Thursday, February 21, 2013

Logistics: Jerusalem Artichoke -- Source for food, fodder and fuel.

A friend of mine has been doing some research on the Jerusalem Artichoke.
This plant (weed) is a potential source for human food, animal fodder as well as liquor and motor fuel. I must say I'm intrigued by the possibilities. I'll let you know when he has completed his researches with the results.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

JAs are great for food as long as you don't mind the "after affects"! lol! Remember the scene from Blazing Saddles where they are all around the fire eating beans? You get the picture...

GaryM said...

Used to grow them in my garden years ago. Good to eat sliced raw in salads, or cook like potatoes. The dried stalks make good kindling too.

SDH said...

Gerard's Herbal, printed in 1621, quotes the English planter John Goodyer on Jerusalem artichokes:

"which way soever they be dressed and eaten, they stir and cause a filthy loathsome stinking wind within the body, thereby causing the belly to be pained and tormented, and are a meat more fit for swine than men."-Wiki

I have enough of that problem now...

Anonymous said...

I presume you mean fuel for a fire, as opposed to fuel for a motor.

B Woodman
III-PER

Anonymous said...

Look up amaranth or what we call pigweed.

MamaLiberty said...

These are indeed good emergency wild food. I've grown them in my garden as well. The problem comes with finding enough of them, especially in the wild. The roots are very small then, and not plentiful anywhere that I know of.

I can't imagine being able to sustain many people on them, much less livestock. Thankfully, they are only one of the many, many wild foods one can find. There are many good books on the subject. It happens to be a hobby of mine.