Welcome to SUPERFOOD COUNTRY
Mention bush foods and most people’s thoughts go immediately to witchetty grubs. Yet we ignore native foods to our detriment. Science has proved they are bursting with essential nutrients and antioxidants, are low GI, low in kilojoules, contain antimicrobial compounds and even appear to have preservative qualities.
Many are easy to grow at home, too. They’re obviously suited to our climate, don’t require huge amounts of water, provide habitat for our local fauna and don’t seem to get the pests and diseases that afflict exotic species. On top of that, most native morsels are intensely flavoursome. This means a little goes a long way and they’re particularly useful as condiments or in sauces and syrups. If you’re buying bush foods online — the easiest way for most of us — they can be bought dried to use like any herb, spice or dried fruit in home cooking.
It’s bemusing that we Aussies ignore bush tucker; throughout history, other countries have valued our native edibles more than we have. Russian plant explorers took our kangaroo apple to make the contraceptive pill, the Americans have made a massive industry out of macadamias and the world’s biggest lemon myrtle plantations are in Malaysia.
Currently, the Chinese are among many eyeing offour amazing Kakadu plum, which boasts extraordinary levels of antioxidants and vitamins and has a great deal of potential to be used in medicine. The latest studies have shown that it could even be useful
