Many years ago, these plants did not exist in the markets, and because of this, people had to travel to the territory in search of the food that nature offered us: wild vegetables, green leaves, berries. , mushrooms, an egg, an animal … At present we live far from nature and collect only what the market or super offers us.
Of all the edible plants, only a few are grown and marketed and are not the ones that offer us the most health benefits, but the ones that were best adapted to orchards in the beginning and to today’s extensive production.
Over the years, a multitude of species have remained that continue to take their place on the ground, most of which are unknown to the average citizen.
This time we will give priority to plants that can be eaten as vegetables, leaving mushrooms, fruits and flowers edible for another occasion or other sections.
What benefits do we get from collecting wild vegetables? Some of these are:
- Once we go out into the field, we will reconnect with our predecessors, who had to carry out this activity to get food.
- It reconnects us with nature.
- It helps people to benefit from a moment of attention, that is, it will make us pay more attention to what we have in front of us, allowing us a certain degree of disconnection from everyday problems.
- At the same time, when we find the wild vegetable we are looking for or nature surprises us with an edible surprise we did not expect, the reward centers are activated in our brains, producing an excellent feeling of well-being (mushroom hunters know what they are talking about) .
- In addition to all these benefits, from a dietary and nutritional point of view, this type of vegetable will improve our food diversity, which allows the incorporation of minerals, vitamins and phytonutrients – molecules produced by plants and which have a beneficial effect on health – which are more little abundant in large vegetable crops.
- The introduction of different phytonutrients also favors a greater diversity of the intestinal microbiota.