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Green For Life
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Plants
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Chapter 15
The Wisdom of Plants
We have already discussed the sophisticated relationship plants
have with soil and sunshine. Apparently millions of years of co-existence on the
same planet have resulted in plants, people, and animals developing a strong
symbiotic connection. Plants do not mind if people and animals eat their fruits
because such practice benefits the plant by spreading its seeds for future
generations. In fact plants are
"interested" in someone eating their fruit, but only when it is ripe. As I
stated before, the goal of all plants is the continuation of their species and
providing adequate living conditions for them. That is why nearly nearly all the
fruits in the world have a round shape, so that it could roll away and start a
new life. For the very same reason plants have learned to make their fruit
colorful, palatable, and nutritious to ensure that its consumers not only eat
one fruit but continue to return for more. This strategy works very well and all
fruit gets eaten.
Have you ever noticed how thoroughly birds "clean" cherry trees or how
squirrels keep working on an oak tree until there are no more acorns left? What
happens next? The "eaters" digest their food and have bowel movements far away
from the mother plant and the seeds are covered with nice "organic fertilizer."
The seeds get a perfect start. Inside the fruit, the seeds are wisely protected
from being digested with hardy shells and inhibitors. Note that the plant keeps
its fruit extremely un-tasteful, colorless, and without attractive fragrance all
the way until the seeds are ripe, so that nobody wastes them before the seeds
have matured.
The following example illustrates how much the continuation of their species
means to plants. In a recent study in Russia, biologists discovered that "When a
tree is foreseeing its death, the tree gathers its entire energy and deposits
this energy into producing seeds for the very last time. For example, the oak
tree broken by the storm or the cedar tree with its bark removed from its trunk,
in a farewell effort before they die forever, give their record crops of acorns
or nuts."
In contrast with the previous example, when a plant is genetically altered, it
does not produce seeds on purpose. Such a plant makes itself infertile to
prevent future unhealthy generations. Seedless watermelons are usually odorless
and tasteless, because an upset plant has no motivation to make its fruits
sweet, fragrant., or attractive in any other way. I am sure that it is not
healthy to eat seedless plants, because their entire chemistry electromagnetic
charge, and who knows what else has been altered. In my own life, I prefer to
pay double for an organic seeded watermelon or tomato.
Do plants "want" us to eat their trunk and roots? Nope.
That is why the roots are hidden in the ground. The roots are for the
microorganisms in the soil, as we described in the previous chapter. The trunk
is purposely covered with hard and bitter bark. And what about the greens?
Again, plants demonstrate their perfect ability to develop symbiosis with
different creatures. Plants "allow" humans and animals to eat all of their
fruits, but only part of their leaves, because plants need to have leaves for
their own use - which is manufacturing chlorophyll. However, plants depend on
moving creatures for many different reasons, like pollination, fertilizing the
soil, and hanging around to help eat the ripe fruit. For this reason, plants
accumulate a lot of highly nutritious elements in their leaves, but mix these
nourishing ingredients with either bitterness or very small amounts of alkaloids
(poisons). That is how animals are forced to rotate their menu and that is why
all wild animals are browsers. They eat a small amount of one thing, then move
on to many other plants during the course of the day. The body is capable of
detoxifying small amounts of a great many things. Chimpanzees also rotate the
green plants they eat. They go through approximately 117 different plants in one
year. We humans need to learn to alternate our variety of greens as much as
possible instead of eating only iceberg lettuce, spinach and romaine. I was able
to locate only about 40 types of various greens, including edible weeds, that
are available in my state of Oregon. I hope that our farmers will learn to grow
a larger variety of green leafy vegetables to increase our green sources. The
following is a list of greens that my family has been rotating in our diet
during the last year.
Greens
Arugula
Asparagus
Beet greens (tops)
Bok Choy
Broccoli
Carrot tops
Celery
Chard
Collard Greens
Edible flowers
Endive
Escarole
Frisee
Kale (3 types)
Mizuna
Mustard greens
Radicchio
Radish tops
Romaine lettuce, green and red leaf (no Iceberg or light colored leaf)
Spinach
Weeds
Chickweed
Clover
Dandelion (greens and flowers)
Lambsquarters
Malva
Miner's lettuce
Plantain
Purslane
Stinging Nettles
Herbs
Aloe Vera
Baby dill
Basil
Cilantro
Fennel
Mint
Parsley (2 types)
Peppermint leaves
Spearmint
Sprouts
Alfalfa
Broccoli
Clover
Fenugreek
Radish
Sunflower
Wild edibles often contain more vitamins and minerals than
commercially marketed plants. Weeds have not been "spoiled" with farmers' care
in contrast to the "good" plants of the garden. In order to survive in spite of
constant weeding, pulling, and spraying, weeds had to develop strong survival
properties. For example, in order to stay alive without being watered, most
weeds have developed unbelievably long roots. Alfalfa's roots grow up to 20 feet
long reaching for the most fertile layers of the soil. As a result, all wild
plants possess more nutrients than commercially grown plants. feel so silly now
when I remember how I used to always pull out the "nasty" lambsquarters from my
garden to let my "precious" iceberg lettuce grow.
While there are countless benefits associated with eating wild foods, there are
also some risks. It is a good idea to first learn how to positively identify the
edible plants. I urge you to take caution when harvesting wild foods.
Eating wild edibles is fun, healthful, and safe when done properly. Please take
the time to educate yourself and your loved ones. If you are ever in doubt about
whether a plant. is edible or not, please, please don't eat it!
The best way to learn which weeds are edible is to sign up for an herb walk with
an experienced guide in your local area. This way you can learn to recognize
particular edible plants by actually touching, smelling, and tasting them so
that you can gather your "wild produce" on your own. Also, there are lots of
articles and photos of edible weeds on the internet. You may also find many
books that help identify edible plants in your area.
For variety, we include several kinds of sprouts in our diet, but never more
than a handful and only one or two times a week. Approximately from the third to
the sixth day of their life, sprouts contain higher levels of alkaloids, as a
means of protection from animals nipping them off and killing them. That doesn't
mean that sprouts are poisonous or dangerous, but only that we cannot live on
sprouts alone. Most sprouts are rich in B-vitamins and have a hundred times more
nutrients than a fully developed plant because sprouts need more nutrition for
their fast growing period.
Once in a while I read in the news or receive an e-mail about kale or spinach or
parsley or any other green having a toxic ingredient and therefore being
dangerous for human consumption. This is all true but not to a degree as to
exclude any particular green from our diet. Let us learn to increase the variety
of greens in our diet and to constantly rotate them for better nutritional
results.
There are several other ways in which plants protect themselves from being
destroyed. Some plants have thorns instead of alkaloids and one type of acacia
tree in Africa is inhabited by colonies of very aggressive ants with a painful
sting.
Thorny plants, like cactuses and stinging nettles, do not contain any alkaloids
which makes them a valuable addition to our diet. Of course, we need to first
figure out how to eat them. I have often successfully added stinging nettles to
my green smoothies.
Cereal grasses contain very little or no alkaloids because they attempt to
attract deer, wild horses, goats, and other animals to the meadows in order to
collect fertilizer from these animals. Grasses' leaf texture evolved to be
coarse and hard to digest, thus forcing animals to stay in the meadows all day
long chewing.
When I think about all these little tricks plants have developed for their
survival, I feel an immense respect and admiration for nature. Our symbiosis
with plants has developed over a course of millions of years, but we could ruin
it in just a matter of decades. I believe that we still can repair our
relationship with nature. Returning back to our original diet is one necessary
step towards this goal.
Chapter 16 -
Jaw Exercise
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Green For Life by Victoria Boutenko
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