Knotweed. This plant is so voracious that it can overcome just about any native growth in just about any growing situation. Farmers in Japan and the UK wage fierce battles with this plant. It has been respected in China and Tibet as a medicinal herb for 2,000 years.

You can read about my various adventures eating weeds in Dandelion Madness.

What weeds do you eat and why?

Pray For Weeds:

Weeds are so vital they don’t need any help, divine or otherwise, to thrive.

Most of MY prayers are in the opposite direction: that they don’t overcome my lawn or garden before I can deal with them, whether by eating them or pulling them.

Of course I do not use chemical herbicides (plant-killers).

My main nemesis in this category is the Canadian Thistle. I’ve tried to eat them (The Man Who Ate Thistle), I’ve tried to pull them (Good Weed Bad Weed), but they still are out of control. So much so that the plant sheriffs in my farming region keep leaving nasty notices!

Which weeds do you pray for escape from?

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Read more: Diet & Nutrition, Eating for Health, Food, General Health, Health, Self-Help, Spirit, dandelions, weeds

Duane B.

1:21PM PDT on Apr 13, 2013

Thank you for sharing.

April 13
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Dale O.

8:22AM PDT on Jul 31, 2012

One can easily identify weeds that they pick to eat by doing a search of weeds specific to their area on the internet and click on images and check that way if worried about what one picks.

Such a variety to choose from and so many are very tasty. At the moment only a few weeds find their way into my balcony container garden so I go out to rural areas and seek out the wild ones where no one is spraying toxins.

July 31
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Michele W.

1:09AM PST on Jan 28, 2012

Thank you

January 28
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Eternal G.

7:10PM PDT on Sep 5, 2011

Hear! Hear! Couldn't agree more!

September 5
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Nancy P.

3:20AM PDT on Aug 3, 2011

I do eat some weeds; dandelions, miners lettuce, wild onions and pursane. The weeds I don't like are those with stickers like goat heads......

August 3
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Jo Z.

12:02PM PDT on Jul 30, 2011

We eat dandelion, purslane and stinging nettles from our garden. The nettles especially are amazing. I can't touch them but once dried or cooked they are manageable. Everyone should include them in their diet!

July 30
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Loo S.

4:03AM PDT on Jul 30, 2011

thanks for sharing.

Kirsten B.

12:55PM PDT on Jul 29, 2011

I actually would be happy to have many common weeds in my garden: dandelion, daisy, nettle ... to name a few. I'm just waiting for a garden to let them grow. :)

Here in Germany people seem to encourage the 'weeds' which so many other nations curse and spray to oblivion.

I would also use my energy for other things rather than the praying, worrying, stressing and stuff about having the 'right' weeds, if any, in my garden. Life is too short to get wound up about such trivial matters. Be happy for what you have here and now. Let nature be - she is infinitely wiser than we are, or at least that is the impression she gives me.

July 29
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Patricia H.

11:34AM PDT on Jul 29, 2011

I am now surrounded by neighbors that "kill" the good stuff in their yards by spraying weed killer. When someone has to wear boots, rubber gloves and goggles to spray..you know its not good. If its windy I tell them not to be spraying as I have COPD and can't breathe...and I don't want my dandelions, clover, pursalane and other goodies killed off. But they don't have to know that I want to keep my "weeds".