Many blessings fellow gardeners. 👩‍🌾 I was surprised not to find any information on the incredible medicinal and edible properties of many of the weeds your killing and throwing away? 🤔

Many could be dehydrated into a healthy greens mix. See Heidi @ Raincountry on Youtube for more info. Also if your interested... Dean Greene @ EatTheWeeds.com is a great resource to learn them all.

I eat Spanish needles, amaranth, clovers and many others and also make beautiful spanikopita's with them. Currently drying various ones for my green mix.

Yarrow.. plantain.. dandelions and many of the others you mentioned have valuable anti bacterial, anti viral, and anti microbial properties, helpful nutrients and healing attributes. With the cost of food rising it will be good to know EVERYTHING you have in your own yard that you can eat. 😉

Life, Love & Peace

So what are you eating? and how are you preparing them?

I have eaten several plants called ''weeds''
right now purslane is added to most of my salads
earlier in the spring dandelion.

We've been brainwashed into calling so many edible plants weeds. Mostly through sheer snobbery about growing edibles in the home landscape, and some through publicity of the creation of chemicals to kill them.

I have tasted some of my weeds. But not really made meals of them. Lambsquarter is one I actually enjoy.
Some of those with dehydrators are making greens powder to add to almost any cooked sauce, stew, smoothies, etc Maybe this would inspire me to actually harvest a mix of greens and process in some way for that use.
I agree I like knowing what is technically edible at least.

Agree. I rarely eat a meal that is 1 item anyway. But many savory dishes are a great place to add a little of this, or a little of that, instead of considering eating a bowl of nothing but the 1 thing. Especially meatloaf. I've put shocking amounts of minced spinach in meatloaf many times and nobody knows but me. "OK, yes, you don't like spinach, that's why I never serve it to you." LOL! Mixed veggies are another place where a lot of little green bits can be added and just look like herbs/spices.

And like Cinda said about adding a little purslane to salad. She's not trying to eat it as a standalone dish. I wouldn't eat a bowl of radishes but love a few slices in a salad. I wouldn't eat a whole plate of basil, but I love tossing a few leaves in this and that, including salad.

People don't eat meals of just bell peppers, but combined with other things, they eat a lot of bell peppers.

"Edible" doesn't mean suitable as a standalone meal. It has never meant that. Nobody eats a meal of just oregano, butter, celery, or salt, but these things are edible and can add a lot of appeal or just nutrition to primary ingredients.

So many of the plants we call weeds in the US are consumed every day in other parts of the world.

All good points and ideas.
I think wild greens/weeds have been a lifesaver for many people at times. I think read once that people commonly were very malnourished by the time spring greens starting growing, hence poke sallat, etc.
The thing that concerns me is unreasonable expectations about foraging wild edibles in your yard (or public land) and making them a significant part of your calorie intake.
I would like to foster some of the cultivated greens as 'weeds' in my yard- brassicas make so many seeds, it seems I should be able to do that.

I think these things were all just a normal part of what people ate until grocery stores, mowers, 'cides, lobbying forces, and snobbery about home-grown food came into existence. If people don't need to buy mass-produced agricultural products to survive, that's not good for business. Telling them, to paraphrase, that anything not available @ the grocery store is a weed is a tactic that has been used. I have nothing against making a profit from selling a desired product in an honest way, but I don't support the well-documented brainwashing that has been done to Americans, in particular, in regard to what is food and what is a weed. It's madness that people spend time and money to "fight weeds" when many of them could just be consumed.

Great subject. I love growing edible wild plants, and intentionally growing many "weed". I also enjoy eating uncommon edible non-weed plants like daylily blooms, costus blooms and many more. Some time weed can also be pretty.
Sometime i got lucky finding pretty weed like "variegated weed" and they becoming prime garden member, both for oranament as well for the plate.
This Peperomia pellucida are truly a weedy plant, edible as well as medicinal, and I love the very slight peppery cruchy texture, stirr fry but very briefly.

If you like green salads Lambs Quarter, Purslane, Oxalis are all very good with iceberg lettuce, onion, a hard boiled egg, a little turkey or ham and French Dressing.

I sometimes add a few''weeds'' in a fruit smoothy just for the healthy green value add
especially the ones not to tasty alone

🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻Gardengus - Thanks for your question. 🌱💚 I eat spanish needles and amaranth, almost daily. I pinch off the youngest sprouts and small leaves and chop up with malabar spinach leaves and fresh oregano into my eggs, pasta,.. anything I use other greens in. They both have an amazing amount of nutrients as well as medicinal benefits. I posted a pic of the last spinach pie I made with both of them. So yummy. You can eat it anytime of day.

A fun trick - pinch the new growth of spanish needles and chew when you have a sore throat. Works great!

I also eat purslane, lambs quarters, skunk vine (really nice nutty flavor), hybiscus flowers, clovers, berries, briar tips (tastes like asparagus, and a whole bunch of other yummies. I have also learned to forage for chantrelle mushrooms.

Again a stellar resource is Green Dean @ EatTheWeeds.com to identify and learn more. I gave gone on 2 walkabouts here in FL. Both well worth the time and money. I also have numerous books to help me identify new plants.

I agree with all the great comments!! Except, sorry "Dr." I would substitute iceburg lettuce. 🙄 It has very little nuturional value. I prefer another dark green lettuce or spinach instead.

So excited by all the replies. 😃💚 I really feel its part of my mission to spread the word on all the nutritious and healthy free plants.

Life, Love, & Peace, Michelle

That looks really good!