Identification

One of the hardest parts of learning about wild edibles is identification of the plants. many think that it is dangerous to forage wild edibles. I think this is a silly idea that comes from our cultivated civilization. We are so disconnected from nature we don’t even know where our food comes from. I certainly agree that you should not just go out and start eating any plat you find in the wild without proper identification but I think we should definitely work to learn all we can about those plants that grow in our area and work to add them to our diet. With some, identification takes a lot of research and time. I think the time is worth spending personally and can be very helpful but with grasses identification is not as big a worry. At least you know you are not going to poison yourself by eating the seeds you find, that is as long as they are far enough away from mans chemicals that we seem to think we can’t live without. If it is a grass and it has seeds you can harvest you can eat it.

Preparation

the next thing we need to understand then is preparation. This again is a lost art to many. Even when we eat grains as part of our diet we generally buy it all cleaned and sterilized and we are not involved with the process of taking it from plant to table. So here are some ideas of ways to eat grass seed.

Boil or steam it like rice and serve as a side dish.

Toast it like Quinoa and then use it in bread, boil it or make a flour

Grind it and eat it like breakfast cereal such as cracked wheat

There are hundreds of different grasses available to us and seeds are the most important part of our diet so the grasses we see as we are foraging should not be ignored but rather we should find a way to make them part of our diet. Come see some that I have identified and found in my area at http://www.WildUtahEdibles.com/