Can you eat grass?
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- Опубліковано 30 гру 2020
- Earlier this year, we posted a video all about the worst weed we’ve encountered in our deep mulch garden: Quackgrass (AKA couch grass, twitch grass, witch grass, devil's grass, etc.)
In this video, we decided to test out it's claimed edibility, and made some quackgrass rhizome tea.
Original Quackgrass video: • Ruth Stout's Worst Ene...
Dehydration also helps to break down cell walls to allow for more access to nutrients.
as well as freezing?
And i find it slightly caramelises the things i dry out, adding a nice sweetness when i use them again.
About how long am I not supposed to drink before eating grass then? Any approximation? :D
I dont mean to be so offtopic but does any of you know of a trick to get back into an instagram account??
I was dumb forgot the login password. I would appreciate any tricks you can offer me
@Ernest Zavier instablaster :)
Hey guys! First of all, HAPPY NEW YEAR! :)
Second... after uploading this video the first time (about an hour ago), I noticed a glitch part way through (there was 18 seconds of black screen - sigh), so I pulled it down temporarily to fix it. We're back up and running now though! Sorry for the confusion!
Happy new year. I found your channel a while ago with the garlic video's. How are they doing?
Hi Cylais, we had a great garlic harvest this year, and have replanted many of them for next year’s crop. They’re cozy under a layer of mulch (and snow) at this point, but should hopefully do well in the spring :)
Happy new year! As always, many thanks for putting together such interesting and informative videos. Your graphics are also always very helpful for those of us who are visual learners.
When my dad bought his first house in the states the neighbour complained because he didn't know dandelions were considered weeds and he let them cover the yard.
In China they're considered a delicacy and people often harvest them as soon as they appear so that it's actually rare to find them.
It's funny to think the reason certain weeds become a problem is because we don't see the value in them.
Our perspective shapes our reality...
I really liked this comment. Thanks for sharing.
I was born and raised in the states and so were my parents.
my dad always saw dandelions as weeds, but my mom and I are always interested in what parts of nature are edible and can be used for different purposes (we are just nature lovers in general) and so we like when dandelions appear! we them as flowers and we like them for making tea and salads.
Dandelion greens are a staple for poor rural folks here in Appalachia, and the flowers can be used for jelly!
I recently looked into "free edible weeds etc" and found that all grass SEEDS are digestible if they are sprouted like you sprout alfalfa or clover seeds. They are very nutritious as well.
So when you see the seed heads collect them & sprout in a glass jar as you would any sprouts.
I have also heard you can juice the grass in a blender with a little water, & then strain the pulp out to be nutritious & drinkable.
I actually did this when one of my pups was off color & she lapped it up. I didn't give her much, but she liked what I gave her.
I am sure I remember reading that when dogs eat grass one of the types they will choose is couch grass.
I think we assumed the purpose was to make them sick - thus cleansing the stomach - but I wonder if they also get some medicinal benefit from whatever nutrients might be in it, I'm wondering if the cellulose is the vomit-inducing component, but there are also soluble aspects that improve health.
I was told that dogs won't eat if they're sick - and had a dog from kennels that was suffering from bad stomach and dhiarrea - as a novice I tried offering her a variety of foods, which, she, wisely, would not eat.
However, we left out some spare ribs on our coffee table after a chinese meal and she DID eat the sauce on the ribs, which contained ginger, cinnamon garlic and star anise, all of which I consider beneficial for the stomach - so I believe she was self-medicating. Shortly after, she had one last purge and then got better and her appetite returned to normal.
Well, I suppose a good part of good science is pure observation. I might say to myself "Dang! that cat/dog is eating grass - now I will have to watch for it being sick later. " when, in fact, I should be trying to work out what TYPE of grass it was and researching into that.
@@borlani Thats very interesting. I do believe dogs are more in tune to what they need than most of us. I think they get chlorophyll from grass & also the roughage.
I am unable to grow mint because one of my dogs just loves it and can eat through a healthy looking plant before I know it. lol.
So I feel like she must need whatever nutrients she gets from mint - obviously its good for stomach problems!
"Microgreens" are starting to see widespread appeal. You could probably do that with grass sprouts
@@borlani Just remember that garlic is part of the onion family which is toxic to dogs.
hi, do you have link to the article talking about this please?
I absolutely love your videos. While amazing and educational, theyre very relaxing because of how you talk and narrate. You're very talented and having grown up doing some basic front lawn gardening and many years at an outdoorsy very green minded summer camp, these videos always make me feel so nostalgic and warm inside. Long story short, thank you for sharing and letting us be a part of your experiences!
I was watching the video and then my wife was watching over my shoulder. She said during 'soviet times' you could harvest these like you have and the local chemist would pay you by weight. She thinks they dried and crushed into powders to sell perhaps as tea ingredients but maybe other herbal remedies. Latvia and indeed the Baltics are still quite in touch with herbal medicine benefits and still retain a lot of wisdom. We'll ask about and if we find anything else out will come back to you.
Just commenting for that comeback
@@nermainmerl6108 same
That would be interesting to hear more about :)
Lmk
priekā!
Happy new year to you both. Heres to a good 2021. May your garden be bountiful and your endeavours be rewarded. Be safe, be happy!!
I'm no expert in tea whatsoever, I can't even remember the last time I had a cup of tea, but using logic I think that the drying part is somewhat important. I guess one of the reasons is conservation and another one would be weight (no water means less chance for mould and easier to transport). But also, I think that once you've removed water, you're left with "the good stuff", so when you apply hot water to make your grass-tea, it's that hot water that extracts the flavours and there's no extra water in there which, to me, kind of makes a more concentrated tea, more flavor, although not as "fresh".
Those are my two cents.
Your videos are always so calming to sit through
Just found your channel and have been devouring all your videos. Just in time to because I was able to set up my first ruth stout beds before the first snows. I found out the buried logs in my raised beds actually have a name, and I love your experiments with building solutions to problems. From zone 6b in the states keep them coming!
Much to you's also, a great new year Paula and Derrick!
Psst, if you's EVER need more of them roots for more tea, your both more then welcome to take everyone of them things outta my backyard. Oh and totally at no cost! 😝
Happy New Year!! Dehydration would make it easier to grind/blend. A light roast would be interesting, too! And now I have all sorts of ideas about fermenting... :)
I always learn a TON from your vids--thanks so much!
Always enjoy your videos. Like how you 2 try different things in gardening. Happy New Year! Be safe. 😊👍
I see the question about dehydration has been properly answered already, so I just wanted to say I LOVE YOUR VIDEOS :) I'm stuck living in a 3x4m room in the city and it's a breath of fresh air to spend some time thinking about gardening and nature in general.
The production quality is amazing, your channel will definitely grow well if it keeps up!
Thanks so much! I really appreciate that :)
That was amazing info!! Happy New Year to you both!! 😊😊
Have to share a contrary to the norm observation of this devil grass, A community garden had an abandoned bed that had become overgrown with the grass and catnitp. This was a very hot dry summer and few tomatoes to be had but that abandoned bed, come to find out, had a huge cache of plump plumb tomats and in addition the bed was hardly watered
The dehydrating would lend itself to pulverizing in a mortar and pestle without creating a paste. Then use a coffee filter with a twist tie or organic cotton string. The water should be heated to just below boing. Most medicinal teas require a five minute steep. A roasting would add a toasty flavor but may ruin the health benefits.
Amazing video as always! Thank you! I would like to add that it is best to harvest rhizomes in late autumn or early spring when there are no leaves because then those rhizomes has best nutritional value. It stores all important stuff there for winter. And because of that dehydration is important if you want to collect and store it for few months. But if it is not used as medicine then it does not matter much.
From the Chinese herbal perspective, this tea would likely be slightly cooling in nature, and would drain damp.
Also, the preparation process would impact the effect of the herb, probably mitigating its cooling impact and making it easier to assimilate & digest.
☯️💙🌲
Thanks for the fun experiment!!
I got curious and searched if grass has any nutritional value and learned so much interesting stuff
I'll have to say, when you uncovered the quack on your garden bed preparing to dig it up, I had this gut feeling of dismay seeing it. Nothing strikes that feeling like seeing an invasion of that grass into the garden beds. Here it is snow on the ground outside, and not even my garden! but the feeling on the sight of it . . . Shudder!
Happy New Year! 🎉 I have Couch Grass around my allotment plot (in Cambridge, UK). I use various mulches (compost, cardboard, chop and drop) and I find it reduces the couch. Even if it starts to encroach, it doesn’t completely take over and it doesn’t appear to impact the crops. My chickens like eating grass so I can harvest some for them, and it works well as “chop and drop” in the dry summer months. I don’t think it will ever go away, but it definitely can be managed (just as BINDWEED - do you have this? Even the chickens don’t eat it 🤦♀️)
I recommend toasting them in a dry heated pan. (like you would spices to awaken their oils). This should add some depth of flavor. Some 'caramelization' .
I was looking for this comment before saying so myself. Lots of herbs are toasted and/or fermented before infusing in a beverage, especially tea leaves. If I were to try this in a tea, I would probably just strip the roots off like one would strip the leaves off a sprig of thyme by pulling it between my fingers.
I cannot add any valuable information about this topic as it’s new info for me to store in the back of my mind for a letter date if I want to try something like this, but I do want to wish you and Paula a Happy New Year and a successful year ahead! Cheers,Cindy🇨🇦
You guys are living my future lifeeeee. Plenty of land, growing food and learning about and experimenting with local product that is in your surrounding area😌
My grandfather managed to cause a fire in a nearby forest one summer because he started a bonfire in his garden and the flames went along dry couch grass runners and then popped up the other side of the hedge. We have it throughout our garden. It's incredibly annoying.
Yay! And it's perfect now (no typos). Happy New Year to you and the fam. Hope to see an awesome garden in 2021!
I fixed the typo while I was at it! Thanks!! 😀
Great video as always.
I think your presentation touches on the best way to eat couch grass, which is after another animal has digested it.
I suspect rabbits would love it as well as chickens.
I have both, and while I don't eat either of them, their ability to process green "waste" into fertilizer is incredibly valuable to me.
The eggs and the cuddles are nice too.
If the taste is too bland, you can always use it as a base and mix in other herbs with more flavour.
A fun and interesting video. Thank you. How was your harvest this past fall, 2020? I don't see a video yet.
Happy new year 🎉. Just a quick remark: it is lignin that makes up wood and provides most of it's rigidity. It's indeed cross-linked with cellulose and hemi cellulose but these 2 can only confers a fairly limited amount of vertical support. Thanks
Also, ruminants feed on microbes which are fed with the grass they eat. The grass itself is just food for their microbes.
I would put about a tablespoon of the fresh bits in a mug. Also this might be very good to grow for cats in a pot and easy & free to get started. And once it gets root bound in its pot it would be pretty easy to harvest the bottom half for tea.
Hi, in the country where I grew up it is popular to drink all kinds of herbs as tea. While in western countries most people know only chamomile and/or mint tea, I used to drink at least 10 more sorts of herb teas - each one with unique flavor. Of course you don't have to buy them, you can also harvest and prepare them yourself.
Dehydration is only for long storage, fresh tea is even better. You can make seasonal mixes of almost anything you find around the garden. Try St. John's wort (goatweed), lime tree (baswood) flowers, sage, mulberry, milk thistle, horsetail (snake grass), wild pansy, lemon balm and so on, and so on :)
Happy New Year!
Thanks for this comment. I’m feeling so inspired to new herbal teas now! Out of curiosity, which country did you grow up in?
@@BackToReality Poland :)
Thank you and happy new year!
Great production work and video
We did the no-til garden thing for 3 years and have fought the last 3 droughts enjoying the straw mulch for it s ET benefits. But this year with that cold spring the slugs decimated our garden, and quack grass decided it was its year to make its move. My wife called uncle after replanting the second time and removed the mulch to get the soil to finally warm up and let the plants get ahead of the slugs. That let the quack grass flourish even more and creeping charlie to join the party. I gave up this fall and instead of cover cropping opted to do a fall burn down with roundup weathermax and eragon and ran the rototiller. Hopefully after some composted beef manure and some elemental sulfur we'll make the no-til thing work very well with what we've learned over the last 3 years.
I made the tea years ago but yeah, I didn't clean it much and I didn't dry it. Drying is good for long term storage, and cleaning those tiny things is just nitpicking in my opinion.. I just tried the tea once for the sake of trying it out since it is mentioned in the old books but other than that I didn't bother with it again, there are tons of plants to gather either for homemade tea or for homemade medicine..
Sometimes it is also helpful to chop dehydrated plant parts before steeping them into tea because it creates more surface area
I've never had quackgrass tea, but I grow lemon balm specifically for making iced tea and typically I just cut the plant just above the ground, wash in plenty of water, give it a quick spin in the salad spinner and then stuff a mason jar, add boiling water, let steep, and then pour out through a sprouting lid into a pitcher of ice.
I would assume that drying herbal tea is optional. For me personally I haven't enjoyed dried lemon balm tea as much as fresh lemon balm tea, so the flavor is different, but not necessarily worse if you don't dry it.
Very interesting! Yes, next time use it fresh. Pound pieces in a mortar and pestle to break open cells and nutrients. Then pour boiling water over and steep. I have done this with lots of fun stuff. Pine needles, I think are delicious.
When I was younger I used to chew grass to hide the smell of smoking. I never used to swallow the pulp but the juices that came from smaller varieties of grass were quite sweet the taller grasses were not very tasty at all.
Cows and dogs love it. Dehydrating does change its taste like dandelion, you can do fresh, I wonder if one can juice it like wheat grass juice. Our dogs use it as fiber or for vomiting and getting water of it's wider blades of leaves. Fascinating video. You could do a double roast like coffee or dandelion maybe tastier.
Nice video again. I find that the couch grass does give up after about 6 months of vigorous pulling every day when a new rise zone is spotted.
Respect from Africa 🇿🇦
All grasses are invasive pests...am convinced God created Cows and geese to save the planet from being choked out by grasses.
The ONLY weed I have any trouble with controlling is my neighbors lawn grass, creeping over relentlessly. All others are easily managed with judicious use of competitive exclusion principles.
I prefer dandelions and docks for teas myself, good mineral content and much easier to harvest and process, plus I use mints heavily for their competitive nature.
Pigs for the natural trash. Shellfish for the sea poop. God is good all the time
Fresh leaves make herbal teas bitter and tasting kind of green, like cooked spinach or that smell you get when pruning ornamental plants. It can be avoided by making sun tea, but that is prone to mold growth in about 5-7 days.
I'm not sure about rhizomes since they don't have chlorophyll, you may not have the same problem. Personally, I would probably still dry them then toast them in a dry pan to give a bit more flavor to the tea.
I have no idea if it will work, but since this stuff is driving me crazy in my own garden, I've ordered yellow rattle seed which I'm going to plant down both sides of the main bed, to see if that will reduce the grass growth.
You could also try using a wire-stripper to get rid of the roots around the nodes
I like this video and your yourney also, the way you describe herbal medicine is done the right way.
Here in bosnia during war time (90') we used to take nettle, boil it and eat it. I like the taste and do it still today
Hello there, I think there was short notice in one herbalistic handbook that rhizomes should be cleaned by pulling it through thick fabric (like one from sack) - never tried it, but it could remove the small roots.
Here in VA, there is kudzu, poison ivy, English ivy, and Virginia Creeper, some of which grow in similar ways to the quack grass.
It would be great to come up with good uses for these, especially the kudzu!
Thank you for interesting videos, i'm a new subscriber...
The Lost Book of Herbal Remedies show kudzu's medicinal qualities. Also, UA-cam has Ivy recipes making laundry detergent. 😂
I don't consider drinking tea the same as eating it, however I am curious if this could be steamed or boiled to extract sugars to be used in cooking or as mention - making beer. Also, what nutritional value does it have anyway?
I have heard that all grass is basically edible. But when talking to an organic farmer in my area whole grew and sold wheatgrass, he said to always filter the wheatgrass because the fiber isn’t healthy to eat, and we can’t digest it anyways. So you know, if you’re not in an emergency at the moment, the best way to consume it is probably to juice it, like you juice wheatgrass.
I've made maple tea. I tried fresh material. I never got the color and flavor density of dried material. It seams way more potent to use dried material.
Grat Graphics that accelerate the assimilation of concepts!
Your videos rock! Happy better year to you too!
Thanks so much Jana! :)
@@BackToReality ❤️
Great video again !! 💖💖💖 I will try that too ! Happy New Year from Romania , zone 6a !!!
Have you considered looking at it as a basketry fiber or just for cordage?
seems more work than it's worth it. I get the satisfaction of digging it up.I spent 5 months digging up ground elder as I moved and the renters before me weren't avid gardeners. at my veg patch I have bindweed, also a pesky weed and also marestail. just as bad. I wonder if the seeds can be used on bred, like poppy or wheat seeds, if you're brave enough to let couchgrass go that far
You could try to select them for bigger seeds until you had something like wheat
Can we just ferment grass in a jar (like sour sourkraut) the same way that cows etc do it inside of their stomachs?
I wonder if these rhizome pieces could be pickled like bamboo shoots, maybe it makes them softer?
can you ferment the grass and then eat it as a normal food?
Fascinating! I don't know if you're up for keeping guinea pigs, but they will eat your quackgrass and turn it into some of the best fertilizer I've ever used.
Loved the video, liked and subbed, however, the title is misleading. Keep up the good work! Will watch more of you
We have cherry bowl in our new garden. Our family gasped loudly when I told them. They've been battling it fiercely for ever. I decided it wasn't worth the effort since they've not really made any significant progress in this war. So I started eating it, and funnily enough I liked it very much. And I ate it all. It comes back, but I have to have a system for not killing it off, because that is a real possibility when harvesting as much as I do.
Good to know, we may be eating grass in the near.
Oooooooooooohhhhhhh. THAT grass. I thought you were discussing the OTHER grass. You know, the kind that makes brownies more fun.
Lame
@@crawfordwice good thing your opinion don't count. Go buy yourself a sense of humor.
As usual I learned a lot from this video 👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽👍🏽
Can you safely eat the roots ?
Please give me that link for the 12,000 edible wild grass species
Keep on keeping on!
Not sure why, but I came here to ask if you can take a handful of grass, crush it with some water in a mortar and pestle, and eat it
What if we grind it first?
Can you make a tea or a broth from grass? are there toxins in it?
Yes. A very Happy New Year to all of you from me and my Tribe.
Happy new year!
My opinion is either boil and cook the fresh rhizomes and use the resulting stock as tea, or do what you did, but keep the nodes.
Well my dears, it sounds a little bland for my tastes. I wonder if you cut and dried some of the leaves? Medicinally the same benefits I wonder? Don't really have Quack Grass here but we do have Dollar Weed that reproduces the same way.
I haven't watched the video yet but I'm just reporting in to say that this video title is exactly the kind of thing I get on the internet every day hoping I'll find
Over here where i live in Europe we just have the grass eaten by cows, this prevents lots of unnecessary chewing, bad aftertaste and regular constipation. .. instead we just eat the cows.
fiber removes any constipation u idiot
Best way to eat grass is simply to put it through a juicer, that way it eliminates the indigestible cellulose that cows can deal with. So the juice from the grass is very nutritious and can support one in times of food scarcity. Example potatoes and grass juice or oats a grass juice would be a healthy completely sustaining diet
What about feeding the tea back to your garden for nutrients
Wash thoroughly the all plant, dry it and make a dust in mixer whit 40% of sugar(no parts, weight) : you should have a soluble tea-like powder you can store for mouth.
I think the powder (without sugar) it's used in pharmaceutical receipts named " Excipient up to 100%"; like Salix in some case.
in the words of hank green "DONT EAT GRASS"
Eating Quackgrass to gain nutrition
Grass has been our staple for 14,000 years.
me: ok its time to sleep
my brain: can a human survive on eating grass?
me: *I NEED ANSWERS*
Could you tell me what program/software you use for your animations? Thanks!
Sure!
I use Adobe Illustrator to create the artwork, and then Adobe After Effects to animate it. :)
What software do you use for animations?
Can I eat raw grass seeds that I buy from the store.
Might be good to add with a touch of mint for more flavor.
can i drink tea from a glass?
I wonder if a small plot of land with Quackgrass could give me an endless supply of green materials for hot composting.
It surely would if you put geese on it or cows... They will turn it into manure and thats as hot as it gets.
What about wheatgrass?
Here in maine we call it crabgrass
Green mint tastes awful in hot soup but dry mint tastes good so maybe the taste of tea would change depending on its dryness...
maybe try fermenting or roasting it before brewing
I would fertilize the plants with Roundup.
Equipment : Cup, brush, rubber gloves and an overall. A drop or two of washing up detergent to dissolve any plant wax.
I could of course water the plants with vinegar, but I'm not in the mood for that.
Black plastic to solarize the area works well. I did that this summer and then planted fall crops in August and September. I got a fantastic Winter garden out of it.
My neighbor was a big fan of Roundup-ing every last "weed." He died of cancer 2 years ago.
@@keralee Lots of people die of cancer. Also people that have never used Roundup.
@@goatkidmom clear plastic works a lot faster.