Wild and Free!!! A weed with Omega 3 Fatty Acids!!! Always ask permission before harvesting on someone else's land. It's not free if you get shot. :D
I should mention that it has an extremely low Omega 3 fatty acid content, but still! Tastes like spinach! A little sour and a little salty. Has 5-7 times more ALA than spinach!
In fact, it contains two types of omega-3 fatty acids, ALA and EPA. ALA is found in many plants, but EPA is found mostly in animal products (like fatty fish) and algae.
This edible weed is called purslane, or pigweed. (Portulaca oleracea). It is originally from Asia, but it has spread like wildfire, and now grows in cleared fields all over the world. It is most often found growing as a weed in fields of Hemp, but I have seen it as a child, growing almost everywhere all over western Nebraska.
"A 100 gram (3.5 oz) portion contains (5Trusted Source):
Vitamin A (from beta-carotene): 26% of the DV. Vitamin C: 35% of the DV. Magnesium: 17% of the DV. Manganese: 15% of the DV. Potassium: 14% of the DV. Iron: 11% of the DV. Calcium: 7% of the RDI
It also contains small amounts of vitamins B1, B2, B3, folate, copper and phosphorus. You get all of these nutrients with only 16 calories! This makes it one of the most nutrient-dense foods on the planet, calorie for calorie."
Purslane can be eaten raw, or can be cooked like spinach, and used in all the same ways that spinach is used.
As always, never eat edible weeds that are growing next to a highway or well traveled road, and never eat them if harvested from a lawn that has been treated with insecticides or lawn chemicals. Wash all wild and free edibles thoroughly before eating.
And if you want to hear something REALLY weird about purslane, the word came to me this morning out of the clear blue sky. I had heard the word before, and I knew it was a plant...but when I looked it up I was VERY pleasantly surprised!!!
***** Postscript******* If now, or in the near future, your family becomes so hungry that you need to harvest this nutrient dense plant, I hope you will break off and replant a few sections of the stem, and replant them...because this weed grows from sections of stem, and also from seeds.
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@Peaches Careful to harvest only areas without pesticides and herbicides, and never at the side of a highway. You can't wash most of that out of the plant.
