Ep. 266 Unlocking the Prairie's Secrets: A Guide to Edible & Medicinal Native Plants with Kelly Kindscher

Jun 27

Kelly Kindscher is THE MAN. He has trekked over 600 miles in one walk to study prairie. He has dedicated to being a voice for the quickly disappearing prairie. He also is an expert on how indigenous people connected with the prairie. We spoke to him on his thoughts on how agriculture today affects the remaining prairie as well as about his book on Edible and Medicinal native plants.
- Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie An Ethnobotanical Guide

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Welcome to the Prairie Farm podcast. Kelly, you walked 690 miles. I like how you said walk to in the book. You didn't say hiked. You didn't say, you know, tract said walked. I just kind of picture this guy just kind of taking his leisurely time to check things out.
00;01;12;19 - 00;01;36;05
Unknown
But you walked 690 miles from Kansas City to, I think of the book it says, just south of Denver to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. What on earth was your motivation for doing that? And, you know, what did you what were you hoping to find along your way, and what did you come home with? Well, you know, in some ways it started as a childhood vision.
00;01;36;05 - 00;02;02;12
Unknown
Growing up in Nebraska, summer vacations out to the Rockies, seeing the mountains from somewhere in the High Plains, Lyme in Colorado or somewhere. Somehow I got the idea that I wouldn't be great to just walk out to those mountains. And then I got the prairie bug. I love prairies and prairie plants and, loved land use and uses of the land farming, etc. but was really, really had the prairie bug.
00;02;02;15 - 00;02;30;18
Unknown
So essentially, you know, after undergraduate work, bounced around on jobs, having kind of a free summer talk to a friend into doing this track. And with that track, we walked primarily county roads, avoided paved roads, and then went cross-country where we could the Flint Hills, the Smoky Hills. Got permission from ranchers to cross their land, trespass a little, you know.
00;02;30;21 - 00;02;56;14
Unknown
Yeah. Kept going west. Yeah. Yeah, I went west until I was no longer on the prairie. We were seeing Douglas fir, ponderosa pine, and then Douglas fir. And once we got into the forest is like, okay, we walked across the prairie. So interesting. You can see that transition when you're driving. Once you get the educated eye. But to be that intimate with it to where it's right next to you, it's on the you're walking on top of it.
00;02;56;17 - 00;03;16;01
Unknown
And interest I have and I still have is the range of prairie plants. Yeah. Like you know, so as you walk west, you both lose things from the east and you gain things from the west. Yeah. So that transition and I took notes on that the whole walk that was just like fascinating. Oh man. That. Do you have like a journal of that somewhere?
00;03;16;03 - 00;03;41;01
Unknown
I have some notes. I yeah not a full journal but yeah. Yeah that'd be that'd be awesome to be able to just peruse through there and see. Well, what was your, what what are some species that you noticed right away that. Hey, I'm not seeing this anymore as you continue west. Yeah. So, I mean, you notice things around here, like compass plant, land plant.
00;03;41;04 - 00;04;08;21
Unknown
They go west quite a ways out in the central Kansas, but you definitely don't see them, you know, High Plains flip side of that. You start picking ups up some things that you don't see further east. I'm thinking, Scarlet globe, mallow. Oh, even even things that drift out of the Rockies, you start seeing, almonds that are different species, blue flowered things like that.
00;04;08;21 - 00;04;39;13
Unknown
So it's a whole variety of thing. Yeah. That's cool. I, I've spent I've spent some pretty decent time. I was telling you before we started recording, in the Sandhills in a little further west and, and even it was more, alpine ecosystem, but, down in, you know, kind of the valleys, it gets a little grassy and southern Colorado and you still see a few different prairie plants there.
00;04;39;13 - 00;05;01;18
Unknown
And the one that I think has become my favorite Western, prairie species is blue grama. That's just how it's it's everywhere. Oh, yes. Yes. I mean, I see that plant clan in New Mexico. Arizona? Even in Chihuahua. Really? Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think it's state grass in New Mexico. Wow. Yeah. And it's such a neat looking grass, too.
00;05;01;20 - 00;05;32;15
Unknown
Yeah. And very, so a lot of the ground I've been on, it gets grazed and you can tell the the large herbivores love the blue grass. That buffalo grass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, what was like, what was your, what was your biggest takeaway from all of that? Well, it's really, really watching the change. At that time, one of the impetus was really having this love of prairies, and that was the time of the big plow out.
00;05;32;18 - 00;05;54;15
Unknown
So, in the early 80s, they were busting out lots of the high Plains for additional wheat. Sure. And other crops that mostly failed. To be honest, a lot of land went back into CRP, but you could make a lot of money by buying prairie lands. Plowing them up and selling was agricultural land. So it's really sad to see that.
00;05;54;28 - 00;06;18;23
Unknown
So watching that change and also, yeah, the whole talk of the Oglala aquifer. Yeah, that was something that we had lots of conversations about. And like one, one little comments I remember someone talking about along the rivers was, well, you know, those cottonwood trees, the roots just don't grow down fast enough anymore. It's like, oh, you're pumping out the water, you're killing the trees.
00;06;18;23 - 00;06;40;02
Unknown
But now you're blaming the trees. The trees fault they can't survive this. That's that's interesting. So that was a very that was a very marked, no noticeable thing there where the cottonwoods were dying out. Yeah. And you now see that the drying out. So a lot, lot less cottonwoods on, rivers in the west are the, our Kansas and Kansas Smoky Hill.
00;06;40;05 - 00;07;00;19
Unknown
There's been a lot of tree die off, in the West. I just heard some data on this, so I, I just finished for the second time, the worst hard time. We just had a dust storm sweep through the Midwest. There was that we got the kind of the early taste of it in Iowa and then. Yeah. And then, Illinois is really where it culminated this spring.
00;07;00;19 - 00;07;23;28
Unknown
I don't know if you saw that in the news where Chicago had its first dust warning since 1934. And, also earlier this spring, back in March, there was a morning, a Saturday morning, I woke up and all of the, vehicles, parked vehicles around us is where you could really see, you know, the windshields and hoods. Oklahoma red, Oklahoma dirt.
00;07;23;28 - 00;07;44;05
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. And, so that sparked me to say I need to go back to this book and just reread it, and and people are probably sick of me talking about it on this podcast, but I just cannot emphasize it enough. You need to understand how bad the Dust Bowl was and how that was a largely man caused event.
00;07;44;07 - 00;08;04;05
Unknown
And that was climate change. You mean there's climate change? It's not framed enough as that, right? It's again, it was so significant still here in Kansas, our record high temperatures in Kansas are from the Dust Bowl time. Not more recently. Yeah. Our worst drought still. Or go back to the Dust Bowl times for the extent of that period of time.
00;08;04;07 - 00;08;27;25
Unknown
Not that we won't be there again. Right. Yeah. Right. It's it's, you know, I feel like those those early, I call them dusters because that's what they call them. And I think it's important to refer to them as that, as what they are. And I, like you said, the temperature. There's a part in the book where there's a guy living in Iowa ville, Nebraska, who kept a really detailed journal.
00;08;27;27 - 00;08;56;14
Unknown
One of the most depressing things to hear from. And he was taking soil surface soil temperature readings, pretty much daily, I think. And there are times where I believe he saw temp soil surface temps in the summer hitting 140 degrees. And and I mean, just, I mean, you're talking and I think it's, it's an example of where humans forget that we're on a planet.
00;08;56;17 - 00;09;18;12
Unknown
You know, we think Earth is home. It's it's, something we control, something that we can count on, staying within these certain limits that we can handle and we can adapt to. We don't think of it as. No, it's Mars and neighbor and Venus's neighbor. And why don't you go take a look at those places? Because planets can become very inhospitable places.
00;09;18;14 - 00;09;42;24
Unknown
And that's when I hear data like that. And so you see those weather events like that, it it kind of reminds us, know this is a rock floating in orbit around a sun. And, it's a planet. It's not just it's not just home. Absolutely, absolutely. It's it's a warning. A warning sign to be sure. Yeah.
00;09;43;02 - 00;10;14;01
Unknown
So then the other book, Hal, hearing a recent guest who is on here, he, told us about this book. It's called I think it's, Cadillac Desert. I think it's what it's titled, and it was written in the, I won't say the 80s. It's about the Mark Reisner. Right? Yes, yes. And he talked about the Ogallala Aquifer and how quick the drawdown and how much faster the drawdown is than the refresh rate on that.
00;10;14;07 - 00;10;35;21
Unknown
Yeah. It's do you remember the the off the top of your head, the kind of data where we're pulling out of that aquifer, even still to this day then. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's, there's good maps of this that the aquifers dropped 100, 200ft in places and wow, you know, what that aquifer really is, is as the Rocky Mountains uplifted, you had major erosion.
00;10;35;28 - 00;10;57;14
Unknown
And you can see this in the streams today that they're all sandy, gravelly streams coming out of the Rocky Mountains. The other rock for essentially that it is all that gravel sands washed out from the mountains, and that sand holds water and allow pumping out, of course, faster than it can recharge. And a lot of that water got there from the last glaciation ocean, right?
00;10;57;14 - 00;11;18;18
Unknown
Yeah. It's some of that fossil water. It is being replenished slightly. So there is some recharge, but not at not the rates we're using it. Is there issues with I hear about aquifers and compaction? Is does the Oglala have any issues with, are the pores wide enough that it can slightly recharge? I know that it's not.
00;11;18;25 - 00;11;44;18
Unknown
Obviously it will never line up to irrigation, but yeah, the the the soils are generally pretty permeable, pretty sandy. Okay. And now we're finding too, that, wetlands, these, interesting basins called play lakes, which are clay lined basins, they really crack, because our clay and they actually service direct channels in the aquifer interest. There's very little runoff from out there.
00;11;44;18 - 00;12;09;27
Unknown
So the streams of, sadly dried. So there's very little water that runs off and you get a lot of evaporation. Could you slide your mic just a little closer? Cone. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's it's interesting that you're able to observe that stuff. And I think what your story tells is obviously we're going to get into your research and in the books you've written that, that that's a lifetime of dedication.
00;12;09;29 - 00;12;31;27
Unknown
But anyone can go and look at these places themselves. They can take, that's right. They can take a week vacation and go and see some of the I mean, obviously a 690 mile walk that you got to set aside some serious time. But but maybe, this summer, you know, take a, take a little vacation and go and witness some of this stuff firsthand for for yourself.
00;12;31;27 - 00;12;59;26
Unknown
Because I think that's when you get the most impact. We can hear so many facts, we can see so many data tables, we can look at the charts. But till you you see it with your own eyes, that the impact is, is, is really a deep thing. You'll start noticing too. There are center pivots that are being abandoned, because water is getting marginal in places for for profitable growing dock for is not going to dry up.
00;12;59;26 - 00;13;35;13
Unknown
It's just going to reach an uneconomic point where, yeah, it's too hard to pull up enough water for what you want to grow. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah. And, you know, it's one of those things where how we inhabit a place and what we do there. When how long does that become sustainable? And, we're going to talk a little bit about that term sustainable because you had an interesting point in your, in your book that I, I took a, I took a screenshot of and and worked it into our notes here, a quote that I really like, but we're not there yet.
00;13;35;16 - 00;13;57;16
Unknown
We want to I would I would make one more comment about this whole area. And to me, it's kind of a positive thing about prairies and prey plants is despite the dustbowl, all those prairie species are still out there and fairly abundant. Yeah. So they were able to survive that 5 to 8 year period of time in which there is little or no growth.
00;13;58;01 - 00;14;25;15
Unknown
They eked out survival. They, you know, went to the seed bank. Their rhizomes persisted. Yeah. But they they were there. They came back remarkably. That's a I'm glad you brought that up. I've wondered the dustbowl region, if you go there today. And a lot of it was reclaimed and the federal government bought back those acres and and have have turned them into national grasslands, I believe is.
00;14;25;15 - 00;14;48;07
Unknown
Yeah. That are run by, is it national Forest Service for our Forest service. Yeah. Yeah. When you go there, is it a lot of buffalo grass and little bluestem and maybe some side oats grama and, you know, some of those more mixed grass, short grass prairie or short grass, but grandma and buffalo grass depends on how it's managed today.
00;14;48;19 - 00;15;11;00
Unknown
Very little of that was replanted. It was all came back from the native seed back. Yeah. And there were parts of rangeland. Okay. And then a lot of it was farmed. Sure. But amazing how you look at it today. And you would not know. Yeah. It was blown out and it was abandoned. Those lands were abandoned. The banks were abandoned.
00;15;11;00 - 00;15;34;23
Unknown
The towns were sort of abandoned. Right. So this was like the the holder of last resort was the federal government. Yeah. Right. And they planted some invasive. Well, I guess maybe invasives too strong yet, but some non-native species that was part of the plan to revegetation the area has that, you know, been a major. You know a lot of that.
00;15;34;27 - 00;15;55;16
Unknown
Okay. I mean, there's sweet clover which was planted and some things like that. But now most of those areas and in part the grazing has driven it, our pretty much short grass prairies. So that's also Sand's age. So you got sand age, in some of those areas, too, particularly in, southern half of the Great Plains.
00;15;55;18 - 00;16;22;21
Unknown
Yeah, that's that's very interesting. So in, in your studying of native plants, have you ever done anything to research how long seed banks, seed bank is? Is something we get asked about a lot. You know, I think I might have a seed bank here, you know, obviously, tillage affects grazing effects, but is there in your experience, how long do you think a seed bank kind of shoots out?
00;16;22;21 - 00;16;43;17
Unknown
It's not a long time. A long time. I think you're talking for the most part years. For most species, a few decades. Lagoon seeds are harder, will last longer. Class. Classic stuff. I can tell two stories on that. One of which here at the University of Kansas, we have a really nice prairie remnant as part of our field station.
00;16;45;05 - 00;17;17;14
Unknown
In 1957, decisions made to kind of set up experiment. So a little piece of this was just let go, let go to nature, which around here, without fire, without any sort of management, is not how things were. We used to have fires in, you know, 2 or 3 years ago, but that or you grew up to trees, in about five, ten years ago, decided to clear that and see what would, if any of the prairie species would come back so that was from the 50s to, let's say, 2010.
00;17;17;16 - 00;17;44;00
Unknown
We didn't really get anything. Okay. So many things we saw where things that plausibly blow in asters, goldenrod when dispersed seeds. Okay, so there was not a survival of the seed bank after those, decades. Okay. That is that is interesting because I often wonder that. How what? Well, here's another one. Two roots on. So a good story is how our company, Hoxie Native Seed started was, our founder, Carol Hawk Spurgeon.
00;17;44;00 - 00;18;07;07
Unknown
He, was a conventional or raised conventional corn and being a farmer and he, through one of his friends wanting to, hunt pheasants out on his farm. So. Okay, hawks have you got any places where we can hunt some pheasants? He's like, oh, I don't know. I kind of got this old pasture here is all foxtail and everything, and and, didn't have any luck.
00;18;07;07 - 00;18;25;17
Unknown
And so he's like, you know, I need to try. And he was just a bachelor living on on the old family farm. He's so kind of in his off time, I guess you'd say. He said, you know, I'm going to take that old pasture and I'm going to plant it into some native grass, because he kind of learned about some native grass from a friend.
00;18;25;19 - 00;18;49;03
Unknown
And, he made the mistake of planning too deep. Of course, you know, this was back in the early 80s. And, so his friend who told him about the native grasses, well, maybe we need to burn it off. And all this foxtail was there and everything, and and so they they burned all that foxtail. When they did, the fire got out of hand a little bit and got into the cedar trees.
00;18;49;06 - 00;19;06;05
Unknown
And those cedars, you know, went up like torches immediately. And, you know, he's kind of feeling bad, like, what a failed experiment. I spent all this money on the seed, put all this effort in here, and I'm just not getting anything. Well, he went back and happened to take a look over where those trees were burned up.
00;19;06;07 - 00;19;35;28
Unknown
And here's big blue. Little blue. I can't remember what other species came out of the room. I really need to ask Carol that. But he had enough. Enough species to get it to be a certified remnant prairie. Yeah. And that started him on this journey of building, leaving the conventional farming, growing native species. And in that case, I always wondered, was that was that seed stock because they were all plant species.
00;19;35;28 - 00;19;59;22
Unknown
He didn't plant there. Right. Was that seed stock that came back, or were those old root systems lying dormant? I think is old root systems. And probably there was plants growing that just not noticeable. Sure. Between the seed, between the cedar trees, you know, just a little bit of growth, probably weren't flowering at all. And yet, you know, just kind of barely eking it out, hanging on to life.
00;19;59;23 - 00;20;22;28
Unknown
Yeah. But I mean, to me, the message there too, is anything that is remnant is virgin soil. Used to say that soils have never been plowed really should be managed differently. And you'd be surprised would express itself in that situation but want. Something's been plowed. Yeah. And and tilled more than 3 or 4 times which if something's farmed, it's that's going to happen.
00;20;23;24 - 00;20;42;14
Unknown
It's just not, not going to it's not going to resurrect. Right. It's going to need help. Going to need seeds. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Significant renovation to. Yeah, yeah. Get the species back in there. Yeah. Yeah. Which I do like calling, you know. Really we talk about prairie restoration. We're way to broaden that term. Right. Restoration is taking a remnant and improving it.
00;20;42;16 - 00;21;18;26
Unknown
Really most of what we do that we call prairie restoration is recreate. Yeah. Yeah. We're starting with, really a blank slate. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good point. That is a good point. Okay. So you I mean, it's like you knew my outline here. Tell me, through your time living and working so close to prairies and and in a post prairie world, kind of, you know, in a lot of ways, unfortunately, you've seen remnants, you've probably even found some remnants of your own before.
00;21;19;07 - 00;21;48;08
Unknown
And you've also seen a lot of these prairie reconstructions that we just talked about. But there's also been undoubtedly net habitat loss. Absolutely. The Iowa DNR has has this fact in the beginning they think they put it in the beginning of their, their roadside upland game report every year where they go out and count quail numbers and pheasant numbers and cottontail and jack rabbit numbers.
00;21;48;11 - 00;22;18;01
Unknown
At the beginning, they say Iowa has lost a ten mile wide band of habitat from Davenport to Council Bluffs, which is the whole width of Iowa, the I-80 corridor. They're a ten mile wide band of habitat. I think it was from nine from the 1990s till today, that much habitat has been lost, which definitely encompasses your career. And Iowa's is one of the most extreme examples in our country, if not the most extreme, for habitat loss.
00;22;18;03 - 00;22;42;02
Unknown
But I imagine it's probably pretty similar here in Kansas as well. In eastern far eastern Kansas, it's no different than Iowa. Yeah, first three tiers west in Kansas is no different than Iowa in terms of loss of habitat. Yeah. So I what I mean, what kinds of things have you seen as far as remnants being protected, seeing some maybe even lost.
00;22;42;16 - 00;23;03;23
Unknown
Overall what what what have you seen happen with the prairie? And, you know, we're still losing it. I mean, as we speak, the county, we're in Douglas County here. Lawrence, is that I've, we've mapped carefully those remnants, and we're still losing them. We were, over 100 really high quality remnants left. We're down to probably 60 or 70.
00;23;04;21 - 00;23;27;28
Unknown
I've been involved in help. Found a land trust. We protected a few easements in Douglas County. Like we protected three populations of Mead's milkweed endangered species on remnant in this county, but it's barely a drop in the bucket. I mean, yeah, almost all lands are private property. Reason I like easements is that can be retained as private property.
00;23;28;09 - 00;23;47;04
Unknown
The university has gotten involved a little bit, but there's not a mission. Yeah, a strong mission to protect these. We're developing an open space program here for our county, but that's just barely getting started. There's still not enough appreciation of prairie. And this county is, you know, a liberal county, you know, would be more open to that.
00;23;47;11 - 00;24;12;03
Unknown
Rural counties. There's, you know, so not only are we losing them to the plow and development, but we have talked about herbicide. We greatly degrade things. There's still, you know, being promoted have clean prairie hay. They have clean hay. Yeah. They get rid of weeds every night. You watch news. There's herbicide commercials. Yeah. I'd love to see, you know, equal air time for preserving prairie.
00;24;12;04 - 00;24;38;21
Unknown
Yeah. You know or you know, but we're degrading what little we have left. And the mindset is that we should have clean landscapes. Yeah. And that's really a shame when I. We're getting a little bit of attention because of pollinators. Yeah. You know, and I never would have guessed that pollinators might drive the protection of biodiversity, but that's been a stronger voice for it than pretty much anything else.
00;24;39;07 - 00;25;04;24
Unknown
Yeah, in recent years. But it's still it's still a negative trend. And that's partly why I had two main purpose of writing my book, really the first strongest, my, you know, greatest interest is protecting Prairie speaking for Prairie being a voice for prairie and prey plants. And then the second is I really think we need to honor the Native American tradition, using these plants of relating these plants and the stories that go with that.
00;25;04;26 - 00;25;55;08
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. Let's, I want, I want to read this a good time to read a section that, comes from, one of your books here. So I'm gonna read this right now. Growing up in, Willa Cather was home county. Where in 1871, my great great grandparents also homesteaded in Webster County, Nebraska. I came to realize that her love of the prairie and her writings have not been appreciated locally, as agribusiness has come to define conservation and sustainability through an agricultural lands where conservation means no till, agriculture with herbicide and sustainability means sustainable yields or sustainable profits, and prairie hardly exists.
00;25;55;10 - 00;26;19;06
Unknown
Man, that is, that is a powerful statement. No, I, I feel strongly that way. Wait. The words get, the meanings get warped. Especially sustainable. Yeah. Green is right. Yes. Really doesn't have much meaning anymore. Not defined at all. Yeah. And gets talked more about in terms of productivity. Yeah. Than it does about in conservation terms. Yeah. Yeah.
00;26;19;06 - 00;26;43;17
Unknown
It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a good point. How do we how do we get those two things to work together. We're never going to be perfect. There's never going to be a silver bullet. Human population is so much higher now than any other point in in world history.
00;26;43;20 - 00;27;18;11
Unknown
Because of that, we have this this very large demand for resources to support that population. And, I recently learned, you know, kind of a dark time in human history. A lot of us romanticize about the hunter gatherer era. But, Dan Flores, who's written some great books. Yeah. A Wild New World is probably my favorite book that he wrote that came out, I think, in 23 maybe.
00;27;19;05 - 00;28;05;25
Unknown
And he has a new podcast now called The American West. It's a great, great listen, but he was just talking about kind of the he was coming out of the Clovis area era of human history and how infanticide was practiced to, regulate number of humans we have on the, on the planet. And, that's a that's a, that picture doesn't feel so romantic anymore of me and I could go out there and I could hunt bison every day, and I could, you know, I'd live off the land and that it's like, well, there was your clan or your your tribe had to be able to keep everyone's mouth fed, and too many
00;28;05;25 - 00;28;30;24
Unknown
people meant tribe doesn't do well, maybe doesn't even survive, especially through the lean months of, of of each year. And. When what really got humans out of that mode was agriculture, where we. I don't agree with that. Well, good. Good. I'm glad. I'm glad we're getting into the weeds. So. And I don't want to put words into Dan's mouth here.
00;28;30;25 - 00;28;58;01
Unknown
This is just how I, I interpreted as I was listening to to his, his, show there. But but, can we talk about that a little bit? Just like the need for agriculture in supporting large human population. But also, you can't destroy our natural world, to have that. Well, the first pride reactors, I'm not sure the archeological record shows that there was a lot of, difficulty in starvation historically.
00;28;58;01 - 00;29;35;26
Unknown
Sure. Sadly, people knew how to manipulate resources way back when. Agriculture is a kind of a continuum. And, there's lots of evidence of hunting, gathering, modified agriculture. In the Midwest, for example, all the crops that were pre crops, kind of podiums, made grass. Others persisted after corn was introduced, people still manipulated wild plants, maybe scattering seeds, maybe growing them even after corn was entered hundreds of years after corn was introduced.
00;29;35;27 - 00;30;08;01
Unknown
Since while that's amazing, still scavenged. Yes, I'm sure there were some difficult times. I'm sure there was some fantasized. But I don't think I don't think times were often very bleak. Yeah. If you had a drought period, sure. Things are a lot harder. Yeah. And we have, populations of people moved west. You have times when there were, people living in western Nebraska, western Kansas, and then retreated later, I'm sure, because of climate change.
00;30;08;03 - 00;30;30;16
Unknown
I'm not sure a lot of people died from those. And those people are very, very resourceful. Yeah. Yes, indeed. Corn and agriculture allowed populations to grow. And we have that today. Although we're overproducing. Yeah. I mean, one of the positive things I see in terms of how we can get more prairie back is agriculture in our country is all about policy.
00;30;30;16 - 00;30;52;10
Unknown
It's not about, profit and loss. Yeah. If the government doesn't support farmers, they would go broke, right? Yeah. You know, farmers farm the system that's in front of them. Sadly, they don't really it's not really laissez faire capitalist agriculture. Right, right. Yeah. So if the government decided to take things in a little different direction, we would be in a different place.
00;30;52;10 - 00;31;13;28
Unknown
And a really good example of this could happen easily is we really do not need as much corn in the future because we are going to move to having vehicles that run on batteries, right? So what a third of our corn crop is currently going to. Oh yeah. Yeah, I think in Iowa it's over 50% isn't it. Right.
00;31;14;01 - 00;31;40;17
Unknown
Yeah. So think of not all of that. But let's say half of that was supported by a different policy. I mean, we now subsidize corn agriculture because of the ethanol policy. Right? Right, right. So that's subsidy. What if you took that same subsidy and said, we want to have habitats, we want to have habitats for hunting. We want the grazing that is going to continue on lands to be full of biodiversity.
00;31;40;23 - 00;32;00;27
Unknown
Yeah. I mean, it's all policy. Yeah. We could do that. I mean, makes it makes as much sense as ethanol policy, which I'm not. It's not clear to me the ethanol policy makes any sense in terms of energy dynamics, right. Yeah. If you read the studies on that carefully, it's equivocal of whether there's more energy coming out of ethanol than going into.
00;32;00;27 - 00;32;31;02
Unknown
Right? Yeah. Particularly in the way we farm. Right? Yep. Yeah, yeah. It's, you're bringing up a great point here and it's great time to transition to the other part of well, the main part that we came for, this is what you've done. Your the bulk your research and the use of native plants. Yeah. Yeah. And I love that explanation to you know, counter this idea of, look, there just wasn't enough around because you kill all the bison.
00;32;31;04 - 00;32;53;21
Unknown
What are you going to eat? But you have done the research to find that. No, no, no, these plants aren't just good for bison fuel. They're they're human fuel, too. Right. And so, Nicholas, really wanted us. He was very bummed he couldn't come today. Yeah. It's a good point to mention this. Nicholas had a bit of a family emergency come up over the weekend.
00;32;53;21 - 00;33;19;09
Unknown
I think everyone's doing okay now, but he is not able to be here, and, He wanted to ask. I better just read it because it's a pretty specific question. He gave you a scenario here. So, Kelly, it's 16. It's the year 1680, and you are tasked with surviving in the tallgrass prairie ecosystem on a vegetarian diet.
00;33;19;11 - 00;33;44;16
Unknown
First of all, could it be done? And, second of all, how would you go about it? Sure, it can be done. Of course you can't. You have to start in a, in a proprietary sense in that you can't start from zero. You already have to have food stored. Sure. Yeah. It's a process, right? Yep. So are we agriculture here or after?
00;33;44;16 - 00;34;04;04
Unknown
Well, I guess 16 others do agree. Let's. Okay. Yeah, we'll go before agriculture. Of course. I brought things to show you. Awesome. I was hoping you would. Yeah. So these are small, but these are some of the tubers of one of the food plants I'd be gathering. And these. I'm starting to grow, but these are, ground nuts.
00;34;04;04 - 00;34;30;25
Unknown
I like, call them happiness now. Okay. Yum. Indian potatoes. Which are famous, by the way, you know, state capital of Kansas is Topeka. Oh, yeah. These actually are doe, or toe in Kansas language. And Topeka is essentially a car word that means a good place to grow this plant. Really a good place to harvest plant is so interesting.
00;34;30;29 - 00;34;56;03
Unknown
This plant, if you read the historical literature, was abundant in our floodplains, like wet prairies. It like sluice draws. And it makes huge amounts of these, legume family tubers. These are kind of small, but they'll be, hand to egg sized. They were harvested extensively. Native names for rivers are named after these places are named after these.
00;34;56;08 - 00;35;20;22
Unknown
This is just one of the plants that is not only full of carbohydrates, but these are protein rich. Okay. They're richer in protein. The potatoes also have vitamin C, they're nutritious. They can be stored. They've been dug year round. These are just one plant that I would have already established where they were. I would be making my rounds to harvest them in patches.
00;35;20;22 - 00;35;43;24
Unknown
I had already harvested them before. And when you harvest wild plants, if you're harvesting roots, you're making a disturbance in the ground. You're encouraging those to grow. Or maybe you plant more. Maybe you stick more in to make the patch a little larger. Yeah, the other plant that is really abundant in terms of is carbohydrates and nutrition. Another prairie plant that's a legume family is the prairie turnip.
00;35;43;27 - 00;36;11;25
Unknown
Okay. I like calling it Timpson. Melvin Gilmore, the ethnobotanist, said in the 1920s we should use that name, which is a derivation of Thompson law, which is the Lakota name for the plant. Okay. And these legume plants also have a root. You have to be timely. And when you harvest them in the summer and the traditional practice of Native Americans is to harvest plants and return something, the offering of tobacco or corn.
00;36;11;27 - 00;36;31;22
Unknown
And if you also put the, Yeah, let me cut one open for you. Yeah. So unfortunately, these are growing. I just brought them because I hadn't planted these yet, so they're not in prime condition. They been in a pot. Riley, describe describe what we're looking at here to our people are just listening. I would say it's about the size of a large radish.
00;36;31;22 - 00;36;59;06
Unknown
Look at that. Carbohydrates. But it looks. Wow. I mean, very stretchy and wider than, you know, your average potato. Really much more solid. Yeah. Smells very earthy. Yeah. They and they actually have a raw peanut taste. Since these are starting to germinate, they're not going to probably be as tasty. So how would how would you prepare these. Oh like mainly mainly cooked boiled okay.
00;36;59;06 - 00;37;16;05
Unknown
Just like you would potatoes. Yeah. But you can do a variety of things. You can fry them. You could, you know. Okay. But they're, they're best cooked. They're and they're hard to come by. In fact seed companies typically don't sell. Yeah. No we don't we don't sell those. Right. You should I mean but why don't I do.
00;37;16;05 - 00;37;36;19
Unknown
Well you can't even get seed. Yeah. Right. And the plants often are triploid and don't produce seed. The ones I grow in my yard are not seed producing. They'll flower. They don't produce seed. They propagate themselves by their tubers. Yeah. And they really benefit by having people move them around. Sure. I'm on a campaign to get people to plant these.
00;37;36;19 - 00;37;57;21
Unknown
You should definitely take that. Yeah I would, I would like to get that propagated sprouting. Yeah. Yeah. Take both of them. Are they cut that one. They'll probably still grow. They're tough plants. They're right. You put 1 in 1 of my garden. Yeah. Yeah. You take the country. Yeah I'm taking the. There you go. Is it best to like to start these, just go ahead and start them in the ground or.
00;37;57;24 - 00;38;20;25
Unknown
Yeah, start as a plug. Okay. Yeah, yeah. That's okay. So. So, yeah. Got to plant the other one I mentioned was pre turnip. Yep. Which, a great passage I found was that the oma determine the root of their summer bison hunt. Not by where the bison were. They did it out, Western Kansas, Western Nebraska to find them.
00;38;20;27 - 00;38;42;08
Unknown
Thereby, where the women could harvest the choke cherries of the prairie turnips. And they would go camp there where those stands, or prairie turnips or choke cherries where the women would, with kids around, would harvest them, dry them, prepare them while the men went out to hunt, of course. Bison. You don't know exactly where they might be. They were more abundant in the High Plains, but they returned to these patches.
00;38;42;23 - 00;39;06;20
Unknown
They were harvesting their prey. Turnips from the seeds were ripe. They were returning the seeds and plants to the disturbed ground where they harvested it. They were increasing their patches. I think one of the reasons that, prairie turnips fit in masculine, are now very common today. There are rare plant in our prairies. Is because people don't eat them.
00;39;06;23 - 00;39;32;03
Unknown
And that seems paradoxical, because if you eat that root, you're killing the plant. Yeah, but if you eat the root following a traditional practice, you're going to create a prairie turnip patch. And I think because people don't maintain those prairie turnip patches for the last 150 years, except on reservations, they're less common. We think of plants having native distributions that are divorced from humans.
00;39;32;11 - 00;39;59;03
Unknown
That's not true. A lot of the edge distributions of especially edible and medicinal plants are there because people planted them. That's so interesting. We know that in some cases there's some documentation, but it's obvious. Native people all people know how plants grow, how to propagate them. Why wouldn't you move pecans or choke cherries or plums closer to where you're living in a convenient place?
00;39;59;03 - 00;40;20;08
Unknown
Yeah, you know that habitat for him. You could plant the pits or seeds or move the tubers and do that. I like making the point to about prairies and to Missouri, a unique ecosystem. We all lament how quickly they can grow up to trees. Yes. Yeah. And part of the reason for that is we don't manage them the same way.
00;40;20;08 - 00;40;51;22
Unknown
We don't have bison doing the things that bison do, but we especially don't have fire. Prairie is only been around here in Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas for about the last 10 to 12,000 years. Before that, it was colder and we had, you know, spruce fir, you know, cooler climes, you know, as it started to warm, people came in to this region as it started to warm, the prairies moved back in from the south.
00;40;51;24 - 00;41;26;02
Unknown
They had refuge in the Ozarks, in in Mexico, Texas, southwest, but primarily southeast from here. Yeah. So we have evolved multiple friends who just did a huge, what what would you say their fist pump or pad, it virtually patted you on the back because the southeastern prairies are a new. Yes. I mean, people are now kind of going back further than written history suggests finding that that was a vast grassland down there and a lot of places as well.
00;41;26;02 - 00;41;51;14
Unknown
Right. That's right. So we know that fire is lacking today on prairies. When we look at the history of fire in this region, the majority of fires historically were set by humans. For management but also escape fires. Escape campfires. Yeah. Kids have always played with fire. You. Yeah. Fires get away when it gets windy.
00;41;51;14 - 00;42;29;15
Unknown
That's right. Yeah. But they were human set. Yes. And my, my point with all this is humans have always been involved in prairies. So our work in restoration and restoring these the role of humans. Is ancient and essential. Yeah. Yeah. There's so our mutual friend, the guy who recommended you to us was Taylor Keen and a good friend of his who I would be surprised if you knew as well as Charles Simon that the, author of 1491, 1493, two other books that I hope every podcast listener here reads or listens to at some point.
00;42;30;04 - 00;42;53;20
Unknown
There is an excellent point, I believe was in 1493, where he talks about he, he, he spitball spitballing a little bit, I think, which I like. I love when, when, people have done extensive research, do a little hypothesize. He, he talked about how the little Ice Age, which was 1500s. Right. So it was kind of weird.
00;42;53;23 - 00;43;39;24
Unknown
Wasn't that kind of the tail end maybe a, 100 year period or something? That was after, a large die off of Indigenous Americans because of disease brought over from from Europe. Smallpox mainly. And it is it is believed that during that time there was less burning going on, which changed the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, which caused global temperatures to kind of drop a little bit because of less, less carbon dioxide being a part of our greenhouse gas layers in our atmosphere.
00;43;39;26 - 00;44;06;19
Unknown
And, it was a it was an interesting connection that he I mean, it lines up time wise and kind of when you think of how many millions of acres of prairie there were and how much, how much smoke and how much, I mean, you can see it during CRP burning season, which is not the right time to be burning prairies, by the way, in Iowa in March really is when most people are doing it.
00;44;07;03 - 00;44;33;16
Unknown
Just setting that, setting the table for, smooth brome there. That when the when it's the burning time of year, you see smoke all over on the horizon, you know, and and you know, you're talking someone's burning a 25 acre patch. Imagine if everything that you could see was on fire. The amount of smoke that that would produce in the atmosphere is just an interesting thing that I think, you know, ties to what your supports are.
00;44;33;16 - 00;44;54;10
Unknown
You're saying there with just how much burning was done and how closely it was tied to human behavior. And certainly there was some natural fire that was occurring, too. I heard somebody well, I can't remember who it was really somebody we had on the podcast maybe recently talked about. They looked up how many, lightning strikes started.
00;44;54;10 - 00;45;14;21
Unknown
Fires had happened just this year, and they were, like, totally astounded by how frequently that happens to. And so so there's point being, a lot of prairie burning Native Americans were doing most of it. And, and, that really shaped the health of our, our landscape. And of course, historically, if a fire started, who is going to put it out?
00;45;14;23 - 00;45;38;01
Unknown
Right. Yeah, I, I love there's, documented case from western Kansas of the fire starting, near the our Kansas River and burning 200 miles into Nebraska. Wow. That's crazy. Right? But there is no big river or rock outcrop or something to stop it. Yep. Eventually the winds changed. Or, you know, it had a hit of green wet spot.
00;45;38;01 - 00;46;01;16
Unknown
Yeah, something. Can you imagine how fun that was to, to be the the person who got, dropped the first bit of flame on the on the grass and just let it go. And then just to see the change. I always love about a week after the burn, to see that green emerging in the well, there's not enough known about it, written about it, but obviously part of the burning was to manage bison.
00;46;01;17 - 00;46;20;17
Unknown
Yeah. You know, the to move bison into an area that might be more favorable for your hunting. Yeah. Yeah. And, give them more food to have bigger herds. Yep. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All very, all very fascinating. When we look into that, what are some of your other favorites? What about like, so roots good source of carbohydrate protein.
00;46;20;17 - 00;46;40;23
Unknown
What about greens. Yeah. Greens. And that's you know, you know all these seed companies, they're they're not, you know, offering our native weed seed you know. Yeah I'm I'm very fond of quinoa podium and lamb's lamb's quarters and amaranth. Both of those are really really good food. So I find that I didn't know those were native. So lamb's quarters are native.
00;46;41;00 - 00;47;00;23
Unknown
We have both native and non-native, amaranth. We have native and non-native. Sure. There's definitely native varieties that are tasty edible. Yeah, I have heard of people eating lamb's quarters. Oh yeah, they one of the best greens right now is prime time. Boil them with a little bit of salt and butter. They are tasty, like asparagus or.
00;47;01;12 - 00;47;20;20
Unknown
Would it be kind of like asparagus? That or do you not eat the stems? Really? Yeah. No. Stems are good too. If they're tender, you just pick the tender tops parts. They're a little distinctive. Different tasting. They're probably closer to spinach and taste, but. Okay. They have their own, signature. We know they were collected extensively.
00;47;20;20 - 00;47;49;11
Unknown
Archeological sites are full of kina podium seeds. The seeds are also used as food. We also know historically that the use of those plants continued into agriculture. And today, still, folks in Latin America, traditional folks, folks in the southwest and elsewhere, if you grow corn, you tolerate or encourage or kina podiums or amaranth, she cut those for greens as you're tending your corn crop.
00;47;49;14 - 00;48;21;05
Unknown
So, so they they were important, important foods. And I mention them because what we do restorations today, prairie restorations. We really should encourage some of those weedy species. We certainly encourage the edible and medicinal plants because I think we need to have people more involved in these restorations. And if there's plants for people to harvest as individuals, and I'm thinking particularly in suburban areas, areas where there's more people, I think we'll get more appreciation for Prairie.
00;48;21;05 - 00;48;40;23
Unknown
We'll also get more hands involved in management. Yeah. If people care about them, if they're going out there to harvest plums, they can have wild plum jelly. Or if they're going out there to get some greens because it's an early successional part of the prairie restoration, and they can harvest some greens. People will get much more excited about that restoration project.
00;48;40;27 - 00;49;04;08
Unknown
Yeah, that's such an interesting point. Okay. So so there so there's our greens. It seems like I heard is a arrowroot. That was another commonly yes utilized in more in wet sites and. Yeah. And wet berries. Well even wetter than that okay. Semi-aquatic plant. Yeah. Like old oxbow or lands have been invaded and flooded. So there's not a lot of vegetation left.
00;49;04;15 - 00;49;25;03
Unknown
They can actually grow in the water. Okay. Nice tubers too. Okay. So that that's another common one. What about, like, the asters and stuff like that would. I mean, that's a huge percentage of prairie forbs. Yes. Were those utilized for food much? Not for food. They're a little too bitter. Asters and gold rods are two to bitter and don't have big seeds.
00;49;25;23 - 00;49;42;15
Unknown
Both those used in medicine, both are medicinal. Okay. Which we're going to talk about. Right now, I definitely want to get into the medicine side of it. Okay. Rather you got, I got I got one more, Eastern Gamma grad. Yeah, yeah. So good. Gamma grass is getting a lot of attention in the grazing world.
00;49;42;15 - 00;50;02;22
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. You know, it's like ice cream of grass. It's really called. Yeah, but what about its potential for for food usage? You know, it's similar to corn. Yes. The kernels are closely related. Yeah. And that's until recently they thought it was a progenitor. Yeah. Yeah I read that that now they recognize it's not seeds have been used as food.
00;50;04;02 - 00;50;24;17
Unknown
There's in, in the Great Plains Midwest. One of the problems for archeologists is that everything rots. There's no caves, rains a lot. So it's hard, harder to find food things. So we get clues from elsewhere. So in this case, with eastern gamma grass, there are bags of seeds collected that are in Ozark caves. Yeah. In Missouri, in Arkansas.
00;50;24;20 - 00;50;43;10
Unknown
So they were used as just old food caches. Yes. Yeah. It's used as food. Problem with Eastern Gamma. It's got a very, tough, hard shell essentially seek out but if you pound them up, you can you can get with. Yeah, yeah. More like, kind of like a cornmeal equivalent. Kind of. Yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of things.
00;50;43;10 - 00;51;04;27
Unknown
It's really just used that way. And another example of how foods, used differently is the nuts that we think about walnuts, hickory nuts, poi. It's hard to shell them, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, you can just pound up the whole thing into, powder with, like, I'm talking big, you know, mallet or motor pestle. Big time.
00;51;04;27 - 00;51;24;23
Unknown
Yeah. Boil it, skim off the oil. And you have brain food so you don't deal with the shell, and and that means you're after the oil, and you can pound up a lot of hickory nuts if you think about it, if you've got the equipment to do that. So a lot of foods are figured out ways, to use them that facilitated their use.
00;51;24;23 - 00;51;47;10
Unknown
So we don't really think about that. But one more thing. On Eastern Gamma Grass, the lantern shoot and Salina, Kansas, working on perennial grain crops, they're one that they've looked at and there's some potential with it. Although I think they've moved on to other things. Yeah, but it is the largest grass seed. It's in the thing. You look at the seed and you think, okay, I, you know, you can plant it with a corn planter.
00;51;47;10 - 00;52;18;23
Unknown
I've seen, you know, some guys do that, you know. Yeah. Well all grass seeds are edible. The question is how easily can you get to the endosperm? To the carbohydrate? Yeah. You know, a friend of ours who I would assume you probably know, Laura Jackson from University of Northern Iowa. She's done quite a bit of research, and I think her or her parents, they worked out with the Land Institute of their dad, founded the land and said, okay, yeah, mom actually founded the land and said, were they also looking into,
00;52;19;06 - 00;52;38;25
Unknown
What was it? Was it rosin weed? Yeah, yeah, I've done some work on that, too. Rosin weed is going to be the sunflower replacement. Okay. They're getting making good progress with that. And a nice oilseed. That's a perennial plant. Very drought. Drought tolerant. Yeah. Of course, the big one is Kerns, which is, grass.
00;52;38;25 - 00;52;59;20
Unknown
It's, feed is a wheat substitute. Okay. And that's now commercialized a little that you can, you can get, and turn to flour. It's, really high in bran, but, the flowers there, and so it's being used in some beer you can get. Okay. That's a beer. Wow. Yeah, that's that's really interested to see that it's already it's already starting to move that direction.
00;52;59;20 - 00;53;27;18
Unknown
That's encouraging to see. Yeah. So what about things like, the wild rise when those have been used by my indigenous people. Much for like what we use rye for, for our food uses. Yeah. The seeds aren't very big. Oh grasses were potentially used as food and we find remnants of, of grass seeds in hearth areas where people cooked.
00;53;28;22 - 00;53;51;20
Unknown
Again it was figuring out techniques for separating out that endosperm. Right. So I don't know about wild rye being used directly. And if you look at those seeds, they're encased in glue, right. Oh, really pretty small. So I think they're not, not a favorite. But I don't doubt that someone figured out a way to singe pound use and get some some of them out of flower or something out.
00;53;51;21 - 00;54;13;26
Unknown
Right. What about buffalo grass? That's a pretty large seed. I don't I haven't seen that one use, although, a you mentioned keep mentioning, blue grandma. Yeah. I'm a grass seeds have been used as food. Okay. They're also extremely tiny. Yeah. Oh, yeah. A blue gram is very tiny. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think the buffalo grass seeds too.
00;54;13;28 - 00;54;38;03
Unknown
Again, it's too much of a hardened, woody covering. Right. Tears easily. Yeah. Yeah, that is, that is, so interesting to hear. I mean, I could just go and just go down this list all day just naming species, so. Well, but just kind of recap here. Rather, you want to swap those cameras. Maybe just just move that other camera over to there just so we can get Kelly.
00;54;40;11 - 00;55;06;15
Unknown
So the uses are greens, roots, tubers, and then. Okay. Yeah, we need to talk fruits, but we also have the grinding in flour meal. But then there's fruits too. Yeah. What kind of species would they be be using. So the, the most widely is fruit across the Great Plains was choke cherries okay. And again they were used by drying them.
00;55;06;15 - 00;55;34;19
Unknown
Well, choke cherries make you choke. They're a little too, stringent to eat directly dried or, cooked. That astringency goes away. They were dried, extensively, pounded up, pet and all. There's actually nut meal inside the pit of cherries. Still on, Rosebud Reservation. I've. I've had opportunity to eat. Well, JP, which is a choke cherry soup that is pounded up, pet.
00;55;34;19 - 00;55;59;05
Unknown
And seed of choke cherries, thickener, a little sweetener, and you get a nice fruit soup that's a little bit like eating, old gritty pears. There's those called stem cells. Yeah. So you kind of don't chew it the same way. Yeah. Plums are used extensively. All those fruits are really, really important. Again, another problem I see in prairie restorations, no one's planting plums.
00;55;59;05 - 00;56;17;16
Unknown
No one's planting choke cherries. Right. Those are prairie species. Yeah. We should be planning. Those people love choke cherries and plums for fruit. So when you say they're a prairie species, I picture them growing on kind of the transitional edge, the like into the into, woodland. But they would have been growing more so out in the open.
00;56;17;16 - 00;56;36;21
Unknown
Oh, yeah. If you go out in the high Plains, you'll see patches of them often in drawers or rough grounds, you know, these things like that. Yeah. But they're, they're common across places. Maybe firewood and have thrived as much, although they need to be burned too. They get they get trees. Old populations don't produce fruit. Okay, okay.
00;56;37;04 - 00;56;57;18
Unknown
So they are part of the prairie. We we tend to, you know, have this thing of, you know, it's kind of like you talking about savannas, too, right? It's all this big mix of patchy things, but choke tourism plums, both persist by themselves. Are out in the middle of the prairie. Yeah, no problem with that. I imagine wildlife utilize those heavily, too.
00;56;57;20 - 00;57;18;12
Unknown
Yes, absolutely. We're not talking about that aspect, but all this diversity of prairie plants is not just for humans, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Wildlife rule wildlife and again, pollinator species, all these things benefit tremendous. And then you get this additional habitat structure by having these woods. Yeah. That you don't have I'm talking about the annual plants again.
00;57;18;13 - 00;57;44;13
Unknown
All those seeds. That's good wildlife food too, especially early successional, prairie plantings. Yeah. Tremendous habitat in some ways. Better for some birds. Get all those seeds and just in dense stands of native grass. That's really interesting. What what about, mulberry? Would that have been? Would those have been out in the prairies? I mean, they just volunteer.
00;57;44;13 - 00;58;05;08
Unknown
Shots are the most berries we have. They are not native, okay? They're mulberry species. It's in our woodlands. Not real common. Was not really a prairie plant. Okay, so you don't really know what berry we come across where they cause a white mulberry or something like that. It's all exotic. Okay? And it's interesting. We don't find them in the historical record.
00;58;05;08 - 00;58;33;12
Unknown
In the archeology. We. Then we get fooled sometimes on thinking things are right. Yeah. Native. And then like. Oh, but that wasn't here before, you know, 1491. Right. Woods service berries and plums kind of filled that in that, that kind of niche in, what we do now, you know, we go to raspberries now, but it would have been probably service berries or plums at that time in service berries and June berries, northern shrubs too, or part of the prairie.
00;58;33;13 - 00;58;58;13
Unknown
Okay. And northern half you get some swamps or what? Shrubs for, for food. What about gooseberries or somewhere? Woodlands. Actually need some shade? Current. So, extensive in prairies too. Okay. Golden currants, throughout the high Plains land again. Woody tries a little bit of protection for them, ground cherries. Are there any native ground cherries? Lots of ground cherries.
00;58;58;13 - 00;59;23;27
Unknown
I've done extensive work on them. We found some really, really interesting compounds in them. New compounds of science with analogs, which are anti-cancer compounds. Really. And the fruits of those species are used extensively. Green sources, which we think of today. Yeah, yeah. Long history of that didn't have the hot peppers here but they had the source. Lots of sources for food or for meat over these carbohydrates I'm talking about.
00;59;25;06 - 00;59;45;21
Unknown
Well the funny thing I found about the ground cherries is I had written about them years ago and kind of okay, they're edible but I still think they're very good. We finally did this research on them and grow a lot of them. And the chemists, well, they need a lot of material to do processing.
00;59;45;21 - 01;00;06;07
Unknown
So we found these unique chemicals in the foliage. We want to know if they're in the fruits. They needed about a kilo of plant material to do their tests. And a lot of fruits de kilo tried to, you know, over 2 pounds of dried fruits. So anyway, grow a bunch of them out in our research gardens, put them in the lab, let them dry.
01;00;06;07 - 01;00;33;00
Unknown
It didn't dry. They didn't dry. Well, we'd also found that not only had these anti-cancer compounds, but there's a relationship between cancer and antioxidants, which is one reason that vitamin C has been looked at repeatedly is being an anti-cancer substance. And it does have some effect, but not huge. Of all the. We tested over 200 species of prairie plants for anti-cancer, wound healing and antioxidants.
01;00;33;02 - 01;00;57;07
Unknown
The highest species that we tested much higher than oranges were. Ground cherries really had the most antioxidants. So in these fruits they didn't try. They just sat there. A month went by. Still, are these fruits and spoil at all? Well, they're full of antioxidants, which are preservatives. Yeah. You know, you take, you know, citrus juiced. Yeah. Keep apples from brown and pomegranates.
01;00;57;07 - 01;01;19;25
Unknown
Those are aren't those really high in. Yeah. And you know, so it's almost like our own pomegranate here and yeah, the tea or antioxidants that's used for preserving a lot of our food. So I finally cut the fruits. But I also to help them dry. But I also noticed some are starting to turn yellow. And so our wild tomatillos, there's several different species, but they typically do turn color.
01;01;19;28 - 01;01;38;21
Unknown
And then they were sweet and tasty. So it's kind of like growing tomatoes for the first time. You've never got them before. And you get this nice big green tomato and you go, oh, that's a great looking tomato. I grab it right. Avocado. No it's tomatoes. Don't I know people like fried green tomatoes. Give me a break. Ripe tomatoes.
01;01;38;21 - 01;01;57;05
Unknown
Yeah. So much. Yeah that's right. So I was eating green fruits and yeah they're ripe. They're good. So ripe they also disappear. It's actually hard to find the ripe fruits because so many animals have them. They're they're up on the dinner plate for everybody else. So you got to kind of work for it a little bit. There's also a long history, aren't they?
01;01;57;05 - 01;02;14;18
Unknown
Aren't they toxic if you eat them like too early or something. Well, tomatoes are toxic. Okay. So you have to eat a whole bunch. It's kind of like the whole people get totally wrapped up on poisonous plants. Yeah. We know so much about when to eat things. Think about this. If I had you guys over for dinner. Yeah, I'm going to have some tomatoes.
01;02;14;19 - 01;02;38;28
Unknown
A great. And so I serve this. There's this nice plate of greens, tomato greens that I've cooked. Yeah. You get sick. They're poisonous tomato greens. Potato greens are poisonous. Yeah. We don't worry about that. Who's who stand around making a big deal about this. Potatoes and tomatoes and yeah people real about you know, ground cherries or. Milkweeds.
01;02;38;28 - 01;03;03;24
Unknown
They're poisonous plants. I gotta say about Milkweeds, too. Is their favorite food also? Really? Yes. Anyways, back to the ground. Cherries. So you had this food that was anti-cancer, widely used, again, in archeological sites. The seeds of those are found at Haas, just abundant across the region. And since you guys are from Iowa, you got to watch for this.
01;03;03;24 - 01;03;24;08
Unknown
You know, people make ground cherry pie. Really? That's not Iowa thing. It's an Iowa thing. I've never had a ground. Yeah, we we we get ground cherries in our production fields. So I'm gonna have to start picking some there. Yeah. You have to get some pick them green a little bit and ripen because otherwise they'll disappear. What about black nightshade?
01;03;24;08 - 01;03;45;00
Unknown
Is that a native plant or is that. Is that because they get little berries on them? Yeah. And they love grown in with the prairie plants. Yes. That are those that a little there's debate on that. Some are edible. They need to be very ripe. I think if they're very ripe they're not poisonous. But they can be very ripe.
01;03;45;02 - 01;04;04;04
Unknown
They're are not a favorite food, by the way, but they really are a food. Yeah. It's, an a medicine. Okay. These plants have medicinal uses too. Yeah. So it's so interesting. One more talk. Yeah, yeah, I mentioned Milkweeds. Yes, yes, yes. So I published paper this year with a colleague because eating milkweeds is not getting enough attention.
01;04;04;04 - 01;04;25;11
Unknown
Every one of these things that they hold up is, you know, poisonous and by not enough attention. I think you mean zero attention. I've never heard of a lot of people eating, eating, milkweed. I have heard that cows like to to milkweed leave. Well, you know, and this whole thing about, does does anyone know of any animal or human that has gotten sick from eating milkweed?
01;04;25;16 - 01;04;45;07
Unknown
I mean, I, I've never I mean, it's like everybody knows they're poisonous, right? Yeah. Yeah. For that more time. Yeah. Now you could don't get me wrong. The sap is is poisonous principles in it. My friend Taylor. Keno, you mentioned Omaha. I've had up to the work with the, the Winnebago, the Potawatomi here in Kansas.
01;04;45;12 - 01;05;10;18
Unknown
All of them love milkweed soup. It's an important local food for Native Americans. Gets no attention. You eat the young, shoots. Just. They're merging. The first 4 to 6 leaves. Or even more preferred are the flower buds or immature half sized pods. Wow. And you boil them. You should do this. You have opportunity coming up. Boil them.
01;05;10;18 - 01;05;37;16
Unknown
Add salt and butter. Always add salt and butter. The greens. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually adding fat to any greens, spinach or anything, increases your body's ability to absorb nutrients. Okay. So the long history of, you know, bacon fat greens, I mean, makes a lot of sense, actually. Yeah, yeah, it's nutritionally advantageous. Milkweeds are a prized food amongst native folks, and it's one of the tastiest greens.
01;05;37;16 - 01;05;58;09
Unknown
They're actually sweet. You have to cook them. If you cook them, the cardinal hides in the white sap are neutralized. Completely, but almost completely. Okay, he does that. He does? Well, for three minutes or longer. If you're really nervous about how you can pour off water and boil again, my native friends laugh at that. Just make soup out of them.
01;05;58;11 - 01;06;26;19
Unknown
Yeah. Really tasty. Traditional bison or deer meat soup with milkweed and other things. Had, Winnebago man make me deer. A deer stew with milkweed. Onions. Oh, and, morel mushrooms. That was, that was going to be the next thing you prairie mushroom species. This year, while I was, working in our rattlesnake master production field.
01;06;26;21 - 01;06;53;17
Unknown
It was such a busy spring. Normally, I like to go out and do a good day or two of, foraging. It didn't happen for me this spring. So, I was, I was, in our roasting master production field, walking along, and sure enough, two big yellows growing right there amongst the, the rattlesnake master. Surely that had to be a part of what Native Americans were utilizing for food as well.
01;06;53;22 - 01;07;20;03
Unknown
Not just Morales, but other other funguses that he had some extent and not well or fungi understood, and they don't preserve well archeological record. I can say this some tribes did indeed eat mushrooms like mushrooms harvest. Some did not. Some. Okay, so they were weird and spooky. Sure. And I mean, there's there's enough of them that can make you very sick.
01;07;20;03 - 01;07;49;24
Unknown
They probably, you know, had that oral history passed down, he'd stay away. People learned what was food and not food. Right. And had. Yeah, oral histories that informed them. But mushrooms are certainly used extensively. Morales is considered a fire mushroom in the northwest. Yeah, that's true, I don't I keep wondering about this, prairies. I've not really seen a morel, eruption after burning a prairie, but I'm still watching for that.
01;07;49;26 - 01;08;28;12
Unknown
You know, I had kind of had the cart before the horse incident last, last burning season so far, grass production fields were growing, you know, just a field of warm season grass and, so we burn pretty late. We burn late April or early May just to eliminate the invasive, cool season grasses. After we burn this one field, my Carol, our our our founder and I, we were out there burning together, and I just start looking around, and I'm finding murals everywhere, and, it would have been interesting, you know?
01;08;29;08 - 01;08;51;13
Unknown
Oh. You know, it's it's our most remote production farm. So you don't get back out there very often. I should have gone back just to see it with that many mushrooms pre burn. Would there have been a real flush. Yeah. House burn and obviously weather and other factors. Right. Yeah. And you never can predict mushrooms. Yeah. Yeah I drop pins on my map my, my mapping apps where I find them and I go back the next year.
01;08;51;13 - 01;09;15;29
Unknown
That usually does mean very little good. And I do think mushroom locations are the one thing that everybody's allowed to lie about, right. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. The up north. Yeah. Right. Right there. If you're not finding any don't worry. Just keep looking you know. Yeah. Got to throw them off the trail. Yeah yeah okay. So the other side of the equation here I'm thoroughly convinced you would have survived.
01;09;15;29 - 01;09;40;16
Unknown
You would have found you would have found plenty of plenty of food to. But health is is one of the greatest blessings we can have. Right. And sometimes things go wrong with our health. And things went wrong with people's health long before. Yeah, big pharmaceutical companies existed and they were dealing with it. One of my favorite like, connections.
01;09;40;18 - 01;10;08;17
Unknown
So we've done a I mean, this is episode we're I think we're well over 250 now. We've interviewed so many great people through the years, and I love to read and and listen to books and other podcasts and things like that. And when you start connecting dots in different places, that's when it's fun, right? And one of those moments came, when I was listening to, Undaunted Courage.
01;10;10;01 - 01;10;33;03
Unknown
Who wrote that again? I know too. So he was, he was with the University of Wisconsin for a long time. Why can't I say the famous famous. Oh, one of the most famous historical, writers. He wrote another great book called, to America. Anyway, so it'll come to me at 3 a.m..
01;10;33;17 - 01;11;07;02
Unknown
Yeah. He, he he talked about how when Louis was playing, he was really the main planner. Yeah, Clark did some of the recruiting work and of course, helped with the leadership side of it, but. But Meriwether Lewis was, was really he was really kind of the main guy for the whole thing. In fact, one of the things about Meriwether Lewis that was interesting was he he pretended that William Clark had the same rank as he did throughout that entire expedition.
01;11;07;02 - 01;11;45;17
Unknown
He was the only he and Clark were the only ones that knew that captain Clark wasn't really Captain Clark. He was some rank below. And it was very embarrassing to Lewis that Clark wasn't given that promotion going into that expedition. But Meriwether Lewis really was the him and Thomas Jefferson were the two. This was their baby. And, while he was gathering up provisions, one of the things he was waiting on and spent a lot of money on, a lot of the budget, which he way exceeded by being, was the correct me if I'm wrong.
01;11;45;17 - 01;12;14;07
Unknown
You're saying cinchona bark. Bark. Yeah. To treat malaria. Yeah. And I had when I was listening to this book, I remember I was working in our production field and I was like now they call it there's they also called it quinine. Yeah. All the time I was like, well what about wild quinine. That's a native that's a native plant here in North America.
01;12;14;10 - 01;12;37;08
Unknown
And they're going to be traipsing all over the prairies to get out to the Rocky Mountains. Surely they had to be encountering wild quinine, but they just didn't know. Right. You know, hardly any of the plants. And then, a sad story, I think, in our cultural history is that these settlers to the New World did not make much of an effort to learn from native medicines.
01;12;37;13 - 01;12;59;00
Unknown
Yeah. And I'll tell you a Lewis and Clark story that relates to medicinal plants. Yeah. So when Lewis and Clark went up the river, they started recording the first time they saw plants, and it's pretty amazing. And I've been very involved in Lewis and Clark collections. In fact, they have. I had no idea. Handle them this last spring.
01;12;59;00 - 01;13;29;14
Unknown
I'm involved in a project this summer. We're actually recollecting some of those plants. So you've seen the actual specimens that they sent back down on the keelboat now? Oh my goodness, my, my brother, my dad may have just swerved out here in this right now at the American Philosophical Society, which is part of Drexel University. But anyway, so they're going up river and it's, they're, they're going to spend the winter there with the Mandan in North Dakota.
01;13;30;12 - 01;13;53;10
Unknown
There are nervous about all the tribes there, wanting to learn things. So they put on an, a record, elder to, to help introduce them to the Mandan. And this elder tells him about our Keneisha and about how it's just great medicine and it's great for rabies. It's great for rattlesnake bites. It's great for all these things.
01;13;53;12 - 01;14;19;22
Unknown
And they took great interest in that. While they're staying with the Mandan. Of course, they weren't the first white people there. So the the British trapper traders came down from Canada and they talked about echinacea. So Lewis and Clark, after that first year sent things back. And they sent things back that they felt were important to science or important otherwise.
01;14;19;24 - 01;14;43;06
Unknown
Yeah. They sent back roots and seeds of echinacea, because of the medicinal potential. They also sent back a prairie chicken in a prairie dog. Yeah. Yep. And, prairie chicken died, but the prey dog survived all the way to to tell Adelphia the echinacea seeds. We don't know what happened to them. It's believed they probably were grown out briefly.
01;14;44;10 - 01;15;09;08
Unknown
But they were viewed as so important because of of the medicine. So, I'm really, of course, keen and fond of vaccination. And I can do this. I wrote a book on it. No, I didn't, I know you have a medicinal plants book. Yeah, this is a separate book, only on echinacea with some coauthors. But, I headed up that project that was the most important, prairie medicinal plant.
01;15;09;10 - 01;15;35;25
Unknown
Okay. Documented, I think, 18 different tribes that have that made use of it, essentially all the tribes of the region. So was it kind of like the Advil of the prairie where you had a headache, you got a fever, you got, it was okay. It was used for every if you were sick, if you didn't have other specific medicines, you would use echinacea either in a strong tea or if you had to do something that was topical.
01;15;35;25 - 01;15;59;05
Unknown
Oh, kind of like a salve or something like that, or like a yes, poultice and or as a salve with oil. Okay. But definitely internally in tea for, if it's just a lot for rattlesnake, remedy, which we still don't have good remedy in there is something to that I don't I've not been able to okay. Rattlesnake mash or did I read that that was also believed to be useful for rattlesnake bites.
01;15;59;05 - 01;16;25;27
Unknown
Yes. And it wards off rattlesnakes. Really? I bet you don't have any rattlesnakes in your past. You have not. I've yet to come across proof, that's for sure. Yeah, there you go. Anyway, so. But echinacea is, this cure all, but it has immune stimulating activity, so your white blood cell count increases. So it does help ward off colds, sickness, flu.
01;16;25;29 - 01;16;49;08
Unknown
And then there's been enough study that they've isolated this immune system like substance has a large carbohydrate then complicated enough that they've not chemist not been able to identify specifically what it is a very high molecular weight compound. If you remove all of the carbohydrate from echinacea and test the remaining portion of that plant, there's also immune response.
01;16;49;14 - 01;17;14;13
Unknown
There's more than 1 million stimulating compounds in nature. And so there is clinical trials that show that echinacea can be effective against, upper respiratory tract infections. Wow. My favorite one is, Australian study first of all, echinacea is only native to the United States. And a tiny bit of the plains of Canada. Okay, it is not used much in our country.
01;17;14;14 - 01;17;40;20
Unknown
Most of it is used in, more advanced countries in Europe, Australia. We have not adopted medicinal plants in our culture. Our medicine is pretty much controlled, owned by pharma companies. Right. We have very limited, use of natural substances compared to China. Europe elsewhere have integrated much more. But there is a clinical trial of what they did is great.
01;17;40;26 - 01;18;06;19
Unknown
They had people that were going to take transcontinental flights from Australia to either Europe or the United States. They had one group dose before, during and after the trip, and the other was the control. And those who dosed on it before, during and after the trip were less likely to get upper respiratory tract infections. And if they did, their symptoms and time of having it was less.
01;18;06;22 - 01;18;26;29
Unknown
And of course, we've all been on planes and you're sitting there in the plane space, you're flying really distant, and the guy next is hacking and wheezing and full of gunk. You know, you're in for it. So just even a little bit of a boost, is a good thing. So this is kind of a personal question, Kelly, but are you taking some of these?
01;18;27;00 - 01;18;46;14
Unknown
Oh, yeah. On a regular basis. What would be a regular basis? I, you take it. Well, I tell my students it's my class. So if you know you're going to have a stressful period of time coming up. Yeah. Going into winter, tell my students before an exam or exam times, you know, you're going to break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend.
01;18;46;17 - 01;19;07;12
Unknown
Any of those any of those stressful times. Yeah. It's good to know before, during and after. Wow. I'm a believer it doesn't work for everybody. That should not be a negative. How many people have gone to the doctor and gotten no substance of any sort. It doesn't work. Doesn't work for everybody. Yeah. There are other immune stimulating plants.
01;19;07;16 - 01;19;32;19
Unknown
Tall bone set bones that okay. I mentioned. Yeah, yeah. Why? It's called bone set. I was there a medicinal. Was there a medicinal connection there? Yes. It helped cure the bone break fever. That 1918 flu epidemic. Yeah. Which, by the way, started in Kansas. Really? By chance? It started out in southwest Kansas. This during, World War one.
01;19;32;20 - 01;20;01;14
Unknown
Yep. Some soldiers were went home for the holidays, went back to Fort Riley and then were deployed overseas. And that created the global pandemic spread all over there was known that, you petroleum's but a bone set work good at stimulating the immune system that used t for flu and people did use it. And one of the things with that, 1918 flu was the bones ached.
01;20;01;14 - 01;20;20;18
Unknown
You know, flu sometimes doesn't. Yeah. The body aches. Yep. So if you consume the bone set, it took care of the bone break fever, help you get all that is so interesting. Has nothing to do with setting bones, right? Yeah, I was worried. I was like, some, painkiller or something. Not good for that. That does have. And it has.
01;20;20;18 - 01;20;44;00
Unknown
It has had a identified, immune stimulating compound. Yeah. That is so interesting. I feel like we could spend all day asking, the. Yeah, the the names, these, these common names that, have developed over the last, you know, 200, 300 years from Western origins are, you know, are where, it's just astounding. I mean, yeah, it's them names.
01;20;44;00 - 01;20;59;20
Unknown
I have to say two things. One of which I'm actually working to change some names. Yeah, yeah. Milkweed needs a new name. It gotta get rid of the weed part. Yeah. Right. Yes. This has got to get rid of that. I mentioned about, prey. Turnip has nothing to do with turnips. Not related to nothing. You know, Simpson's a good name.
01;20;59;22 - 01;21;20;07
Unknown
And then I think I mentioned you before we started here, but I've gotten a nice, grant project with the USDA. We're adding native names, TSD plants database. You think about it, we're adding the original names. You just mentioned that we've named things the last couple, 300 years. No, no, no, we're going to go back and use the older original name.
01;21;20;07 - 01;21;38;19
Unknown
Yeah I love that. And then the translation system and that's, you know, my book, I really enjoyed looking at native names. And with those translations, they probably give you a real good clue as to what the use was. Right? Yeah. Or they give you clues about the culture or they give you clues about the plant itself. I just think names are fascinating.
01;21;38;21 - 01;22;03;08
Unknown
Okay. You mentioned asters had some medicinal use, minor or minor? Minor use. Okay. What kinds of things were that they've been used in tea for? Internal, intestinal problems. Okay. Okay. So more digestive, you know, I think people, gravitated towards different, plants for different cures. I think with all medicine, there's a lot of guesswork.
01;22;03;15 - 01;22;31;28
Unknown
Honestly. But certain things work for certain people. I found that well over, I don't have my current number, but let's say about 300 species of native prey plants were used as medicine, whereas only 200 reuses food. More plants were used as medicine than food, and that seems to hold up, kind of globally. Yeah, I think the reason for that is, well, you know, it's always food's pretty basic.
01;22;31;28 - 01;22;51;22
Unknown
You know, you need carbides, proteins, right? You need a handful of things. And you do okay. And you need a variety of foods. But. Right. Medicines. My gosh. You know, with my animal plant book I say, hey, I did try all these in the medicinal plant book. I can't say unless I'm a hypochondriac and, you know, and then I never given birth or, you know, menstrual problem.
01;22;51;22 - 01;23;17;13
Unknown
You know, there's a whole subset of things I definitely don't experience. Yeah. And then so with so many illnesses, we still don't know what the illness really is, as you can imagine, you know, in more traditional cultures or even further removed from understanding what to do today. Right. What about like pain reducer or pain pain killer.
01;23;17;15 - 01;23;44;21
Unknown
Is, was that a were there any plants that were utilized for that. Quite a few. Again Asia being one okay. Asia has a novocaine like substance. Okay. My, a dentist here in Lawrence actually gives people come in with toothache and echinacea salve until it really doesn't come back in a couple days if it's, you know, still a problem and a lot of toothache, too.
01;23;44;21 - 01;24;05;18
Unknown
Sometimes it's just you've been grinding your teeth or something and a little bit of pain relief would, would help. And then Asia is healing too. So maybe there's something that both benefits. Yeah. That, willow bark is pretty classic. Willow bark has been is globally for relieving pain. It's got you know, it's a precursor of aspirin is in it.
01;24;05;28 - 01;24;35;13
Unknown
Sure. And there are other other plants is too. There's quite a few patents, something that has to be treated. Yeah, yeah. So, so, another thing. Well, you know, let's close the loop on wild quinine. So when, when did when did quinine start getting adopted by non-native people for. Do you think Lewis and Clark would have been on the, on their expedition, be like, wow, we wasted all this money and time trying to get this and Joan of Arc from Peru.
01;24;35;13 - 01;24;56;17
Unknown
Yeah, and we could have been using these native flowers, and I could be wrong, but I think malaria never got very far north. I think maybe it's a Saint Louis. Sure. It's not a northern disease. It's okay. Yeah. It's a certain mosquito that. Yeah. And just not in the U.S. now at all. I don't think maybe a little bit in the South, but yeah.
01;24;56;24 - 01;25;18;08
Unknown
Yeah. So they thought that would be something they might need. They had a little armament of, of medicines to bring with them, wild quinine and I don't know the full story on that was used as a substitute, but I don't know it to be, very effective. I think it may be name that more because it's somewhere in taste.
01;25;18;10 - 01;25;42;29
Unknown
Okay. And then and and that's interesting. Some don't. Some people call it fever. Few to fever, few is different plant. Well, that's, I guess a non-native aster. But doesn't it kind of have that nickname, too? Maybe, or something? Yeah, I think so, yes, yes. But yeah, so. So maybe it had some, some kind of fever and and all those plants you just mentioned do have active medicinal constituents.
01;25;43;02 - 01;26;07;29
Unknown
So I mean, I and one of the one of our piecework we're looking at, you know, I mentioned wound healing, anti-cancer antioxidant plants. We have data show that if you take plants and Native Americans used as the group of plants you study. You will find more success. And if you just take random number plants, in almost all cases Native Americans use plants that had active medicinal constituents.
01;26;08;06 - 01;26;28;26
Unknown
Now we don't always know that if they use something as a kidney medicine, that it was truly effective against kidney problems, for sure. But we know there's active medicinal constituents and almost all those plants. An example of that is grasses have very few secondary compounds. Native Americans didn't use them as medicine. And they're the most abundant plant on prairies.
01;26;29;02 - 01;26;55;07
Unknown
Right? So they weren't just randomly taking plants and taking medicine and praying Native American medicine. There was, spiritual practice more than a chemistry practice, right? So but they did use both, you know. Yeah, they did use substance. They didn't just pray. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's very, very interesting to to sift through that and find those, those little nuggets in there.
01;26;56;02 - 01;27;14;04
Unknown
What did you know you talked about the herbicide commercials. The other one of the pharmaceutical commercials, the FIR. Everybody looks so happy while they're taking these pills. Right. And then you start hearing all the, what they call a Z copy where they read it really fast. Side effects. Yeah. So please stop. If your face falls off and consult your doctor, you know?
01;27;14;05 - 01;27;37;19
Unknown
Right. The, or there's there side effects to using native plants. Oh, sure. I mean, I think you read the same list of all those. So we started marketing them, but those risks are low. But you had knowledgeable people. I mean, I think at least ten species of local weeds were used as. I was going to ask you about local weed.
01;27;37;21 - 01;28;03;24
Unknown
Well, there's got to be a name associated because local means crazy, right? Yeah. And, you know, there are, it's alkaloids that are doing that are addictive to, horses and cattle. Okay. Only happens if you can find them on those plants right there. Yeah. They would they wouldn't select for it otherwise. It's. Yeah. Right. So that's why we don't really I've never I've never seen you know, animal addicted to locally.
01;28;03;26 - 01;28;26;03
Unknown
And I've been around locally. Describe it. So definitely there were, there are knowledgeable people in those were minor medicinal plants, but they were used to you. People knew how to use them. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's, so, so the side effects would be similar then to regular medication if somebody wasn't using them in a calculated. Yeah. Studied way.
01;28;26;05 - 01;28;54;11
Unknown
Yeah. Yeah that's interesting. Yeah. But overall it, it would seem that we need to put a lot more research into great opportunity. And of course, modern medicine moving further away from plants where it is tweaking molecules now. Yeah. Pharmaceutical industry does not really have interest in plants. They have interesting chemistry. So if you work with native plants, you're not going to get request from them unless you isolate the compound.
01;28;54;19 - 01;29;20;15
Unknown
So its efficacy and its safety. Yeah. Yeah. You'd have to basically bring them a molecule from, from native plants and then and then ideally probably tweak it to yeah make a patentable. Yeah. Yeah. But there is great opportunity. There is research going on for herbal products. That is a big field of medicine. It's just not regulated. And it's no longer hidden.
01;29;20;17 - 01;29;43;19
Unknown
Yeah. Of course it used to be one of these ads on DSB, you know, that, you know, there were there were concerns about medicinal plants that said they don't work. Then it's recognized they do work, then they're dangerous. Then you can't talk about them. So the doctor safety, health, Efficiency Act allows herbal products to be in the market, but you can't say what they're used for.
01;29;43;21 - 01;30;01;04
Unknown
So if you buy echinacea at the health food store and, and even a nice brand, it doesn't tell you how to use it. I mean, it's all this kind of crazy. Yeah. So you go to the web and find out how to use that in Asia, right? Yeah. Yeah. And you should tell your doctor, just like these.
01;30;01;04 - 01;30;26;22
Unknown
Advertise for pharma companies. You should tell your doctor what you use. But you also also you should if you take herbal products, which I do, and many millions of people do, you should ask your doctor how that medication they're going to prescribe interferes with your herbal product. It's an equal playing field. Yeah, it's all chemistry. Yeah. They should be able to tell you and they are not trained in that.
01;30;26;24 - 01;30;49;24
Unknown
Right. They need to be trained in that. They need to be trained in nutrition too, because most of us eat and we now know that. We now know that there's problems with certain foods and and medicines. There's also problems with medicines and your food. They should be warning you much more about them. I mean, people have digestive issues after taking meds, or cognitive issues.
01;30;49;27 - 01;31;13;04
Unknown
Yeah. That's a that's a great point. Okay. So so before we wrap up on this segment here, what would be the best way or the most practical way I guess that someone who they're not struggling for, I'm not asking for like, oh, you know, I got rheumatism. I need some a plant for that. There you go. There's a new catch line for it.
01;31;13;04 - 01;31;41;16
Unknown
I got a plant for that. Just the average health person would like to incorporate some native plants as. As herbal supplements. Is it through teas? Is it through? Yeah. Literally going and getting a capsule of. No. Yeah, yeah, a couple things, fresh plant material with it, certain things. Or I'm very keen on tinctures which are alcohol, water extracts.
01;31;41;19 - 01;32;02;15
Unknown
But a great place people can start. Of course, the caveats are you need to learn about plants. You need to know your plant species. You need to take precautions. But a great place to start is with ments of all sorts of. All the ments are very helpful to us, and they help into the digestion. They help in, you know, opening up your sinuses.
01;32;02;17 - 01;32;23;23
Unknown
So if you think about mint, you can and some of them are mental, very strong. Like the bomb. Yeah. People. Yeah. Sometimes called horsemen. That's strong. Yeah. But if you have, really, you know, congested or have a, you know, bad, cough or something, it's very soothing. And you can make tea that you really will like, and that's mint are very safety is I mean, yeah.
01;32;23;26 - 01;32;44;21
Unknown
You know, so start with something simple. Definitely read up. Learn your plants. Yeah. Be cautious. Learn from someone. Work with someone you know. There's a herbalist around a lot of herbalists. So don't don't just blindly try stuff. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's about as dangerous going to, the pharmacy, you know, and just buying stuff goes right to health things, right?
01;32;44;26 - 01;33;05;00
Unknown
Yeah. It says it'll help me. I'll just try a little bit of this. Little bit of that little cocktail. Yeah. Yeah. So. So yeah, with the abundance of care. But is, is as far as like administering it is the is the most practical. Yeah. Usually through a tea. Is that defense. Really depends I mean some things you need to use topically I mean if you do a skin issues.
01;33;05;00 - 01;33;29;27
Unknown
So yeah there's that but teas. Yeah. So a good way to get something internal. Yeah. Yeah I think it's something that, that, I'm definitely going to look into and, you know, it's interesting how through this podcast. Right. I was ready for my big a recent flex here. Yeah, I'll say it on the podcast.
01;33;29;27 - 01;34;03;19
Unknown
I've been debating it. So I just recently had a two year physical, and I've been working in this job for three years now, and, so I'm 35. I'm definitely, you know, every birthday is is less exciting, at this point in life, right? Yeah. But in those two years since switching my career over to this, where I have a very now very active job, I was very active outside of my job previously, but now my work is very physical.
01;34;03;19 - 01;34;26;20
Unknown
You know, a lot of our, a lot of our field work is done with a hoe and a shovel or on your hands and knees pulling weeds. And, also just through interviewing so many people such as yourself, who pay so close attention to what's healthy for them, we've spent a lot of time talking about outside of prairie, just healthy food and and where are you sourcing your food from?
01;34;26;20 - 01;34;50;04
Unknown
What kind of food are you eating? It's changed my my diet. Yeah. And it was interesting. I had I just, I've been just flexing on Riley and Nicholas for the last week now because I just got my results back for my physical. My, triglycerides dropped by. What was it, 58 points, I think. Yes. He's been.
01;34;50;11 - 01;35;18;08
Unknown
And my completed an ultramarathon. My and my cholesterol, my my LDL, the the unhealthy cholesterol has dropped by ten points. And that's real data that that, as I've aged, I've actually gotten more healthy. And so I've seen the power of, of how this information can really, truly change your life and, and the trajectory of your, your health.
01;35;18;10 - 01;35;50;07
Unknown
And, so hearing you describe these native foods and native, I guess we could say supplements, I, I, I believe in it. You know, I, I think that there's, there's really something there that that's it takes a holistic approach. The first thing you mentioned there was being more physical. Right? So I mean, if you're going to do some modern day foraging and use of plants, I mean, you're going to be in.
01;35;50;10 - 01;36;12;01
Unknown
Yeah. And I, I think we found too, with the Covid times getting outdoors or doing things outside for all of us was very, very helpful. You know, in multiple ways the physical health, the mental health. So I think you start with that as that foundation, then you start exploring some of these foods. Also, our diets change. Yeah. We kind of explore things.
01;36;12;01 - 01;36;36;07
Unknown
I mean, growing up I hated cranberries, asparagus, you know, unusual tasting things. Horseradish like all those now. Yeah. I mean, you kind of grow a sense of, I don't know. Well, you don't just taste flavor, you taste health is what you end up tasting. That all goes together. Really does. And then I think some things really do taste good that you just didn't, appreciate, right?
01;36;36;09 - 01;36;57;01
Unknown
At some point in the past. And, so, yeah, I think I think all that fits together and in some ways I almost feel like it's less about medicines. It's about these other pieces, you know? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I do think medicines help correct things. And don't get me wrong, I will go to a doctor for treatment, too.
01;36;58;00 - 01;37;18;15
Unknown
But I think the foundation of our lives really is activity. Good food, good living, you know, outdoor connected friends, all those things. Yeah, yeah, even a 690 mile walk to the city to, to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. That's good for you, too. That would do a lot of good for a lot of people. Yeah, yeah.
01;37;18;18 - 01;37;38;20
Unknown
Well, this has been tremendous. Kelly. I wish we could. Man. I wish we could have two full days of this. Just picking your brain, and and I think the closest thing people can get to that is checking out your books. Yeah. So, could you promote your book? Yeah. Yeah, sure. So I've just on my second edition of Edible Wild Plants on the Prairie.
01;37;38;23 - 01;38;01;01
Unknown
I wrote the first in 1986 or published in 86. So 35 years later. Yeah. And I'm currently working on a new edition of Medicinal Wild Plants. Okay. It's under contract, and I think it'll be published next year, but I also quite finished it. So, awesome. And then there's the book on echinacea, right? Yep, yep, yep, that one's much more detailed.
01;38;01;01 - 01;38;20;27
Unknown
That's more arcane. It delves into the deeper science with chapters on medicinal chemistry and. Yeah, and and all of it. And the best place to find these would probably be best to go through a local bookstore, go to your local bookstore. They're all available, pretty much anywhere you like. They're available. Yeah, well, we really appreciate. Yeah.
01;38;21;20 - 01;38;35;24
Unknown
I'll let Riley do the honors on the closing question this week that Nicholas always likes to ask. Unless you can't think of what I'm putting you on the spot. Riley. Oh, you're putting me on the spot a little bit, but I think. I think I know exactly what it is. But I'm going to ask it.
01;38;35;24 - 01;38;58;18
Unknown
And you're going to. You can correct me if I'm wrong. Yeah. If you could snap your fingers and change one thing about our world, it could be about, medicinal plants. It could be about prairie in general or something else, or something totally unrelated. Could have nothing to do with prairie or. Or your area study. Just something that you.
01;38;58;20 - 01;39;18;14
Unknown
This is where we want to get into the mind of Kelly. A little deeper here. And what what what keeps you up at night? What what what what do you think? Deeply. What what would you change? Yeah, I think if I could do one thing in that realm, I would, move to a higher place in people's minds and activities.
01;39;18;18 - 01;39;53;12
Unknown
The importance of biodiversity, and all things. Think about that. Diversity is something that you really want to have. We just talked about that in terms of diet and foods, a diversity of things in terms of obviously nature and plantings, diversity. But I think if we held that biodiversity thing higher in our decisions, you know, and oh, current little kick of mine is I think we need to start talking about people's lawns as being devoid of diversity, and that the typical lawn were promoted to grow has is boring.
01;39;53;16 - 01;40;15;00
Unknown
Now. There's no diversity we need we need to flip this around and have diversity, biodiversity. That's something that we want, that we take credit for rather than something that nice to have. Right. Yeah. No, we really should put that as a, really high high point as a goal. Yeah. I love that. That's a those are actionable things.
01;40;15;02 - 01;40;33;12
Unknown
And sometimes, you know, you can get you can get an answer that's like, man, that would be great. But there's nothing I could do to help that. But this is something that every single one of us try to right now, think about the different ways to do that. Yep, yep. Well, thank you so much, Kelly. Go check out Kelly's books.
01;40;34;06 - 01;41;14;25
Unknown
Just as we've learned today, it's happened to me. It's happened to Riley. And it takes people, like, talk talking to people like Kelly. Conservation happens one mind at a time.

Hoksey Native Seeds

Ep. 266 Unlocking the Prairie's Secrets: A Guide to Edible & Medicinal Native Plants with Kelly Kindscher

Podcast Transcript

Ep. 267 (Coffee Time) Texas vs. The FDA-- New Law Forces Warning Labels on Food Additives

Ep. 265 (Coffee Time) How to Interseed Prairie Into Pasture and Ghana Bands Styrofoam