Broadleaf Plantain

Millions of dollars have been spent on herbicides to kill this plant in lawns across America. Yet it is a food and medicine revered by native people. Not the banana-like plantain in the grocery store, this plantain is a broadleaf low-growing plant of forest trails, meadows, and the waste areas of every state.

As a food the seeds are parched or boiled, added to soups or stews, or dried for future use. The leaves can be eaten raw or cooked but here Linda Black Elk shares her favorite method of preparing these large flat lettuce-like leaves. She rubs them with oil and bakes them into delicious chips!  They are not only nutritious but fun to eat. Once baked in this way the stringy leaf veins are broken down and no longer a tough fiber that’s hard to chew.

These same leaves make an amazing poultice for wounds, especially slow-healing burns. The fresh leaves are simply crushed to apply, or stored dried leaves are applied after rehydration. The edible seeds are also medicinal as a prebiotic, conditioning the gut for healthy microbial populations. Although a different species of plantain from the commercially grown product, this wild species is essentially the same as Metamucil fiber or psyllium husk supplements and an easy treatment for diarrhea.