Lets talk about Wild Garlic!
because we can....
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Now, I am not one to hype the medicinal properties of any old plant, but wild garlic is very, very, special.
What I mean is that there is really decent science showing major benefits from eating wild garlic, including reducing high blood pressure.
”Garlic (Allium sativum), is used widely as a flavoring in cooking, but it has also been used as a medicine throughout ancient and modern history; it has been taken to prevent and treat a wide range of conditions and diseases.
Garlic belongs to the genus Allium and is closely related to the onion, rakkyo (an onion found in Asia), scallion, chive, leek, and shallot. It has been used by humans for thousands of years and was used in Ancient Egypt for both culinary purposes and its health and therapeutic benefits.” https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/265853
Richard S. Rivlin wrote in the Journal of Nutrition that the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates (circa. 460-370 BC), known today as “the father of Western medicine,” prescribed garlic for a wide range of conditions and illnesses. Hippocrates promoted the use of garlic for treating respiratory problems, parasites, poor digestion, and fatigue.
Throughout history in the Middle East, East Asia, and Nepal, garlic has been used to treat bronchitis, hypertension (high blood pressure), TB (tuberculosis), liver disorders, dysentery, flatulence, colic, intestinal worms, rheumatism, diabetes, and fevers.
Currently, garlic is widely used for several conditions linked to the blood system and heart, including atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries), high cholesterol, heart attack, coronary heart disease, and hypertension.
Garlic is also used today by some people for the prevention of lung cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, stomach cancer, rectal cancer, and colon cancer.
(It is important to add that only some of these uses are backed by research.)
A study published in the journal Food and Chemical Toxicology warned that short-term heating reduces the anti-inflammatory effects of fresh raw garlic extracts. This may be a problem for some people who do not like or cannot tolerate the taste and/or odor of fresh garlic.
It is widespread and common, favouring cool, temperate woodlands, and damp places. This is one of my local patches: by a stream in beech woods.
I use it mainly as a pickle, steeped in white wine vinegar, also to make garlic pesto and garlic butter.
Anyway, it is delicious and versatile, and the flavour is intense and life-enhancing!
Here in South Africa we got a super nice, VERY common allium named Tulbaghia Violacea (iirc), or otherwise known as Society Garlic. It's everywhere, generally even a few leaves have a stronger flavour than garlic (with some onion), entire thing is edible, useful, powdered/dried leaves would be great as garlic/onion spice (but more efficient, much less involved), just add salt, pepper or whatever. Also has significant medicinal properties and some androgenic properties. I've used it in all kinds of dishes, salads, in potato salad with even just thyme,, maybe some italian herbs, it's excellent.
Anyway, slightly tangential, but you might find this useful (it's super basic stuff, in case you haven't considered it). Copy/pasting from one of my posts.
Have you got a camera?
Okay, take some photos of plants you don't know, use plant identification apps/sites (there are a few, either for smartphone or PC). Tada!
You can identify most plants very rapidly these days. And then, you can search for some uses for those plants. You'd be surprised at how many are edible/medicinally useful.
And here are some related basic resources.
https://www.eattheweeds.com/
http://pfaf.org/
http://stuartxchange.com/CompleteList
Oh and even plants you might be familiar with, tend to have more uses than you know of. Like sunflowers. I've eaten pretty much every part of sunflowers at various ages (like I'd cook juvenile heads), or even the trunk/stem is edible (though the outer part is hard, so you gotta split that after cooking it). It's kinda like uh...gemsquash sort of texture, taste (kinda bland, but you can add whatever).
Another related thing, those who bitch about “feeding the world” are entirely full of shit, try to homogenize, monopolize and induce artificial scarcity.
Here is agriculture’s greatest myth.
https://www.independentsciencenews.org/commentaries/agricultures-greatest-myth/
"The specific ways in which these four assumptions are incorporated into GAPS and other models produces one of two effects. Each causes GAPS to either underestimate global food supply (now and in the future), or to overestimate global food demand (now and in the future).
Thus GAPS and other models underestimate supply and exaggerate demand. The cumulative effect is dramatic. Using peer-reviewed data, the discrepancy between food availability estimated by GAPS and the underlying supply is calculated in the paper. Such calculations show that GAPS and other models omit approximately enough food annually to feed 12.5 billion persons. That is a lot of food, but it does perfectly explain why the models are so discrepant with policymakers’ and farmers’ consistent experiences of the food system. "