Axel:
>1) What is the difference between wild and cultivated greens, lettuce,
>celery, etc?

>2) What about something like carrots, pumpkins, squashes, beets? I guess the
>wild ones are not so sweet.

>3) What about potatoes, sweet potatoes, grains?


Tom:
Yes, pretty much all of our food has been manipulated and managed by humans.
Wild lettuce is very bitter, while cultivated is not. Similarly, wild
celery is stronger in flavor and more fibrous than cultivated. The wild
ancestors of today's modern carrot, had a tiny root (carrots have been
the subject of plant breeding since the time of the Roman Empire.) Even
grains have been manipulated - wild grains are smaller, have less starch,
less gluten, than cultivated.

The major differences in the food groups is that, in comparison with modern
fruits:
* grains grow on their own roots (no grafting), come true to seed, and are
not as hybridized. Also, grains have dramatically less post-harvest processing,
than fruit.
* most commercially grown vegetables (even organic) are hybrids, but at least
they grow on their own roots. Also, many vegetables have less post-harvest
processing than fruits. If one has a garden, one can grow non-hybrid  varieties
that come true to seed, and one can avoid the problems of post-harvest
processing (good reasons to have a garden if you can).

Also, some vegetables are fairly close to their wild forms: dandelion greens,
cilantro, parsley, "Chinese" celery, some types of mustard.

Finally, it is a good idea to learn which wild foods are edible in the area
you live in. Foraging for wild greens can be a lot of fun!

Axel:
>4) What about the nutritional value of wild fruits? Is there any truth to
>Walker's discovery of our ancestors living on mostly fruit, but on a much
>more concentrated, fibrous kind of fruit? Do they have more minerals and
>vitamins? More trace elements

Tom:
Strictly speaking, we don't have nutritional analyses of ancient fruits. In
fact, nutritional analyses of wild fruits are probably hard to find. (If a
reader knows of good sources for such info, please post - others are
interested). However, we do know that wild fruit is, on average, higher in
fiber, and lower in sugar, than cultivated fruits. In the Plant Spirit Medicine
post, Eliot Cowan claimed that wild plants have stronger spirits than
cultivated, hybridized plants. Ayurveda says that wild herbs have more energy,
more power, than cultivated herbs - wild herbs are the preferred choice, for
therapeutic use, whenever they are available. So there is some reason to
believe that wild foods are better for you - certainly they are more natural.
Of course, getting wild food is not so easy, so we eat cultivated food
instead.

Tom Billings
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