Foraging Series: Part 2- Queen Anne’s Lace

(Side note- This was called Just Like The Cavemen Did! But I decided to change it to be more simple).

Read part 1 about Staghorn Sumac here!

First off, don’t forget the 4 main rules for foraging-

1. Make sure wherever you harvest is at minimum 100 ft. from a road cars drive on.
2. Make sure wherever your picking is public property (don’t pick on someone’s private land unless you’ve OK-ed it with the owners!)
3. Make sure where your picking is not somewhere that gets sprayed! You do not want chemicals all over your yummy wild food.
4. Give back to the earth and do your part to help keep the environment clean and healthy. Don’t take without giving back!!

Queen Anne’s Lace (aka) Wild Carrot!

You’ve probably seen this delicate flower along side of roads or in fields and you’ve possibly even picked it! It really is a beautiful flower and very common. It’s not something you’d look at and think, ‘Hmmm, I bet that would help prevent cancer, detox my body, taste delicious, help pass kidney stones, work as a diuretic and look pretty in a bouquet!’ But it does all that, and more! It seems more like a magic plant from an enchanted forest then a weed!

So, how do you identify it?

First off, there are large, white flowers on tall, green, hairy stems. The leaves are very feathery and whispy. In the center of each flower you will generally find a small, purple flower bud. This is know as ‘Queen Anne.’ Way back when women of high class would wear large, white, lacey collars, which is where the flower got its name. Queen Anne wearing her lace collar. They generally grow by the side of the road or in large, sunny fields. Somewhere there is poor soil.

Notice Queen Anne in the center?

How it looks when its growing

The one poisonous look alike to Queen Anne’s lace is poison hemlock. And it is DEADLY! So make 100% certain you are picking Wild carrots and NOT Poison Hemlock. Its smaller and bushier and it looks a little different. The flowers are similar however, so make sure you can easily identify both before you accidentally pick some.

It you want to make a detox tea and fritters, all you need are the flowers and leaves. So you can just cut the, off. If you want to make root tea, you (obviously) need the roots. I suggest harvesting the roots after a rain so the ground will be softer and it will be easier to pull them out of the ground. I just picked the entire plant and brought it all home with me since I’m using all of the parts.

Fried Flowers-

These are SO GOOD!! They are light and fluffy but satisying and very flavorful, they smell like popcorn when they’re frying. It tastes like your eating something that costs 50 bucks a plate. They are m favorite food. Plus, pollen is a super food!!

You will need-

Organic flour
Queen Anne’s Lace flowers
Eggs from pastured chickens
Sea salt
1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper
Coconut oil for frying

Combine all the dry ingredients in one bowl and lightly whisk the eggs in another. Dip the flowers first in the eggs then into the dry mix. (I used the butt where the flower hatched to the stem as a handle to dip and put in the oil.) Place in a skillet with an inch deep of oil over high heat. (Don’t start cooking until the oil is sizzling). Fry them up flower side down, stem side up for 30 seconds to a minute, or once they become crispy and golden brown Eat while they are warm and crispy!

Don’t they look decadent and delicious!!

Yummmmmyy!!

Root Tea-

The roots are known commonly as wild carrots. When you pick them they smell just like carrots. This post would end up pages long if I delved deep into all the medicinal benefits reaped from the roots of this plant, so I will stick to a few and if you’d like to read a more detailed list, click here. There are studies showing it has anticancer activities as well as being useful in treating HIV, infertility, diabetes, Leukemia, migraines, Spina Bifida and even all the way down to treating the common cold. Its very versatile.

In order to make root tea there are a few steps.

The roots

First, wash off the roots and remove all the dirt. Chop them up as small as you can. This may prove to be more difficult then it sounds. I suggest garden shears. Get them fairly small. Wash them again and spread them evenly on a baking sheet or pan and bake in the oven for 2 hours at 250 degrees. Let them cool and add a tablespoon to a cup of boiling water. Sweeten with honey/mint or anything you prefer.

Cleaned off

Leaf tea-

Leaf tea can be used as a diuretic (helps you pee), to cleanse/detox your body and to prevent kidney stones and shrink the ones already built up. However, use caution when drinking leaf tea/eating the seeds as it can do more harm then good when your pregnant. They have been used as the morning after pill of ancient times. There are really no other contraindications.

In order to make leaf tea, dry the leaves in whatever method you like best. You can use the lowest setting on a dehydrator, or go the old fashioned way and tie them upside down to dry. I like the latter because it looks pretty in your kitchen. Once they are dry just use as a tea and let the leaves steep for 20 minutes before drinking.

My leaves drying

Happy picking!

~Courtney, The Crunchy Delinquent

*Disclaimer- I am not a doctor or a professional. Nor do I claim to be. Use caution when picking wild plants and DO NOT pick anything unless you are 100% certain you are picking the correct plant. If you have allergies to any of the plants I feature, do not use them. If you are worried about the medicinal effects of any of the plants featured, please consult your doctor or other health professional. Do your own research before deciding what is best for you. These statements are my own and medicinal plants are not generally FDA approved.*

This post was shared on Thank Your Body Thursday, Frugal Days, Sustainable Ways, Fat Tuesday, Tuned-in Tuesdays and Wildcrafting Wednesdays!

How I love my body. Stretch Marks and All.

(I’m wearing a swimsuit bottom, not underwear, just so you know.)

Today I’d like to share something very personal and very important to me.

I’d like to share my insecurities.

I believe that in order to have whole health, you need to nourish all aspects of your life and body. You need to eat right as well as have a strong,  happy mindset, exercise and have a good body image, among other things.

The one I have spent my whole life struggling with the most (and I believe most women in America have as well) is having a good body image.

The way the female body is portrayed in the media is as a perfectly fit, ‘healthy’, skinny little rail. I put healthy in quotation marks, because we are led to believe one must be skinny to be healthy. Which is not the case at all. I have a bigger body naturally, I am slightly ‘overweight’, but even at my thinnest, I was still considered large according to BMI charts. So if I were a celebrity, the magazines would all read how unhealthy and fat I am, and how I’ve let myself go. When, in actuality, I am quite healthy and very happy with who and how I am.

I have only recently come to accept my body.

I struggled from a very young age with feeling fat, ugly, unfit and manly. I thought in order to be beautiful I had to be 105 pounds with perfect boobs, a tiny waist, a tight butt and sunken cheeks. I even went through a phase where I would try to suck in my cheeks constantly so my face looked thinner. All my friends were on the small side and were proportioned nicely. I am well above average for height in a woman, as I am 5′ 8.5” and have been since I was 15 or 16. I have very broad shoulders. I’m currently 179 pounds. I haven’t been under 155 in probably 6 years. I have a chubby face with puffy cheeks and the thing I’ve always hated the most about myself- my love handles. They have always been on the large side and its the first place I gain weight.

I always wore to big clothes, men’s clothes or distracting clothes. I went through a phase where I wore dark, black make-up all the time and wildly colorful, bizarre clothing in order to draw attention away from my body. (I still like wildly bizarre clothing, but because I think its fun, not because I want to hide). I was depressed a lot as a younger teenager for this reason.

Alright, so I told you this post was how I love my body. And it is. I just wanted you to get an idea of how much I hated my body.

Since I’ve switched over to eating healthy and avoiding processed foods, I’ve started to feel so much better, in terms of happiness and better moods.

But I’m still on the bigger side.

I still have stretch marks and a flabby post-baby belly, I still have broad shoulders, I still have chubby cheeks, I still have thighs that rub together when I walk, I still have a jiggly, flat butt, I still have my way to big, way to saggy boobs.

So what’s changed?

My mindset. My happiness level. My worldviews.

I realized that No matter what I do, I’m not going to be exactly like Angelina Jolie (not that I’d want to anyways =P). I’m just not. Its not me. I’m me. I look like me, my body is my body.

It may sound tacky, but I say affirmations to myself in the mirror everyday. I find something about my body I love (for instance, I love my super blue eyes) and tell myself that’s awesome. I’m vain. I push myself to be vain. I spend a few minutes each day telling myself how awesome I am.

It might go something like this, “Your eyes are awesome. You have a nice butt in those pants. You labored un-medicated for 51 hours and pushed out a beautiful baby, your stronger then most men and you have all those stretch marks to prove it. Be proud! Your hair looks nice today, you don’t use any chemicals and you still look hot!”

Try it! Its strange at first (I already talk to myself all the time, so hey, why not talk nicely to myself) but it really does help.

I also try very hard to never say negative things about myself. I don’t like to walk around and say how fat I am or how ugly I am. I try to always remain positive. (Harder then it sounds, but it works).

I think all women should be happier with the way their bodies are. The world would be a better, happier place. There wouldn’t be as many eating disorders or young girls feeling bad about themselves as young as 4 or 5.

My goal is to never let my daughter (or future daughters and sons) hear me complain about myself. And to help them love themselves from early on.

What do you do to remind yourself that your beautiful? If the answer is nothing, then start! Tell yourself everyday that you are beautiful. Tell others they are beautiful and keep positive all the time. Changing your opinion of beauty and your opinion of yourself will make you feel beautiful. And that is what beauty is all about.

Have a body loving day!

~Courtney, The Crunchy Delinquent

This post was shared on Party Wave Wednesday!

SENSA® and The Skinny, Not Healthy, Fads

SENSA^®‘s commercial’s advertise quick, effortless weight loss with the shake of a hand.

According to the commercials, you shake the product onto your food, eat the food, loose weight. It shows customers shaking it on everything from doughnuts to french fries. Too good to be true? Yes, yes it is.

SENSA^®, just like many other weight loss pills, products and programs, urge you too look better outside, but don’t care what’s going on inside. Most people don’t ask questions or look beyond the surface. It is very tempting to do nothing and still loose weight. However, here’s how SENSA^® works:

“The scientific principle behind SENSA^® is remarkably simple. As you eat, smell and taste receptors send messages to tell your body it’s time to stop eating. SENSA^® was designed to help speed up the process and trigger your “I feel full” signal, so you eat less and feel more satisfied. Because SENSA^® works with your body’s natural impulses, rather than against them, there are no feelings of hunger or intense cravings.”

So, basically, it convinces your body you are full before you actually are. You may ask, ‘How can this be healthy?’ (or you might not). Either way, the answer is simply, it’s not. Not at all. How can you possibly be healthy if your under eating? Your body needs enough nutrients to power it. Food is your body’s fuel, if you aren’t fueling it enough, your gonna break down.

Under eating = under fueling = breaking down.

What is SENSA^® made of?

Maltodextrin, Tricalcium Phosphate and Silica are the 3 main ingredients.

Maltodextrin is made of corn starch. Corn is the #1 most GMO food.

Tricalcium Phosphate – Possible side effects in humans are nausea, vomiting, decreased appetite, constipation, dry mouth, increased thirst and increased urination. (source)

Silica is most commonly used for the production of glass and is most commonly found in nature in sand or quartz. Its also in those little packets in new shoes labeled, ‘Do not eat.’ However, when its in vegetables it is healthy and actually necessary. It’s a mineral that helps ligaments, skin elasticity and many other things.

Other ingredients include soy (#2 most GMO foods, linked to causing 80+ allergies and hormone imbalances), milk, natural and artificial (Mmmm, fake.) flavoring.

So, out of the ingredients, I’d be OK with the milk (as long as it was raw, which in this case, its not.) and the silica as long as it was in organically grown vegetables, which again, in this case its not.

A few questions you should be asking yourself before dieting:

Is this a healthy choice? Have they studied long term side effects that could develop? (for instance, in 40 years will this product have given everyone who used it cancer? Will it cause hair loss? Will it cause hormone problems? Infertility? etc..) Will this affect my life in a positive way? Will it be a long term answer? (Can you take SENSA® for the rest of your life to keep the weight off?) Is this something I want to put into my body? Is this and environmentally friendly option? (SENSA® comes in little packs, are the recyclable? Its made from GMO foods, which depletes the earth’s natural resources, etc..)

The majority of people see a quick fix. You need to see the whole story.

Back to the beginning, I feel the need to stress the fact, it helps you get skinny, not healthy.

I understand its only human nature to want to loose a few (or more) pounds. Heck, I have some baby weight I want to loose. But you should A) want to loose weight for the right reasons (feeling better about yourself, being comfortable etc.) Not because its society’s perception of beautiful and you think that’s how it should be.

B) You need to be HEALTHY not just skinny.

~Courtney, The Crunchy Delinquent