This post is inspired by a question my grandfather asked me. He is a wonderful, wise 95 year old who, amongst other things such as writing letters, cooking dinner, visiting neighbours and ringing his grandchildren, still potters around his garden and makes his own compost. He knows more about growing vegetables than anyone else I know (except maybe my dad) yet was surprised when I told him I’d started putting flowers in my salad. His initial question of why (because I think it looks pretty, and they are edible) was quickly superseded by “what is their nutritional value?” .. in particular, do they contain any minerals we struggle to get elsewhere? I didn’t know and he effectively commissioned me to find out. … formidable force my grandfather, especially when it comes to learning – everyone should always want to learn and keep learning and keep their curiosity.
So, the flowers I have been putting in my salads have changed with the seasons … it started with my daughter asking if we “could have any blue food, like Percy Jackson” … so I looked up whether forget-me-not flowers (which in April and May we have in abundance in the wild back section of our garden) could be eaten. Turns out they can. So forget-me-nots and lavendar – both blue – got me thinking about eating flowers in general and as the season changed these edible blue dots gave way to rose petals and calendula, and now to nasturtium. .. In fact nasturtium I have discovered is a delicious and totally edible plant closely related to watercress in both taxonomy and taste.
My plan had been to create a table of edible flowers and their nutrients – both for my Grandfather, and to put on this blog, but unfortunately the information has been woefully hard to come by and the effort has not yielded enough result to continue. Most of the flowers I did find anything about contained vitamins B1, B2, B3, Manganese, Phosphorus (as phosphates) calcium, Iron, Magnesium and Zinc, several also contained vitamin C and vitamin E. … but whether the quantities of any of these – given the fact I would tend to use flowers decoratively in a dish rather than in abundance – would be enough to be meaningful in a diet is something I do not know.
What I have done below is to create a list of edible flowers – taken from looking at a variety of horticultural and herbalist websites. (garden-organic, RHS, Suttons, Thompson and Morgan, etc). There was plenty about the flavour of many of these flowers to be found easily online or in various herbalist books (James Wong is excellent here and also talks about what is poisonous and shouldn’t be eaten), but regarding nutrition, many of the online entries I was able to read (several scholarly articles have been published, but you have to subscribe to the journals) were not scientific and only had nebulous and unsubstantiated ‘facts’ about the flowers having health benefits ranging from ‘heart protection’ to ‘easing of joints’ and simply said things like ‘high in antioxidants’. I’d love it if anyone manages to find better or more information and could let me know via the comments.
Anyway, here is my list of edible garden flowers, I hope maybe it inspires you to add flowers to your food.
- Alpine Pinks
- Calendula
- Carnation
- Cornflower
- Dahlia
- Dandelion
- Day-lily
- Forget-me-not
- Freesia
- Fuchsia
- Gladiolus
- Hollyhock
- Honeysuckle
- Jasmine
- Lavendar
- Lilac
- Magnolia
- Nasturtium
- Peony
- Primrose
- Rose
- Scented Geranium
- Sunflower
- Tiger-lily
- Violet
- Wysteria
EcoGreenGP Ponders... 