Grass products are a staple of human diet (corn, rice, wheat, sugar cane etc.), but it’s typically the higher energy seed components (and in sugar cane, the insides) that we use. Are there any grasses for which we commonly eat the leaves/blades?
Not that I am aware. Grass leaves are particularly nasty because they contain silica grains. Grazers like horses require specialized teeth to eat such abrasive materials. Eating grass leaves regularly would cause excessive tooth wear.
Does chewin’ on a piece of grass count?
Not if you don’t swallow it. Otherwise you are just eating the sap.
Bamboo shoots are probably the closest thing to a grass that people regularly eat. Even then, it’s not like we’re eating just any part of the bamboo plant.
People juice wheatgrass and drink it, but I think they only pretend to enjoy it.
Some grasses are sprouted and eaten as small shoots, which sort of qualifies.
And beer of course. Beer is made from malt. Malt is made from sprouted barley or wheat. I’m saying that’s the best answer.
Good example. However, the shoots don’t really include leaves as such, but leaf buds.
Depending on your “leaves of grass” definition, lettuce, cabbage, and the like come to mind. If you like Thai food, lemon grass and its family come into play. Herbs, too. Hay, wheat, barley, and similar are grasses (but we call them “grains”).
Lawn grass, I think, is reserved for desperate situations.
I think any reasonable definition of “leaves of grass” must include that the leaves be, you know, of grass.
Not commonly, but wheatgrass is eaten.
Lemon grass is used like tea leaves/herb - but the grass itself is not eaten.
Almost all parts of reeds are edible - roots , stems …
There’s got to be a Walt Whitman oral sex joke in here somewhere, but I’m just not finding it.
Need a pretty lose definition there - those aren’t grasses. That’s more “leaves of plants.”
Yes they are, but as noted above we don’t eat the leaves :). Again you got to play mighty lose with your definitions to get those to work.
I sing the body electric mower.
Thanks, all. . . .
That raises another good question: would a human stranded on an island that contains nothing except lawn starve? Or could he survive off the grass?
Grass is mostly cellulose, and doesn’t have enough nutritional content for humans to survive on it. Cows and horses rely on bacterial fermentation in the gut to break down cellulose into a usable form.
Also, one of the chief reasons humans don’t eat grass leaves is silica. Oddly enough, grasses love to pull up silica and they put it in their leaves. That shit is sand (sort of, OK not exactly but go with me here) and it is murder on teeth. A mouth full of finely ground glass, no matter how finely ground, can’t be good for your dentistry.
There is some thought that grasses put this in their leaves to discourage herbivores. Humans aren’t herbivores, which makes it all the more difficult to eat grasses.
People do eat lemon grass leaves, other grasses they juice or just eat the seeds. Bamboo hearts they eat and Bamboo fruit every 49 years as bamboo is also a grass.
Should I not be eating lemongrass? I use it when I make Thai curries or soups, but I don’t bother to fish it out after I’m done. But if it’s going to wear down my teeth, I’ll put it in a spice bag and fish it out. Does lemongrass have silica in it?
Yes, lemongrass has silica in it, but so does toothpaste, so relax. A little bit of abrasion on your teeth isn’t a bad thing.
The point I was getting at is that grasses are abrasive to teeth. It’s evolutionary. A plant does not want to be eaten, so this family of plants picks up silica to discourage being preyed upon. Evolution being what it is, herbivores then develop teeth that can tolerate that.
Humans don’t have cow teeth, but we don’t base our diets on grass leaves. That’s the thing. If you were to make a salad out of lemongrass and eat it everyday, your teeth would be fucked. But you don’t. I like lemongrass too, but I would never make a meal out of it. 