Something good to eat

Yes it's really hard to always eat the right thing, especially if you're paying money for it. On top of that you've got to watch your weight, make sure you're getting the right vitamins and minerals, the list goes on.

So growing your own food is probably the easiest way to go about things, but can be really hard to do. What often makes it so hard is often the type of things people try to grow. The fruit and veg we buy in the shops has been selectively bred for specific traits - often what makes them most marketable, things like size and shelf life. To get to this point though, they often become hard to grow, particularly in small quantities and without the use of agrochemicals. And I'm not suggesting that we all should be growing heritage varieties either.

Budding gardeners (yes, I did) often joke that all they can grow are weeds. Well, maybe that's not such a bad thing. At least for one, and I'd be prepared to bet a lot more. Pigweed. The name might get you thinking that you should be growing it for other animals, but humans can eat it too. It is considered a weed and in the US it has become resistant to certain over-relied on herbicides and is causing mayhem for farmers of genetically modified cotton. The local variety, Amaranthus hybridus, is still easy to grow, but is not invasive.

Getting on to the eating part, pigweed has many benefits. One serving of the leaves, cooked like spinach, will provide you with five times the iron you need, twice the calcium, 20 times the vitamin A and nearly half your daily protein requirements. I've yet to eat it, but the next time I'm at Kirstenbosch, I'm going to pick up some seeds, grow it and eat it. It could be a while, but I'll report back!

*Most of the info here was taken from an article in Veld and Flora, December 2010, Volume 96(4)
**Photo from www.southeasternflora.com. Used without permission - please don't sue me.