[HN Gopher] Eating stinging nettles
___________________________________________________________________
Eating stinging nettles
Author : rzk
Score : 155 points
Date : 2025-11-06 11:57 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (rachel.blog)
(TXT) w3m dump (rachel.blog)
| Raztuf wrote:
| >People think that when you become vegan you have to give up lots
| of food. It's true that I stopped eating animals but the number
| of different species I eat has grown considerably. This is
| because meat-eaters tend to eat the same few species of animals
| over and over again - pigs, cows, chickens. Whereas there are
| some 20,000 species of edible plants in the world.
|
| I was vegetarian for 10 years until around COVID. I often want to
| go back to vegetarianism, not for ethical or health reasons, just
| for the sheer diversity of what I ate and the fun of cooking with
| limitations.
| Sharlin wrote:
| I can't see how using plants diversely in cooking implies
| having to go full vegetarian.
| kqr wrote:
| The term you're looking for is "creative constraint". Some
| people (I am one of them) need the constraint enforced more
| brutally in order for it to work at all.
|
| Sure, I could develop a minimalistic game using the Unity
| engine - but I find it much easier when I'm using the Pico-8
| fantasy console to force myself to do so.
|
| Similarly, I could cook a varied vegetable meal any day of
| the week - but I find it much easier when I'm using
| vegetarianism to force myself to do so.
| ajuc wrote:
| It's why chip tunes are so great. Different constraints
| force people to rethink basic assumptions.
| devmor wrote:
| I have casually wondered what term to use to describe this
| phenomenon myself, and now I have it.
|
| It's why I like pixel art, chiptunes, polaroids, one-pot
| stews and modern video games for retro consoles among many
| other things. Sometimes I feel like this is why so many
| great artists come from restrictive religious backgrounds
| as well.
| kawsper wrote:
| That's an interesting perspective, I found out something
| similar when travelling as a vegan.
|
| The limitations put up forces you to go hunt for smaller, and
| sometimes fringe restaurants, located off the beaten path run
| by passionate people.
| ungreased0675 wrote:
| This is true. I'm not vegan or vegetarian, but I look for
| restaurants that cater to those audiences when traveling.
| It's probably because they're putting a lot more attention
| into the ingredients, which reflects as a more thoughtful end
| product.
| RyanOD wrote:
| We have a family policy when traveling to never eat
| anywhere we could frequent at home.
| veltas wrote:
| In the quote it sounds like they're conflating veganism and
| vegetarianism.
| koolala wrote:
| Nettle omelet
| agos wrote:
| it's doubly perplexing since they cite stinging nettle
| risotto, a dish that started out as non vegan, and was born
| out of a community of meat eaters.
| izzylan wrote:
| That's interesting. I tried vegetarianiam for a while and I
| found that it incredibly limiting and difficult.
|
| I don't have the time to cook and ready-to-eat or frozen
| vegetarian meals just aren't a thing around here. I think if I
| went full veganism I'd starve.
| worldfoodgood wrote:
| As someone who became vegetarian after reading a Glenn
| Greenwald article I found on HN about how the pork industry
| does _awful_ things and gets the government to prosecute
| people trying to expose it, the key I 've found is to look to
| world cuisine.
|
| Many cultures around the world have awesome food that's
| easily convertible to vegetarian or is vegetarian already,
| where meat might be a luxury.
|
| Central America and the Caribbean have tons of dishes with
| rice, beans, plantains, and flavorful sauces with flatbreads.
| Or a million ways to prepare corn. West Africa has peanut
| stew that's amazing. Across the rest of the continent jollof
| rice and githeri are good solid bases for a meal. Misir wot
| is a spicy hearty lentil stew. North Africa has a rich
| vegetarian tradition of soups, stews, and rice dishes. In the
| middle east there's falafel, hummus, mujadara, shakshuka and
| about a million ways to combine spices, onions, tomatoes,
| flatbreads, etc. South Asia obviously has a massive
| vegetarian cultural tradition, as does Southeast and East
| Asia.
|
| When I started, I found it hard. I kept thinking "beans and
| rice... I guess?" Once I started going, "ok, I'm going to
| pick a small region of the world and see what they eat there
| and try it" I had WAY more success. The first time I made
| tteok-bokki or sushi or vareniki I suddenly realized just how
| much of the world is really already preparing vegetarian
| meals for many of their meals.
| gniv wrote:
| My mom made soup from them when I grew up. They are not
| particularly special taste-wise but I can believe they have
| vitamins, like every green.
| matthewaveryusa wrote:
| Oh yeah my polish grandmother (100 and still kicking!) cooked
| some. Tastes like spinach and was great.
|
| Fun story (semi related) she visited us in the US in 2015 and my
| sister served her kale. She amusingly said: "I haven't had this
| since ww2" apparently when food was scarce they grew kale which
| was easy to grow in Poland and packed with nutrients
| comrade1234 wrote:
| Yeah it's not as common here (Zurich) as the USA. Also, collard
| greens just don't seem to exist here.
| proxysna wrote:
| My family in Belarus used to make a soup with it. Exactly like
| spinach, maybe more fibery texture.
| hobs wrote:
| Yes, my grandmother told me how the "Greek diet" was the one
| they ate while the Nazis tried to starve them out.
| Tade0 wrote:
| Funnily enough around a decade ago or so it was fashionable in
| some circles in Poland to eat kale and it brought all kinds of
| ridicule from people questioning the plant's purported
| benefits.
|
| A lot of the more recent examples of Polish cuisine are dishes
| originally invented out of poverty and made largely out of
| cheap ingredients and which now took a new form using stuff
| unheard of at the time because the real recipe is not to
| contemporary taste.
|
| My favourite example of that would be cold cheesecake -
| originally made largely from cottage cheese, nowadays has
| mascarpone as the main ingredient.
|
| Mascarpone! Hardly anyone knew what mascarpone even was in the
| 70s.
| hugh-avherald wrote:
| "I came close to madness trying to find it here in the States
| but they just don't get the spices right."
| ricardobeat wrote:
| > People think that when you become vegan you have to give up
| lots of food
|
| Well, that's kind of the point no? You do.
|
| I think they mean people imagine you'd give up on _variety of
| food_.
| uvesten wrote:
| Which you also do... if we're really being honest about it.
| crazybonkersai wrote:
| Stinging nettles are often touted as free abundant superfood, but
| the truth is it is rather bland and boring. Yes, edible, but you
| would be better of grabbing some established greens from a local
| grocery store.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| > superfood
|
| Most superfoods are what we ate when we were poor growing up.
| Nettles, collards, mustard greens, kale...
|
| My opinion, the word superfood, gets people to pay a premium
| for cheap and easily commercially grown plants.
| afpx wrote:
| That's awesome they gave you greens. All I seemed to get were
| bricks of moldy cheese, dried milk and occasional bread and
| mayo sandwiches.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Tell me you had a single mother who got WIC without telling
| me directly.
| skeezyjefferson wrote:
| funny, did you come up with that one yourself?
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| Honest question, what was your intent with your reply?
| afpx wrote:
| They were actually correct, though. I thought it was
| funny. There were a lot of us back in the day especially
| in the rust belt.
| esafak wrote:
| > bricks of moldy cheese
|
| That's the good stuff!?
| mikepurvis wrote:
| Kale has entered the chat.
| imp0cat wrote:
| Yeah, these are usually only eaten right around Easter.
| zikduruqe wrote:
| And right before morel mushrooms are harvested.
| deepvibrations wrote:
| Are other greens really much more tasty? Either way, many
| superfoods are not eaten solo - you can mix with basil for a
| lovely pesto for example, or simply add some nettle to your
| normal stew/soup for added nutrients.
|
| I have nettle tea every morning and now thinking about the
| standard black tea, I see that as "bland/boring". I admit it
| didn't appeal at first, but now I love the earthy taste, so
| maybe it's slightly acquired taste?
| technothrasher wrote:
| I've always liked nettle tea, but perhaps that's because I
| grew up with it. I also "invented" catnip tea. Yes, I know,
| everybody knows about catnip tea. But as I kid I didn't, and
| I noticed that catnip and nettles often were growing together
| wild on our farm. I suspected the catnip had evolved to hide
| in the nettles, because it looks very similar to it. Don't
| know if that's true or if it was just because they liked
| similar conditions. But, since I was often taking the nettles
| for tea, I figured I'd try the catnip. It was good.
| deepvibrations wrote:
| Interesting - never tried catnip tea, so if I see some,
| i'll give it a try!
| lxgr wrote:
| As a cyclist occasionally brushing against stinging nettles
| when the city can't clear them fast enough after a growth
| season, I do applaud everyone picking and eating as much as
| they can carry :)
| yread wrote:
| Young ones can readily replace spinach
| zoratu wrote:
| This is not clarified on the blog, and is an important point.
| The mature plant is not tender or tasty.
| spaqin wrote:
| In Eastern European countryside a hundred years ago, nettles
| used to be the last resort in early spring when winter supplies
| were growing thin, and anything growing and not poisonous would
| be cooked. Sure, they have some nutritional value, but there
| are reasons why they're not really eaten nowadays...
| riffraff wrote:
| I thinks is mostly a matter of effort, not just taste. I'm
| Italian and my grandma used to forage dozens of wild plants,
| some very tasty (not nettles, I'd agree), and I still forage
| a few.
|
| But it takes a morning to have the equivalent of 5 minutes in
| the vegetable isle of the supermarket.
| comrade1234 wrote:
| In the spring I get nettles and wild garlic and a bit later
| elderflower. Summer is berries (including elderberries), plums,
| wild cherries (not as good as they sound). Fall is wild mushrooms
| and sloe and monkey butt fruit and persimmons, apple, pear, etc.
| Winter is drinking elderflower vodka and sloe gin and eating
| frozen and dried stuff from the rest of the year. I'm sure I'm
| forgetting things.
| vintermann wrote:
| Foraging is definitely a fun hobby, and not limited to
| vegetarians/vegans.
|
| I haven't tried nettles yet, mostly because people say it's
| bland and there's so much else to choose from. In particular,
| nettle season is also meadowsweet season, and that is
| incredibly good. It's in the same taste family as vanilla,
| almond and cinnamon but it's its own unique thing.
| riffraff wrote:
| No dandelion? I can't recommend it enough.
|
| About every part is edible too: new leaves are sweet, old
| leaves are bitter, buds can be pickled, roots you can make teas
| and coffee substitute.
|
| A few related plants are also good (e.g. wild chicory), and
| it's one of the easiest plants to identify.
| sixeyes wrote:
| Ate a lot of nettle soup growing up. I'd say it tastes a lot like
| spinach. It's also nice to put a little milk (sorry vegans)
| deepvibrations wrote:
| No need to apologise, oat/almond milk very easily available (or
| made in a blender as I do!)
| mmsc wrote:
| There's a restaurant in Sarajevo which specializes in this stuff,
| called The Singing Nettle. Recommended.
| tomaytotomato wrote:
| Random fact:
|
| You only get stung by nettles around the edge of their leaves.
| You can touch the middle of the leaf and you won't get stung.
| sethammons wrote:
| their stalks also sting
| faeyanpiraat wrote:
| is this a trap :D
| hinkley wrote:
| If you live by nettle you'll should learn to identify
| plantago (plantain) and yarrow. Both are used for herbal
| poultices and grow in the same biomes. Grab one, bruise it a
| bit and rub it on the insulted area.
| mrb wrote:
| Another thing my dad demonstrated to me a few weeks ago: you
| can grab a nettle by the base, move your hand upward, and as
| the nettle is sliding through your closed hand, it won't sting
| at all. This is because the sting cells are oriented
| perpendicular to the surface of the plant (or pointed slightly
| upward) so their pointy end doesn't come in contact with the
| skin at an angle where it would penetrate the skin.
| hinkley wrote:
| Queen Anne's lace is sort of the same way. When I grab it to
| pull it, I do it fingertips first, then roll my fingers and
| palms down onto the stalk which flattens the hairs due to the
| angle.
|
| Works on a few types of thistle with small thorns but a stick
| works better.
| myrmidon wrote:
| The grippy skin on your hands is also often thick enough on its
| own to protect you, especially when callused, same for bare
| feet (so you can pinch them without getting stung).
|
| The problem is all the thin skin (ankles, wrists, lower
| leg/arm) that you are very likely to graze them with.
| LunaSea wrote:
| In the Netherlands it's quite common to eat stinging nettle
| cheese. It's quite tasty. Fenugreek is another crowd favourite.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| Over here (England) we have Cornish Yarg that is cheese wrapped
| in nettles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornish_Yarg
|
| Apparently it's possible to make nettle rennet for coagulating
| milk into cheese, though it's not recommended for making aged
| cheeses.
| downut wrote:
| Back in the early '80s we ate a lot of English nettle cheese
| that we bought in the Dekalb Farmers Market in Atlanta. It
| was delicious. I've watched but never found it in the US
| since.
|
| It looked like this:
| https://www.northumberlandcheese.co.uk/nettle-cheese
|
| Wasn't expensive.
| jamiecurle wrote:
| I live about five minutes by car from that shop. Weird when
| that happens on HN.
| cut3 wrote:
| Milarepa's skin and hair supposedly turned green from living on
| nettles for a while while meditating in retreat.
|
| https://buddhaweekly.com/milarepa-explains-happiness-story-n...
| sevensor wrote:
| I enjoyed the humorous back and forth in the middle. "What
| about meat?" "Nettles" "Grain?" "Nettles" "Seasoning?" "Also
| nettles."
| madmountaingoat wrote:
| I've had them. They're fine. But this is overselling the variety
| angle. The meat eater equivalence of forage like this would be
| game animals. In my experience and extrapolating, the taste
| difference between game and farm animals is generally greater
| than among the green vegetables.
| cbolton wrote:
| Not sure I agree, I think there's as much difference between
| spinach, leek, fennel and Brussels sprouts as between beef and
| deer and that's without foraging into fancy vegetables...
| suddenlybananas wrote:
| Of those four, only really spinach would be considered
| "greens" I think.
| cbolton wrote:
| Ah interesting, I thought greens were all green vegetables.
| It's a bit of a moot point though, since the blog post is
| about edible plants in general.
| worldfoodgood wrote:
| Sure, but spinach, kale, mustard greens, chard, and arugula
| are all pretty wildly different. With different textures,
| flavors, and other things going on.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| They make a nice tea.
| whitehexagon wrote:
| Agreed. I can only get dried nettle leaf tea here, although
| seems to be going out of fashion, same with Ginkgo.
|
| I got spoilt for teas when I was contracting in Germany. Nettle
| was very common along with some other traditional teas,
| including one that was good for flu/fever that I can never
| remember.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| The loose leaves are for sale at my food co-op, but many
| years I go out and harvest them from nettles I see on the
| roadsides.
| thenthenthen wrote:
| There is also 'nettle beer', dunno if my batch failed but it was
| undrinkable
| flir wrote:
| Nettle tea's nice, from what I remember. Use the young tips of
| the plants.
| faeyanpiraat wrote:
| I can second this, add just a tiny bit sugar and it is
| delicious
| bn-l wrote:
| Thirding. Extremely wholesome and warming. I need to get some
| more of that it has been a while.
| underscoremark wrote:
| My batches turn out excellent. Some tips, if you'd like to try
| again:
|
| - Harvest the younger leaves, remove the stems.
|
| - Harvest before they go to seed, or remove all seeds.
|
| - Make a tea from the leaves by soaking in hot water. Do not
| let the water boil or simmer with the leaves!
|
| - Add a healthy portion of lemon juice. I'll use 1/2 to 1 cup
| for a 20L batch.
|
| - Use brewing sugar, or invert your sugar.
|
| - Choose a yeast that doesn't impart too much of its own
| flavour (I like ale yeasts, like for ciders).
| For me, the choice of yeast was key.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| I grew up in Ukraine and stinging nettle soups were a popular
| part of our diet in the summers. It is delicious and I definitely
| don't agree that it is bland. But I suspect a big part of it is
| what else you add to it. My suggestion is to look up "sup s
| krapivoi" and use your favorite method of translating it to your
| language of choice to look at the variety of recipes.
| bn-l wrote:
| I dunno man. A soup with "crap-ivoi". Sounds sketchy.
| broken-kebab wrote:
| You ate it in a hearty soup, likely made on pork bone broth,
| with a boiled egg, and sour cream added. It makes a lot of
| difference for culinary experience :) The other commenter
| probably just tried to add it to some rice, or as a "side
| green". On itself nettle is more or less like spinach, but with
| weaker taste
| dvh wrote:
| Axe head soup strikes again
| jonah wrote:
| I've always heard it as Stone Soup, but I presume it's the
| same thing.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| I know it as Stone Porridge. These stories probably share
| an origin. https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/type1548.html is
| sitting in my browser bookmarks, and
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Soup has some
| variations not listed on that page.
| fifilura wrote:
| In Sweden it is "Koka soppa pa en spik". "Make soup with
| a (iron) nail".
|
| We also eat nettle soup with a boiled egg-half. I would
| not call it bland, it is just a dish that does not scream
| with its loudest voice in your face.
| fifilura wrote:
| I'd also like to add that I'd consider it a delicacy.
| Because it is pretty much the first vegetable that you
| can harvest in spring. And you don't have to have a
| garden, you can just go out and pick it from anywhere.
| RyanOD wrote:
| One of my all-time favorite stories.
|
| My dear mother told me this story when I was just a boy.
| I was enchanted by the idea of this magical stone, too
| young to consider the clever trick the tramp was playing
| on the woman.
|
| The sense of cooking being a magical endeavor has stayed
| with me ever since.
| ewoodrich wrote:
| Hah I misinterpreted it a different way as a kid, for a
| long time I thought it was like a collective delusion
| where the shared experience of contributing insubstantial
| garnishes to a pot of water tricked everyone into finding
| it filling and enjoying it.
| s_dev wrote:
| The key is to add lots of onions and garlic and some butter to
| give it base flavor. The nettles give off great colour and a
| more subtle flavor and of course add more nutrients.
|
| The real key though is stinging nettles just simply grow like
| crazy in your backyard (at least in Ireland) so it's a two
| birds with the one stone kind of deal, you're gardening as well
| as cooking. There is also the 'badass' feeling of eating
| something that previously was dangerous. The heat will denature
| any stingers in the soup.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| As a kid is somewhat rural western washington our backyard
| bordered on a many acred wood and just beyond our backyard
| fence was just a huge tangle of blackberry and nettles. As
| kids we'd get our dads machetes and carve a path into the
| woods proper every spring and every few years our family and
| the families on either side would spend a day trying to
| eradicate the encroaching blackberries to no ultimate avail.
|
| We never ate the nettles, just had 1000 remedies for stings,
| but we did eat a lot of blackberry jam, cobblers and pies.
| toast0 wrote:
| I'm in western washington and some people (not me) do eat
| the nettles. The blackberries are of course, delicious and
| well used. Always a good idea to pick above waist height of
| dogs. ;)
| schainks wrote:
| Thank you for the correct google term to plug in! I do this all
| the time in Chinese, but have no idea where to start with other
| languages I don't speak.
| agapon wrote:
| I remember it as borsch with nettle. Nettle was one of the
| first green things in the spring, just after snow melted.
| Nettle borsch was cooked just like the regular one but with
| nettle instead of cabbage.
| foobarian wrote:
| I'm also from around there. Another very effective flavor
| enhancer for pretty much any soup or stew or chowder is cold
| smoked pork. Ribs, pancetta, sausages...
| sergioisidoro wrote:
| Just make sure not to pick them from fertilized ground (like
| garden beds) as they may have high levels of nitrites (?).
|
| Pick them from wild areas
| hshdhdhehd wrote:
| Is Dock Leaf soup good?
| theodorejb wrote:
| I can testify that steamed stingy nettles with gomasio (toasted
| sesame seeds and salt) is very delicious.
| Semaphor wrote:
| We used to have nettle salad as a kid. IIRC if you cut them fine
| enough, they stop stinging or something like that. Can't quite
| remember, so maybe DYOR before you make a salad ;)
| mooreds wrote:
| I grow stinging nettles. I used to just steam them for 10 or so
| minutes. Then they're a normal green. Can mix with eggs, eat
| plain on the side, add some salt.
|
| Pretty good stuff.
|
| If you do grow them, make sure you situate them in a corner of
| the yard--no fun to get stung.
| alexjplant wrote:
| 100% thought this would be about eating jellyfish (which I'm
| completely on board with because they've stung me upwards of a
| dozen times and that old Klingon proverb that says that revenge,
| much like jellyfish, is a dish best served cold).
|
| Apropos of stinging plants though both of my parents are
| supposedly very allergic to poison ivy. I maintained an immunity
| to it until I was around 27-28 when it began to affect me very
| slightly. Now if I graze it I can get away without ill effects
| merely by washing the urushiol off with dish soap within a half
| hour or so. I've heard of gardeners and outdoorspeople eating it
| in small quantities to maintain their resistance to it. While I'm
| not particularly keen to try this there is something poetic about
| it.
| tylerflick wrote:
| I have severe food allergies and have used desensitization to
| expand what I can eat. It can take months and occasionally
| backfires, but it works.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Subsequent exposure to poison ivy definitely increases, not
| decreases, the reaction, at least in my family's genes.
|
| My dad got exposed a few times in a row and had to stop
| eating cashews (same plant family) for awhile.
| robocat wrote:
| > eating it in small quantities
|
| Risking your throat closing up seems Darwinian.
|
| People don't usually have an Epipen within reach?
| zdragnar wrote:
| Eh, jellyfish isn't really any good. For the money, there's
| many better things to eat. I should admit I've only had it the
| once, but that's enough for me.
| myth_drannon wrote:
| When people mention nettles, they also mention dandelions too.
| Both are good sources of nutrients
| neom wrote:
| As an aside, dandelion and burdock may very well be the best
| soda in the world, so delicious, and sadly quite difficult to
| source outside of the UK.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| Possibly worth trying root beer (sassafras) or sarsaparilla
| if you go to the USA. Not quite the same, but similar in
| flavour.
| neom wrote:
| Ha, you know me well random stranger. :) Root beer is tied
| with dandelion and burdock as my fav soda.
| ilamont wrote:
| My godfather's wife made this. They were from Waloonia.
|
| I was surprised the first time I saw her making it but it was
| creamy, tasty.
| benrutter wrote:
| My grandma used to make stinging nettle soup a lot (I think a
| Swedish thing) - it tasted great, mostly like spinach and
| vegetable stock! Always feel nostalgic whenever I see it
| anywhere.
| matwood wrote:
| My neighbor uses the stinging nettles out of my yard to make an
| amazing risotto. Every spring there's a part of my yard that gets
| covered with them.
| interloxia wrote:
| Apparently some of the nettle family have edible berries.
|
| Jared Rydelek's channel is about eating exotic fruits. It's a bit
| long winded but pretty neat to see the unusual fruits from around
| the world.
|
| A recent video has him eating a berry from the Gympie
| gympie/stinging tree/Dendrocnide moroides from the nettle family.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5aEio_yDEc8
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dendrocnide_moroides
| azeirah wrote:
| I've been watching weird explorer for years and I had never
| considered I didn't know his name. I had _no_ idea he's caled
| Jared Rydelek!
|
| His videos are incredibly interesting and fascinating
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I know I'm subscribed to the right channels when I come to HN
| to post a (rather obscure) YT link and someone's beaten me to
| it!
| robin_reala wrote:
| See also the Nettle Eating World Championships; no boiling
| allowed there though.
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj6152l8z20o
| g-b-r wrote:
| Stinging nettles are probably my favorite condiment, you sure
| don't need to be vegan to appreciate them
| jonah wrote:
| Blanched as a pizza topping is one of the ways we like to eat
| them.
|
| I'd disagree that they're bland. Are they more towards the bland
| end of the scale than mustard greens or something, sure, but
| they're definitely not tasteless.
| inasio wrote:
| I love them in pizza, I don't think we even blanche them, cook
| them Napolitan-style on a very hot oven quickly. Definitely
| tasty.
|
| Also works as a pesto ingredient
| mrob wrote:
| Stinging nettles taste good. They have a long history of human
| consumption. They're in a family of plants (Urticaceae)
| containing no other common food crops, so they increase variety
| of diet, which to me seems like a good idea. The main drawback is
| the bad texture. The stinging hairs have an unpleasant furry
| texture even after you cook them (which stops them from stinging
| but does not remove them). This is why they're traditionally
| served blended or finely chopped in soups. If somebody could
| breed a version without the stinging hairs (not merely
| inactivating them) I think they would make a good commercial
| crop.
| kulahan wrote:
| We eat some thistles, which have basically the same issue - see
| artichokes. Gotta boil them to deactivate the needles, though I
| have no idea how the thistle and nettle needles compare
| biologically. Anyways, I guess my point is that it shouldn't be
| _too_ hard to get Americans to eat these.
|
| Every time I go out for hotpot, I get as many greens as
| possible; I love boiling them down in a tasty broth and chowing
| down on an entire _football field_ of vegetables, sometimes
| wrapped around a piece of meat. I could see adding them in here
| easily.
|
| There are also a lot of dishes you can add a big handful of
| chopped, frozen spinach to for some additional nutrition. These
| would be another incredible option in scenarios like that.
|
| Blending it down to add a more herby flavor to a puree, or to
| bulk up a pesto, or something along those lines could work
| well.
| mrob wrote:
| You can scrape the needles off artichoke hearts, and you can
| buy them canned with the needles already removed. This isn't
| practical with stinging nettles.
| dheera wrote:
| I thought nettle stings were made of silica. Isn't that
| basically glass? How does water deactivate it?
| buildbot wrote:
| I would assume it denatures the chemicals the sting
| delivers
| kulahan wrote:
| On nettles, they're trichomes[1]. Probably somewhat similar
| to a skin tag? So it deactivates them by weakening the cell
| wall, just like when you cook the rest of the plant down.
|
| >Both trichomes and root hairs [...] are lateral outgrowths
| of a single cell of the epidermal layer.
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trichome
| buildbot wrote:
| It's not uncommon to eat nettles in the PNW! I knew people
| who would fold the leaves a specific way to break the
| stingers off so you could eat the leaves raw even.
| ziofill wrote:
| I confirm, it's good! I'm from a northern region of Italy where
| you can even find risotto with ortiche (stinging nettles) in
| restaurants.
| agtech_andy wrote:
| For those reading this and wanting to pick nettle, it is
| important to pick young leaves, and not from plants that are in
| flower.
|
| Once the leaves are older, there are all sorts of oxalates, and
| you should really avoid them if you are sensitive to kidney
| stones.
|
| These plants also absorb pollution very effectively, so keep in
| mind where you pick them from.
| mrob wrote:
| >Once the leaves are older, there are all sorts of oxalates,
| and you should really avoid them if you are sensitive to kidney
| stones.
|
| I've heard this before but I've never seen reliable evidence
| for it. I searched PubMed for "Urtica dioica oxalate" and found
| this study:
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23009884/
|
| The full text is paywalled, but from the abstract:
|
| "Four examples of typical wild edible plants were evaluated
| (stinging nettle, sorrel, chickweed and common lambsquarters),
| and based on substantial equivalence with known food plants the
| majority of the bioactive components reported were within the
| range experienced when eating or drinking typical food stuffs.
| For most compounds the hazards could be evaluated as minor. The
| only precaution found was for common lambsquarters because of
| its presumed high level of oxalic acid."
|
| There are also several animal studies suggesting a potential
| protective effect of stinging nettles against kidney stone.
|
| Oxalic acid is a component of the toxin injected by the
| stinging hairs, but this is removed by cooking.
|
| It's possible that there's confusion because older stinging
| nettle leaves grow cystoliths (hard mineral deposits in the
| leaves). Cystoliths are usually calcium carbonate. I'm not
| aware of any plant that produces oxalate salt cystoliths. If
| anybody has some hard evidence for the composition of stinging
| nettle cystoliths I'd like to see it, even though I personally
| only pick stinging nettles when they're in season and the
| leaves are still young.
| Projectiboga wrote:
| It can help improve Testosterone processing. If you are showing
| male pattern hair thinning try a Stinging Nettle Extract, and get
| a medical workup.
|
| Animal research reveals that this powerful plant may prevent the
| conversion of testosterone into dihydrotestosterone -- a more
| powerful form of testosterone (12Trusted Source).
|
| Stopping this conversion can help reduce prostate size.
|
| https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/stinging-nettle#TOC_TIT...
| fractallyte wrote:
| A link to the relevant paper:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21806658/ [Ameliorative effects
| of stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) on testosterone-induced
| prostatic hyperplasia in rats]
| astroflection wrote:
| I first tried nettle soup in Bulgaria. So delicious. FYI you can
| replace spinach with nettle in almost any recipe and vise versa.
| waffletower wrote:
| They were common in the mountains of Southern California. In
| Scouts, we would eat them, make twine, and even use them for
| toilet paper :D
| raffael_de wrote:
| I'm curious why they are beneficial for rheumatoid arthritis
| diseases and how to prepare them for that purpose.
| mykowebhn wrote:
| 2018
| simojo wrote:
| Why the hate on the alcachofas?
| perihelions wrote:
| > _" nutritious source of iron, calcium, potassium, and silica"_
|
| Hold up, is silica (SiO2) supposed to be a nutrient? That's a
| striking sentence.
| sedatk wrote:
| Yes, silica deficiency may cause bone deformities.
| temp0826 wrote:
| I think it's also involved in collagen formation? There is an
| herb (horsetail herb) that allegedly helps with bone
| remineralization/regrowth as well as hair/skin/nail growth
| and it is loaded with silica. (Beware it also contains
| thiaminase, which can deplete vitamin B1. Some supplements
| contain B1 to compensate but it is mostly taken as a tea).
| ge96 wrote:
| The most appealing vegetable foraging to me has been Japanese
| these fiddle-leaf looking things, also these tree nubs that is
| like asparagus and a huge strawberry leaf that gets deep fried
| axus wrote:
| Fiddleheads? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiddlehead
| ge96 wrote:
| yeah that's right, the asparagus I was thinking of is called
| bracken
|
| I gotta find this guy's videos I follow he's actually
| Japanese/lives in the woods
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| Great way to 'other' a group of folks who don't tend to stick to
| an all veggie diet. It wasn't enough just to say you can eat
| nettles and they're ok, but they had to take a dump on meat
| eating while they're at it
| qurashee wrote:
| In my childhood in Greece, stinging nettle pie (tsouknidopita), a
| dish much like spinach pie, was a traditional recipe often
| prepared by grandmothers. Today, younger generations may not even
| recognize stinging nettle, though it once held a valued place in
| our culinary heritage.
| tacheiordache wrote:
| Similarly in Romania, though it is not a pie, "Mancare de
| Urzici" some kidn of mash, young nettles are boiled, pureed and
| cooked into a sort of spinach-like mash. I remember my
| grandmother preparing this quite often during the warm months.
| meesles wrote:
| Sounds a lot like "Stoemp", from Belgium. Spinach and carrot
| are classic, but any veggie works. Funny how very similar
| dishes can be found across the world under different names.
| sedatk wrote:
| My Bosnian grandmother used to collect stinging nettles from
| our garden and make burek with it. I remember that it was even
| more delicious than her spinach burek.
| dlcarrier wrote:
| Anyone that doesn't recognize stinging nettle soon will, after
| coming in contact with it.
| luckydata wrote:
| same in Italy, it was common when I was younger my grandma made
| fritters with nettles, ground ham, breadcrumbs and eggs and we
| would eat them cold as a snack in the summer
| mikaraento wrote:
| Relatively common in Finland to use young nettles like you'd use
| spinach in hot dishes (soup, blanched, pancakes).
| t-3 wrote:
| > pancakes
|
| Is this a frittata-style baked pancake? I've made rye
| pannukakku from the family cookbook here in the US Midwest but
| never seen any Finnish pancake with spinach or nettle.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Stinging nettles are quite popular in Romania. We make a puree
| and we eat them with eggs and polenta.
| munificent wrote:
| _> This is because meat-eaters tend to eat the same few species
| of animals over and over again - pigs, cows, chickens._
|
| Tangential, but this is one of the things I like about eating
| fish. There are so many species you can eat, some of which you
| can only find in certain regions or have to catch yourself. My
| list of aquatic animals I've eaten has 47 entries on it and I've
| surely missed some because it's often hard to tell exactly what
| species you're getting at a restaurant. I'm always excited to add
| more to the list.
|
| Some less common ones I've had are sickle pomfret ("monchong")
| and moonfish ("opah") from a fish market in Hawaii, cobia from a
| fishing trip in Florida, and many perch and bluegill that I've
| caught myself.
| Dylanfm wrote:
| I also use it for tea regularly in Spring/Summer. Once they're
| seeding I use the seeds for tea. If I have enough time to collect
| them I'll store the seeds for a garnish over winter.
| MostlyStable wrote:
| I've tried various stinging nettle dishes. For me, they fall into
| the long list of things that are technically edible, but I see no
| reason why one would eat them today aside from cultural
| history/connection/tradition reasons. Every way I've tried them,
| they basically just taste like plant.
|
| If you like it, great, but I think the value to those who don't
| have some pre-existing reason to be interested in the dish to be
| overstated. Similar plants in the category are miner's lettuce
| and dandelion greens.
|
| If one has a great abundance of it, and one likes to spend time
| preparing ones own food, or if the idea of wild gathered plants
| has special appeal, then nettles (etc.) can indeed take the place
| (ish) of things like lettuce and spinach, but don't expect some
| dramatically unique experience.
| sequoia wrote:
| You eat them because they are abundant and nutritious. I can't
| gather wild arugula where I live, but there is plenty of
| Nettles.
|
| "just taste like plant" the same can be said of Matcha which
| tastes like eating grass.
| dkersten wrote:
| My mom likes stinging nettle soup, she used to make it
| occasionally when I was a child. I didn't like it back then, no
| idea if I would like it now.
| ixxie wrote:
| Nettles & fresh jalapeno salad with mayo-miso dressing is one of
| my favorite inventions.
| analog8374 wrote:
| Milarepa (famous Indian saint) lived on nettle soup for a while
| (while living in a cave and such). Turned him green. Neighbors
| were freaked out.
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