Plants are great, which is why I like writing about them in the first place. This time I am talking about plants that we eat. There is such a range of plants that we call ‘fruit and vegetables’ that get eaten all over the world. Some plants are eaten in many places, others in one or two.

Plants provide a very large part of our diets, or at least they should do. They provide wheat for our bread or pastry, fruit and veg (including peas, potatoes and beetroot to name three) as accompaniment to meat (if we eat it), and salads. They can be included in cakes and pies in so many tasty ways.

Eating a wide range of plants in your diet allows you to get the vast majority of our nutrients to enable our body to function properly and to maintain good health. Herbs, that we use for flavour in our food, are also plants. Rosemary, thyme, cumin, coriander and many, many others are some of my personal favourites. This makes plants pretty cool.

Anyone who knows me knows that I love my food, the spare tyre around my waste helps add to that impression! The fact that there are all these different sorts of plants that I can eat, from rice and potatoes, to capsicums, strawberries, tomatoes and dragon fruit is great, the fact that I can choose from so many different colourful things for eating is heaven to me. They can be used in many ways to make tasty food from all over the world-Indian, Thai, German, or American are different types of cuisine but all these nationalities can cook their fruit and veg in very tasty ways (as can any other nationality). I love that variety that comes from ‘JUST PLANTS’.

I agree that I may be odd in my enthusiasm here, but plants are just awesome. The best thing about using plants for food is that I can grow them for myself. Fair enough, I personally can grow only some of what I require each year in terms of my nutritional needs, but I really do enjoy growing what I can. The eating is the best part in many ways, but not the only enjoyment. I enjoy the process of sowing seeds and caring for the plants themselves too-I find the process therapeutic. Also, I know what has happened to the plants that I grow for food-with shop bought, I don’t have a clue (that’s a debate for another day though)!