1. Introduction
This is the first installment in a series I’m contemplating featuring deep dives into wild and weedy plants which can be used as food and medicine (and more for those who are so inclined). In addition to the marginalized communities who already depend largely on folk traditions for food/medicine, many people who formerly had access to conventional systems under late capitalism are on track to lose that access during the coming decades. An even cursory knowledge of some of the wild/weedy plants that can be eaten or used medicinally can save lives, or at least make them a little less miserable.
To be clear, most Western Medicine is good. Vaccines are essential and important. Antibiotics and chemotherapy and heart surgery and antidepressants are wonderful therapies. The problem is, as it has been since the days of Asclepius, that not everyone can access them. Getting a doctor’s appointment these days can take months, and for more urgent situations can entail sitting in a storefront clinic or Emergency Room for hours at a time. If there’s a plant in your yard that you can try first, that may eliminate the need to depend on this broken system, the time and resources saved could be significant.
This isn’t the place for a full critique of the modern medical or food systems — many others have already done a much better job doing so than I. Instead, it’s a continuation of an ongoing personal investigation into Participatory Ecology. We need to look beyond seeing the plants growing around us as “weeds” or “invasive” or just a blurry green backdrop. Once we start getting to know our plant allies by integrating them into our lives, we’ll be in far better shape going forward into the undependable future.
*Consider this a draft; this document may be edited, revised, remixed, or republished in the future.*
DISCLAIMER: As with all wild ingredients, if you’ve never used it before, exercise caution and start with very small doses. Some people can develop allergies to certain wild plants. In very rare cases, toxicity has been reported after wild lettuce consumption (typically after ingestion of large amounts). I’ve been using this for years and I’m mostly fine (depending on who you ask haha) but I ain’t no medical professional — check with yours before using any herbal or complementary medication.
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2. The Facts
COMMON NAMES: Wild lettuce, opium lettuce, prickly lettuce, bitter lettuce, great lettuce
SCIENTIFIC NAME: Lactuca virosa. Lactuca refers to the latex (think of “lactic,” milky) and virosa means “unpleasantly strong.”
FAMILY: Asteraceae (sunflower family). Relatives include common lettuce varieties (L. sativa) as well as thistles, dandelions, artichokes, sunflowers, etc.
CORRESPONDENCES:
Planetary: Family- Sun, Genus- Moon, Species- Saturn.
Element: Water
Zodiac: Cancer, Taurus
LOOK-ALIKES: Can be confused with Lactuca serriola, also known as prickly lettuce. L. serriola is shorter and less bitter, but the two species may crossbreed and can be processed similarly. May also be confused with various members of the thistle (Circium spp) tribe. Thistles do not have “hairs” on the leaf mid-ribs.
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3. Meet the Plant
I love wild lettuce. It’s everywhere! It’s a biennial, introduced in the U.S. but native-ish to Europe. It’s classified as a “weed” in most places, and “invasive”* in some places as well.
*I despise “invasive” theory and have more to say on the matter, but not right now.
It’s interesting to look at! It’s so tall! Most references say it tops out at 7 ft. but around here I’ve been letting the ultra-tall ones live so I’m selecting only the tallest ones. Look how tall it is! Snaky and neato! SO COOL!
It grows in the shade, but wild lettuce has a very strong spirit that’s always moving towards the light. Check out these guys — the one on the left started under a pine tree and yeeted right out of the top. The other onegrew straight across the shadow made by a hedgerow and the started growing upwards at an almost 90 degree angle when it hit the sun:
The leaves can come in a variety of shapes, depending on growing conditions. They’ll twist in order to capture more sunlight, and can appear variegated (patterned). They often clasp the stalk (“clasping”), sometimes almost all the way around (“perfoliate”):
The whole plant has lots of pointy bits and they can be a little stabby if you don’t hold them just right. The inflorescence (flower buds, flower stems, and flowers) develop in clusters, eventually blooming into a typical composite flower (like dandelions). They’re small, but really pretty!
Eventually they form dandelion-like seeds with lil’ parachutes and such.
In my experience, the best time to harvest the plant for making medicine is after buds appear but before they start flowering. If you think of plant growth metaphorically, in terms of bio-chemical energy or life force, most of the stored energy moves “up” from the roots and leaves as the plant grows (both literally and figuratively), and immediately begins dissipating once the plant has flowered. When the seeds are gone, the plant has done its job.
These aren’t the best pictures, but the tops should look like this when you’re going to harvest:
Wild lettuce has a LOT of latex. It’s the same goop that’s in dandelions (and rubber trees!) but L. virosa has LOADS of it, literal GOBS. This is good, because this is the most potent medicinal component of the plant!
YOU WILL GET STICKY. Latex is no joke. Use a tool that’s easy to clean and clean it right away. Consider gloves if you don’t want sticky on your hands.
4. Harvest the Plant
Of note: practice ethical foraging.
Also, some people prefer not to harvest plants next to roads but studies have shown a fairly low toxicity for plants that grow in urban environments:
The team of researchers then collected soil samples at 28 sites in Richmond and West Oakland for metal assays, to measure for zinc, copper, arsenic, selenium, lead, nickel, chromium, cadmium, and molybdenum. Edible plant tissue samples were collected from sites where soil testing had shown the concentration of metals to be highest. These samples were lightly rinsed in tap water as if to make a salad, and then dried and submitted for a metal assay. Despite the elevated levels of toxic metal in the soil, the research team found that the plant tissue samples did not contain toxic metal levels that exceeded the US EPA maximum acceptable daily dose. Only one species of wild lettuce, the intensely bitter L. ludoviciana, contained elevated levels of cadmium. The researchers also tested the nutritional content of the foraged greens, finding it to compare very favorably to commercially farmed produce, confirming the safety, availability, and nutritional benefits of urban greens.
I avoid places that have conclusively been sprayed with ‘cides but unless a site is clearly trash-strewn or very heavily car-polluted, I think harvesting in most urban spaces is no worse than buying conventionally grown produce at the supermarket.
I harvest the aerial parts in early summer (U.S. Pacific Northwest)— the stem, leaves, and inflorescence. A few flowers are fine. You need to harvest a lot to make even a little bit of medicine (but you can use almost all of the rest of the plant too). This is half of my harvest this year:
Make Medicine and Food
- First, cut the plant into sections. It doesn’t matter how big or small they are, as long as you can fit them into a big stockpot or two. Then, wash them thoroughly to remove any ick.
- Next, put the plants in a large stockpart about halfway full of water. You don’t need to fill it all the way as long as you’re able to stir them around during the extraction process. Cover, bring to a boil, then simmer on low (but not too low — you want some lil’ bubbles) for 4–5 hours (yes that’s right). Let it sit out overnight, then do it again the next day.
- Then, process the leaves. Drain the liquid (KEEP THE LIQUID THIS IS WHAT WE WANT FOR MEDICINE) and seperate the leaves from the stalks. At this point, most of the bitterness will have been leached out of the plant and you can rinse the leaves and use them as potherbs. They’re great in soups or stews, or with a little oil and vinegar. I freeze mine and add them to dishes throughout the year.
- Process the pith. If you slice the thickest stems open, you can extract a neato translucent green substance. It’s still very slightly bitter but contains lots of starches and can be used as an additive in various foodstuffs. I’ll be doing something with mine soon and will write it up here when I do!
- Process the liquid. Here’s where the magic happens. When you’ve removed all of the plant material, you’re left with a dank, bitter smelling liquid:
Bring it back to a boil, then down to a roiling simmer, and just let it start reducing.
KEEP AN EYE ON THIS PROCESS IF YOU DON’T WANT TO RUIN YOUR STOCKPOT.
After about an hour, it’ll start getting thicker and tarry:
Once it reaches this point it reduces REALLY quickly; turn off the heat when it gets to your desired thickness and as it cools and thickens further, start transferring it into a container for storage.
THIS IS THE GOOD STUFF, PEOPLE:
This is your medicine. I store mine in the freezer and it keeps for about ever. You could also dry it but that takes ‘equipment’ and it’s a more difficult process.
A note on “Opium Lettuce.” Lactuarium has been used for centuries as an adulterant in smokable opium. Likely for this reason, and because in so doing it became referred to as “opium lettuce,” there’s a myth that wild lettuce can get you high like opium does. Some particularly unscrupulous individuals sell wild lettuce lactuarium as a “legal marijuana” substitute, or as “wild opium.” This is, quite simply, bullshit.
Let’s be perfectly clear: wild lettuce does not have an opiate effect.
Calling wild lettuce “opium lettuce” is like calling processed cheese “sawdust cheese” because they add wood pulp to it as an adulterant (look it up!). It doesn’t mean that sawdust tastes like cheese.
5. Medicate yourself (when you need to)
Sometimes referred to as “lactuarium,” This extremely bitter substance is a mild sedative, digestive, and analgesic (pain reliever). It’s been studied for use as a gut anti-inflammatory (taken internally), a nervine (helps calm you), and more.
This stuff is exceptionally bitter. If you’re a fan of very bitter IPAs, you might be fine with it, but otherwise it’s strong enough that most people won’t be able to tolerate amounts large enough to become toxic.
I recommend starting with 1/4 teaspoon (yeah, not very much) mixed into a tea or dissolved in wine or vinegar for headaches, anxiety, or mild insomnia. You can increase the dose by 1/4 teaspoon as needed. I wouldn’t recommend more than 2 tablespoons in a 24 hour period; in my experience, much less is necessary.
The latex can also be absorbed through the skin; for minor, non-abrasive injuries it can bring relief from pain pretty quickly. It can, however, mean scraping latex out of your arm hairs, so you’ll want to take that into consideration too.
6. Magical Uses
- Dried leaves for incense during divination;
- Flowers and buds for fertility spells;
- Stalk for protection of the home (lay a stalk across the door jamb);
- Latex/lactuarium for binding rituals (that shit is sticky)
- Dreamwork
7. … And More
- The ancient Egyptians used wild lettuce as an aphrodisiac. The ancient Cretans used wild lettuce to *lower* libido. Your mileage may vary.FIN