Green salad with carrot, cucumber, onion, sowthistle leaves, and tomato slices

Cuisine

 

Green salad with carrot, cucumber, onion, sowthistle leaves, and tomato slices

Leaves are eaten as salad greens or cooked like spinach. This is one of the species used in Chinese cuisine as kŭcài (苦菜; lit. bitter vegetable).[citation needed] The younger leaves are less bitter and better to eat raw. Steaming can remove the bitterness of older leaves.[13] The younger roots are also edible and can suffice as a coffee substitute.[14]

 

Nutritive qualities

 

Nutritional analysis reveals 30 – 40 mg of vitamin C per 100g, 1.2% protein, 0.3% fat, 2.4% carbohydrate. Leaf dry matter analysis per 100g (likely to vary with growing conditions) shows: 45g Carbohydrate, 28g protein, 22g ash, 5.9g fibre, 4.5g fat; in all, providing 265 calories.

 

Minerals

 

Calcium: 1500 mg

Phosphorus: 500 mg

Iron: 45.6 mg

Magnesium: 0 mg

Sodium: 0 mg

Potassium: 0 mg

Zinc: 0 mg

Vitamins

 

A: 35 mg

Thiamine (B1): 1.5 mg

Riboflavin (B2): 5 mg

Niacin: 5 mg

B6: 0 mg

C: 60 mg

Herbalism

Edit

Sonchus oleraceus has a variety of uses in herbalism. It also has been ascribed medicinal qualities similar to dandelion and succory.[7] The early Māori people of New Zealand are likely to have gathered it for food and medical use.[15]

 

Native Americans had many uses for this plant. Pima used its gum as a "cure for the opium habit," as a cathartic, and as a food, where the "{l}eaves and stems {were} rubbed between the palms of the hands and eaten raw" and sometimes "boiled." The Yaqui used the plant as a vegetable, where the "{t}ender, young leaves boiled in salted water with chile and eaten as greens." The Kamia (Kumeyaay) "boiled {the} leaves {and} used {it} for food as greens." The {Houma} used it as an abortifacient where an "{i}nfusion of {the} plant {was} taken to 'make tardy menstruation come;'" an antidiarrheal; for children that were teething; and as hog feed

Done