Edible and medicinal uses of wild vegetables

Author: Chief Editor: Zhang Zhipu
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 1997-06-01
Features: Summary The nutritional value of wild vegetables is extremely rich, containing essential nutrients such as protein, fat, carbohydrates, vitamins, and inorganic salts. Most wild vegetables have preventive, curative, and health benefits. Although wild vegetables offer these advantages, many people are unaware of how to utilize them. This book provides basic knowledge about wild vegetables, including their types, characteristics, regional distribution, growth environments, nutritional components, medicinal efficacy, and prescription remedies, as well as cooking and dietary therapy. It also covers symptoms of poisoning, toxicity identification, and prevention. The book collects 65 common wild vegetables from both northern and southern regions, integrating identification, medicinal use, and dietary therapy. It is rich in content, illustrated with text and images, making it an invaluable resource for families and the general public. Excerpt:
(1) Raw Consumption and Cold Dishes These wild vegetables are known to be non-toxic and free of bitterness, with sweet, sour, or fragrant flavors. Examples include purslane, sea milk grass, water celery, malan head, chicory, sour dock, northern rhubarb, and small onion. After blanching in boiling water and rinsing with cold water several times, add soy sauce, fine salt, vinegar, sesame oil, a little sugar, and MSG for consumption. For chicory, cook in boiling water for 3–5 minutes, then soak in cold water for 1 hour before seasoning. This method preserves vitamins or minimizes their loss.
(2) Stir-frying or Steaming All non-toxic wild vegetables with no special odor or bitterness can be stir-fried directly. Examples include goji thorn, wild amaranth, chrysanthemum greens, kidney beans, rooster combs, spearhead greens, thistle, revolutionary greens, bracken, and duckweed. After washing the tender leaves, they can be stir-fried or boiled, or used as fillings for steamed buns, dumplings, or zongzi. They can be stir-fried alone or with meat. Chrysanthemum greens, with their delicious and fragrant taste, can also be used in soups. Adding minced meat and beaten eggs, along with starch, enhances the flavor.
(3) Blanching and Soaking for Stir-frying Some wild vegetables with bitterness, such as dragon root greens, water celery, goose feather potentilla, Polygonum, silkworm plant, bitter-cold greens, sour mustard greens, yellow dragon root, and potentilla, should be blanched in boiling water or saltwater for 5–10 minutes. Then, soak them in water for several hours to leach out the bitterness before stir-frying or steaming.
(4) Pickling Some non-toxic and non-bitter wild vegetables develop a unique flavor when pickled. Examples include bracken and daylily, which become delicious and retain their fragrance when pickled in sugar and vinegar, while also preserving a large amount of vitamins.
(5) Drying Most wild vegetables can be blanched in boiling water to remove toxins and then dried into dry goods or salted. This method is suitable for seasonal varieties with short harvesting periods but can be picked in large quantities. Examples include white azalea, oriental monkshood, daylily, bracken, lily, and wild yam. Dried purslane, when used as a filling or a side dish for braised pork, adds a unique flavor. Additionally, there are many valuable mountain and wild vegetables, such as golden needle mushrooms, black fungus, mushrooms, monkey head, nori, and kelp, which have long been dried using traditional Chinese methods.
(6) Wild Vegetable Banquets In recent years, wild vegetable banquets have emerged in mid-sized and large cities in China, with some featuring cold dishes as appetizers, others accompanied by chicken, duck, fish, and meat, and some even consisting entirely of wild vegetable dishes. Some restaurants have also introduced medicinal diets based on wild vegetables for health and wellness.
III. Symptoms of Wild Vegetable Poisoning and Toxicity Identification and Prevention
(1) Symptoms of Wild Vegetable Poisoning Although wild vegetables are extremely nutritious and contain essential nutrients, not all can be eaten directly. Improper consumption may lead to poisoning, ranging from mild abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting to severe breathing difficulties, heart failure, loss of consciousness, and even death. The causes of poisoning are various toxic substances in wild vegetables, such as alkaloids, glycosides, and toxic proteins. The symptoms of poisoning are as follows:
1. Symptoms of Atropine Poisoning: Thirst, shouting, excitement, dilated pupils.
2. Symptoms of Morphine Poisoning: Vomiting, headache, constricted pupils, drowsiness, breathing difficulties leading to death.
3. Symptoms of Aconitine Poisoning: Nausea, fatigue, numbness of the mouth and tongue, breathing difficulties, pale complexion, irregular pulse, and even sudden death.
4. Symptoms of Glycoside Poisoning: For cyanogenic glycoside poisoning, symptoms include dizziness, unsteady gait, numbness, dilated pupils, salivation, red-purple nasal mucosa, and even muscle spasms leading to death.