Superfoods in your own backyard?
Get out and forage!
You Are what you Eat
“Superfoods” are great for us – and we want to nourish our bodies with the best – but wow, can they be expensive! Perhaps you’ve already incorporated superfoods into your diet. If so, good for you! Another concern about supermarket “superfoods” is that many of them come from half-way around the world, degrading the health of the environment along the way. We want to be healthy, but is killing the planet our only choice?
What is a “Superfood”?
“Superfood” is a marketing term developed to help sell “food products” and is not a specific food criteria category. But the term is generally understood to mean natural foods that are especially nutrient-dense and offer exceptional health benefits.
Wild vs. Cultivated – Nutritional density
It turns out that wild foods are higher in vitamins and minerals than their cultivated counterparts. That’s partly because the active phytochemistry of the plant has to protect itself from predators in the wild and so it has to work harder.
It’s also because wild edibles tend to contain more beneficial nutrients on a per-weight basis than cultivated foods (Milburn, 2004). and, cultivated foods like vegetables have been selected for many generations for their size and hardiness rather than their nutritional value.
All cultivated foods started out as wild plants – high in nutritional value – and over the long-history of agriculture, humans have saved seeds and hybridized plants to genetically-select the larger, easier-to-grow varieties. While these plants make for great crop yields, they generally contain fewer nutrients than their wild counterparts (Davis et al., 2004).
Superfoods and wild foods can help promote health by increasing your immune function and decreasing your chance of disease or its progression. Benefits can support:
Reduced inflammation
Lower cholesterol
Cancer prevention
A strong heart
A stronger immune system
What makes a food a superfood?.
In particular, superfoods are rich in:
Vitamins: Receiving organic compounds directly from the plants themselves rewards increased vitality.
Antioxidants: Natural compounds protect your cells from damage and may lower the risk of heart disease, cancer and other diseases.
Minerals: These essential nutrients (calcium, potassium, iron) help your body perform at its highest level.
Superfoods may also be high in:
Fiber: Fiber helps decrease cholesterol, prevent heart disease and control glucose
Flavonoids: Found in plants, flavonoids have anti-inflammatory and anti-carcinogenic properties.
Healthy fats: Monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, a.k.a. “Good fats” help lower your cholesterol and prevent heart disease and stroke.
Monadnock Region Superfoods
There are many nutrient-dense, wild superfoods in the Monadnock Region that your body can benefit from. Enjoying some of these wild foods each day can even help to replace your expensive multi-vitamin! Some of my favorite nourishing wild foods are Stinging Nettle (Urtica dioica), Chickweed (Stellaria media), Blueberries, Blackberries, Raspberries, Lambs Quarters (Chenopodium album), Purslane (Portulaca oleracea), Mint (Mentha arvensis), Red Clover (Trifolium pratense), Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale), Violet (Viola) and Burdock Root (Arctium). There is nothing like the high-energy you get from eating fresh-picked wild (and even cultivated) plants on a regular basis!
Of course, learning how they grow, where they grow, what they like and how to harvest each kind of plant appropriately is all part of the wonderful experience of coming back home. This slowing down, reconnecting and re-integration of ourselves within Nature lowers our blood pressure, reduces anxiety and gives us a strong sense of belonging. And the plants love the interaction too!
If you are a woman* and would like to learn more about wild foraging, medicinal herbs and backyard nourishing superfoods, please check out my Wild Women Summer Workshops beginning in July.
Until next time, happy foraging!
*Cis and non-cis-gendered welcome.
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Milburn, M. (2004). Indigenous nutrition: Using traditional food knowledge to solve contemporary health problems. American Indian Quarterly, 28(3-4), 411-434. https://doi.org/10.1353/aiq.2004.0104
Uekoetter, F. (Ed.) (2010). The turning points of environmental history. Pittsburgh, PA: University of PIttsburgh Press.
Davis, D., Epp, M., & Riordan, H. (2004). Changes in USDA food composition data for 43 garden plants, 1950-1999. Journal of the American College of Nutrition, 23(6), 669-682. https://doi.org/10.1080/07315724.2004.10719409