WATCH ABOVE: They may be a nuisance on your lawn, but almost all parts of a dandelion are edible. From drinking to eating, Noelle Chorney looks at different uses for the plant many consider a weed.
SASKATOON – Most of us are accustomed to looking at dandelions as a weed, to be sprayed or dug up. But there are growing numbers of people who see them as a valuable and healthy food.
“The entire plant is edible,” said Noelle Chorney, who runs the food blog amazoninthekitchen.ca in Saskatoon. “The reason we have dandelions everywhere today is that European immigrants couldn’t live without them,” she told Global News. “They thought they were so important they brought the seeds across.”
While many people may have heard of dandelion wine, there are many more healthy alternatives that can be done with dandelions.
The most common is probably using dandelion greens in salads.
“You just want to make sure you pick the young leaves, before they bloom,” said Chorney. “Once they bloom, the bitterness starts to work its way through.”
Many restaurants now include dandelion greens in some of their salads.
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But dried dandelions can also be made into a tea, and it has some medicinal benefits.
“You can use them in tea and they’re really good for liver cleansing, and kind of cleaning out your whole system – they really help with detoxing, a lot of detox products have dandelion in them,” she said.
Dried dandelion root can be roasted and used as a coffee substitute.
Some people also eat the flowers in various ways. They contain lecithin, which can help improve brain function, said Chorney.
So next time you’re tempted to hit those dandelions with herbicide, think again. There might be a better way to get rid of them.
“It seems like a terrible waste to spray them or dig them up,” said Chorney.
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