# Edibility of grass **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 4, 2011, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485 "2011-08-04T17:59:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CheeseDonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ecae2f/32.png) [@CheeseDonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CheeseDonkey)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485/1 "2011-08-04T17:59:23Z")
I know our bodies can’t digest grass, but can we still eat it? That is, if I eat it, will I end up feeling sick? ---
**Author:** ![johnpost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f17d59/32.png) [@johnpost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnpost)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485/2 "2011-08-04T18:09:46Z")
you could have the problems of a high fiber diet of firm and dry turds and severe constipation. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485/3 "2011-08-04T18:35:54Z")
There’s nothing better than grass-fed long pig. ---
**Author:** ![Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hilarity_n.suze/32/6223_2.png) [@Hilarity\_N.Suze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hilarity_N.Suze)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485/4 "2011-08-04T19:06:18Z")
> [@CheeseDonkey](#): > > I know our bodies can’t digest grass, but can we still eat it? That is, if I eat it, will I end up feeling sick? Are you a cat? If so, you can eat it. You will then end up feeling sick, and you will throw up. Tomorrow, you will go out again and eat some more/throw up some more, etc. And so on. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485/5 "2011-08-04T19:19:28Z")
> [@CheeseDonkey](#): > > I know our bodies can’t digest grass, but can we still eat it? That is, if I eat it, will I end up feeling sick? You can’t digest metal, either. What happens when a toddler swallows a nickel? (Answer: a 5c piece of poop.) ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485/6 "2011-08-04T20:06:00Z")
> [@purplehorseshoe](#): > > > [@CheeseDonkey](#): > > > > I know our bodies can’t digest grass, but can we still eat it? That is, if I eat it, will I end up feeling sick? > > You can’t digest metal, either. What happens when a toddler swallows a nickel? (Answer: a 5c piece of poop.) That’s why you should keep your grass well away from your kids. Wait, what? ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485/7 "2011-08-04T20:24:25Z")
I read somewhere that the situation in North Korea is so bad that people are eating grass. (But if there is such a lack of food, wouldn’t you replace the grass with food crops?) ---
**Author:** ![Al\_Bundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e79b87/32.png) [@Al\_Bundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Al_Bundy)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485/8 "2011-08-04T20:45:18Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I read somewhere that the situation in North Korea is so bad that people are eating grass. (But if there is such a lack of food, wouldn’t you replace the grass with food crops?) I suspect they are so desperate that they have no seeds. They ate the seeds first! I’m pretty sure it’s not because of zoning restrictions. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485/9 "2011-08-04T21:34:19Z")
Is there any nutritional value at all in grass? Would you starve to death more slowly eating just grass than eating nothing at all? ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485/10 "2011-08-04T21:40:52Z")
> [@Dewey\_Finn](#): > > I read somewhere that the situation in North Korea is so bad that people are eating grass. (But if there is such a lack of food, wouldn’t you replace the grass with food crops?) I’ve read similar things about North Korea in time of famine and wondered if it was a translation issue. It’s possible that people were eating whatever edible (or semi-edible) wild plants and roots they could find, and it was translated as “grass” in English. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485/11 "2011-08-04T21:47:47Z")
I’ve heard that chewing grass but not swallowing is good as you take in the chlorophyll which is suppose to have some nutritional value. ---
**Author:** ![chiroptera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/df705f/32.png) [@chiroptera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chiroptera)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485/12 "2011-08-04T22:00:56Z")
When I was a kid I lived for about five years in Turkey…I do recall helping pick a particular type of grass that was stewed in a spicy broth as a side dish. I also have a vague recollection of it being chopped up and salted as a salad. Rural Turkey during the '60s. I can ever recall how it tasted. These were definitely not starving people, either; they were rural (as in no plumbing or electricity, living in the mountains) but had a lot of resources. I just tried googling but my google-fu is weak right now. I can’t figure out how to phrase a query so it doesn’t bring back all results about turkeys, the birds. Or about Turkish cuisine. Surely some grasses are quite nutritious? Alfalfa…isn’t that a type of grass? Wheatgrass? Lemongrass? Rye, rice, wheat…are these not types of grasses? We can surely eat the seeds (grain) of most grass, or grass-type plants. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Tyger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Silver\_Tyger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Tyger)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485/13 "2011-08-04T22:25:42Z")
How much are you planning on eating? I’ve nibbled on grass for years with no ill effects. (Pine needles on the other hand will make your teeth feel sticky. But they settle your stomach so…) I usually ripped away the green parts until the white bit at the bottom was exposed. It’s soft and somewhat sweet. Bright green bits taste like sprouts. ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485/14 "2011-08-04T22:27:30Z")
I’ve just remembered, I used to eat grass as a child. If you take a long flowering stalk of grass and peel away the outer leaves, you expose an inner stem the base of which is very light green, soft (non-fibrous) and sweet-tasting. A bit like the base of the clover petals. Not much value in it, and we weren’t starving, but eating marginally edible stuff like vetch seeds, wild chervil leaves, beech nuts, even hawthorn leaves, seemed like a perfectly reasonable way to pass the time. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485/15 "2011-08-04T22:42:05Z")
If you eat stuff around the neighborhood it might be bad for you due to all the pesticides and fertilizers. In the wild, probably not so much. I’m not sure how many grasses are actively poisonous in nature, probably less so than the average plant life out there. But it probably won’t be very nutritious either. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485/16 "2011-08-04T23:16:06Z")
Grass leaves contain phytoliths, which are little sharp glass crystals. Chewing on them habitually will wear your teeth down to nubs. I think the standard practive for eating grass while starving is to boil it first. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim_r.mortiss/32/142_2.png) [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_R.Mortiss)\ **Post date:** [August 4, 2011, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485/17 "2011-08-04T23:52:26Z")
If you can’t digest grass, might it not make for a good carb-free\* noodle substitute? \*yes, I know grass is made of carbs, but if they are non-digestible, they don’t count, nutritionally. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2011, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485/18 "2011-08-05T00:46:07Z")
My Great-Grandmother told stories of people in Ireland dying with their mouths green from eating grass during the Great Hunger. I also recall chewing on the older, thicker stems as a child - we’d pick one, strip off the sandy outer leaf and then chew from about the middle down to push the soft white inner part out. I don’t know about nutritional value, but it tasted sweetish and never made me sick. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2011, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485/19 "2011-08-05T01:18:53Z")
Most grasses are posionous. Cyanides and oxalates are the most common toxins, but there are plenty more, and most grasses contain more than one. The concentration of poison isn’t high, so you can certainly eat a small amount of grass occasionally without dying. However if you actually tried to obtain your nutrients form grass you would poison yourself in short order. Even if you manage to find one of the species with minimal amounts of toxins, the nutritional value of grass is very, very low. You can’t eat enough to stay alive. As other shave noted, grass is extremely fibrous, and eating significant amounts is going to bind you up something fierce unless you grind it incredibly fine before you eat it. ---
**Author:** ![My\_Freakin\_Back\_Is\_Killing\_Me](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@My\_Freakin\_Back\_Is\_Killing\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/My_Freakin_Back_Is_Killing_Me)\ **Post date:** [August 5, 2011, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485/20 "2011-08-05T01:59:48Z")
Funny story: When I was about six, I asked my grandmother the very same question: Can we eat grass? What does it taste like? My grandmother had no idea, so we decided we should try it. We went out to the backyard, picked some grass, washed it, boiled it and added butter and salt. The results? It was absolutely disgusting. Tasted just how fresh cut grass smells, anyone who’s ever had a wheat grass shot will be familiar. I’m from Chicago and it was regular backyard grass, if that matters. We did have a few bites and I don’t recall anything bad happening but I doubt most people would like the taste and it’s not digestable so… [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/edibility-of-grass/591485.md?page=2)