![]() ![]() This perspective is, after all, deeply rooted in their psyches already, as their ancestors have long and storied relationships with dandelions and related plants for millennia, dating back to a time prior to colonization. Instead of looking at dandelions as weeds, I want these college freshmen to see this golden blossom as both food and medicine. I want to be a facilitator on their journey to connect and reconnect with the earth, water, plant life, and wildlife that has always been part of their birthright. Indigenous peoples in China and India, in particular, have been growing dandelions as food and medicine as far back as the tenth century.Īs an instructor, I enjoy providing my students with information on all kinds of relevant topics, but my real objective is to change their relationship with the natural world – more specifically, their own homelands. Dandelions can be immensely helpful to improving one’s health, which has been recognized by Indigenous communities for millennia. They are edible from root to flower, and provide substantial vitamins, minerals, fiber, and antioxidants that have nutritional and medicinal benefits. Indigenous peoples all over the world have long recognized that Taraxacum officinale and its close relatives are not only a delicious green vegetable that lends itself to boiling, frying, blanching, fermenting, and pickling, but are also an amazing medicine, with compounds that lower blood sugar, destroy certain types of cancer cells, reduce inflammation, and improve liver function. Through their connection to traditional food practices, dandelions challenge colonized notions of food security, renewing my students’ relationships to traditional food systems and advancing Indigenous food sovereignty. Dandelions have been traditionally used by Indigenous communities in meals and to help treat common ailments and improve physical health in ways that have long been ignored, with benefits that extend beyond the corporeal world. This was not always the case: dandelions were held in high regard for their medicinal and nutritious benefits, and are still considered a specialty commodity crop of high value among farmers and foragers. Consequently, dandelions have become less desirable for the average American palate and instead are viewed as a weed, an invader, and a nuisance, with Americans spending thousands of dollars each year on eradicating dandelions from manicured lawns. ![]() Over decades of exposure to sugary sweets and salty snacks, many people now associate bitter flavor profiles as being unpleasant or even toxic. ![]() We have largely forgotten that bitter flavors-in the form of greens, teas, and sauces-were once a vitally important part of everyone’s diets. In American society, we have been conditioned to believe that our food should be sweet, salty, sour, or spicy. Dandelions can be quite bitter, which is a difficult flavor for many people to swallow. The assignment is as simple as it sounds: students can eat the leaves raw or cooked, and the leaves can be prepared (or not) in whatever method they prefer – as long as they 1) film the event, and 2) eat all five leaves. One of the first assignments I give my Indigenous Food Sovereignty students at United Tribes Technical College is to record themselves eating five dandelion leaves. In bringing attention to Indigenous agriculture and foodways, we aim to promote a truly inclusive global food system that recognizes and actively counteracts the oppression of Indigenous peoples. Recognizing that Indigenous communities around the world disproportionately experience the pressures of climate change, global conflicts, and the pandemic, while simultaneously stewarding 80 percent of the world’s biodiversity, the blog series aims to highlight Indigenous and traditional agricultural practices in the United States and globally. In October of 2022, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs launched a blog series titled, “Stewardship, Sovereignty, and Solutions” that features the voices of guest authors from Indigenous organizations and communities. ![]()
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