Dandelions Are Food, Not Weeds

It's food, not a weed.

Can a perfectly good food plant be labelled as a weed? Ask the common and much hated dandelion. 

Right now my garden is waiting for warmer weather before it can be planted out. My lawn, however, is bursting with greens that are ready to harvest. But they are weeds.

I made up my mind to try dandelion greens the day I saw them being sold in the grocery store. It was something I had never seen anywhere else, and it caused me to do a double take.

Is it a noxious weed to be poisoned and picked relentlessly in the quest for the perfectly useless lawn, or is it an agricultural crop sold in grocery stores? How can a weed be of value? The very definition of weed means "something of no value".

Either the grocery store is ripping people off charging them for a valueless product that can be picked in almost any yard in the country, or the system has been lying to us about so-called "weeds".

Turns out the system has been lying to us about weeds, and many, many other things. In this case, the weed known as dandelion is about as nutritious as non-weeds, like kale. It is also delicious, having a lighter taste, and more delicate texture. 

The entire dandelion plant is edible - greens, flowers, and roots. They contain anti-oxidants, are beautiful, and are one of the first flowers in spring making them very important for bees. They have been used as a healing plant for thousands of years, just not in lawn-loving North America.

Linda and I have been using dandelion greens in smoothies and salads this spring, and I can see no reason not to use them all year. I might even plant a few in my - gasp - garden. 

If I was a plant the system might mislabel me as a weed. I have often felt like a single dandelion in a flat field of green grassy monocultural conformity. Not to worry, what the system labels a weed can actually be very valuable and ultimately useful. 

The Gleaners

I recently watched the wonderful documentary "The Gleaners and I" by French film maker Agnès Varda, and was introduced to an activity eons old, and still going strong. Gleaning is the practice of collecting food from fields, orchards, and vineyards after the official harvest has ended.

Gleaning is mentioned in the Bible, Koran, and Torah, which all support it for the poor and hungry. It was an activity traditionally conducted by the poor, but today many get involved to help minimize the incredible waste that comes with increasing wealth and industrialization.

Varda's 2000 film documents a wide variety of gleaners in rural France. She shows several paintings of gleaners including the one above. I recognized it as the painting that hung in my home when I was in elementary school. I always loved the simplicity and earthiness of this scene, but was not aware of its more controversial components.

French artist Jean-François Millet composed The Gleaners in 1857. When he unveiled it that year it was immediately unpopular with the middle and upper classes. They did not want to be reminded that their wealth was gained by the labour and sacrifice of the common folks. They must have also viewed the vast lifestyle gap depicted as rather distasteful.

Millet's painting celebrates the common people - they are the focus of his work. The three women stoop to their difficult work of gleaning wheat left over after the farm workers finished. Behind the women is a cart piled with the golden harvest. The fortunate landowner watches from his horse on the right.

The painting was completed at a time that French gleaning laws were being made more restrictive. Naturally, the peasants revolted, and the laws were eventually reinstated. They are still on the books today.

One hundred and fifty-three years after Millet's painting was displayed in the Salon, the income gap is wider than ever, and massive waste continues. However, peasant revolts aren't as popular this day and age. I think it has something to do with television and processed food.

Still, gleaning is as popular as ever, and is no longer restricted to the poor. Modern day gleaners are more commonly referred to as freegans, binners, dumpster divers, scroungers, food rescuers, or food salvagers.

There are also many talented artists that glean found objects for their work. Varda considered herself a gleaner of images.

Do a web search for gleaners in your area and something is sure to come up. Both Sooke and Victoria have urban fruit tree gleaning programs that split the haul between the home owner, the pickers, and food banks or other community organizations.

The practice of gleaning is certainly older than any of the religious texts that mention, and protect, it. Converting waste to useful purposes has been around in one form or another for as long as there have been humans. There is a reason that it still exists - because it makes sense to reduce waste.

It is natural that we should maximize on all resources available as global population rises, and as the rich continue to get richer, and the poor, poorer. We need to look out for one another, and gleaning is one efficient way of achieving this without spending vast amounts of money.

Gleaning is about not buying anything - stepping outside of the mainstream money system, and using the power of free. Which reminds me that blackberry season is just beginning...

Good gleaning to you.