Nutritional Benefits Of Indigenous Herbs And Spices

As a child growing up in Alice Springs, Gayle Quarmby loved being surrounded by bush food. Running on the hot sand and down the edges of the dry riverbeds with friends, they would chase down kutjera (bush tomatoes), quandongs and any other native food they could get their hands on. Foraging was the game of choice in the absence of TV.

It wasn’t until after she had moved away, married and tragically lost her 20-year-old son that she and her husband Mike, a commercial nurseryman and botanist, would return in 1999 to the country of her childhood. “Dad had always taught me that life is pretty tough but that when times were difficult, you don’t sit on the couch, because it will beat you and kill you,” she says. But Gayle wasn’t returning to the same Alice Springs she left behind.

Gone were the tight-knit communities she would spend her days within, hunting down native bounty. For citydwellers, foraging might seem a fanciful concept but Gayle says it’s easier than we think. “I really recommend people to think very seriously about their own district, their own area that they live in, and find relevance for their food and their cooking.

She says there are warrigal greens, an antioxidant-rich native spinach, on the beach, sea parsley on rocks close to the sea, and lots of lemon myrtle grown in domestic gardens. “And also ryberries and lilly pillies that are street trees all around you. Dense with lemon myrtle-scented quince and soaked with the poaching syrup, this cake is just as wonderful served warm as a dessert or for afternoon tea. Lemon myrtle is one of those good old basics in the native food industry, she says.

“It takes a very citron smell with a wonderful, grassy, fresh morning dew taste to it. According to a nutrient analysis conducted by CSIRO, saltbush that Mike had grown organically in a hot house had 21 per cent protein, says Gayle. She says saltbush is great for vegans being high in calcium, magnesium and zinc “and all of those trace elements that herbs grown hydroponically do not have”.

Pass the saltbush: Is this one of Australia's best herbs, From salad greens to seasonings and even brewed in beer - this outback bush is lending its salty flavour to a diverse range of menu items. Tender fillets of eggplant coated in a Japanese-influenced sauce, making for the perfect meat-free meal. Wattleseeds, the edible seeds from Australia's dozens of wattle species, are known for their high nutritional value. They are high in protein, magnesium, zinc, calcium, iron and selenium.

Gayle describes their flavour as creamy and nutty. She says the coastal wattle produces higher amounts of oil, which help carry its nutty flavour. You can alter their taste depending on how long you roast them. “If we coffee-roast our wattleseed and sprinkle it on top of baked goodies, it certainly adds a new element.

“Our dear friend Simon Bryant from The Cook and The Chef calls sea parsley, ‘parsley on steroids’,” says Gayle. “There’s a peppery aftertaste that ordinary parsley doesn’t have. It grows on rocks close to the sea where they receive a generous dose of salty spray. Sea parsley is more closely related to celery, meaning the stems can get quite thick and are full of flavour. This plant can be used in both sweet and savoury dishes, says Gayle.

She says you can ground dry pepperberries with a mortar and pestle or you can make it into powder by blending it in a food processor. She says there’s a big demand for them and they also taste great in potato bakes and curries, on pizzas and in jams. Other foods you can swap are mint for native river mint, thyme for native thyme, cinnamon for cinnamon myrtle, and aniseed for aniseed myrtle. For more on Outback Pride’s range of products, go here. “It’s more about our people, our stories, our food being out in front. Elijah’s is leading the way for other Indigenous Australians.

After all, making a mess is literally leaving nutrients on the table. If you are concerned about perfect accuracy, you can get pretty close with a digital scale but keep in mind that food manufacturers aren’t required to be perfectly accurate with their nutritional information, either. They’re only required to be within a certain range of accuracy, and that’s what you’re aiming for in your own tracking. Your fitness tracker isn’t a perfect gauge of calories burned, either. All of this nutritional tracking is really about getting as close as you can to actual data and then watching trends: How do you feel, How much energy do you have, What’s your digestion like, Is your weight maintaining or changing in the ways you expect,