Talk:Portulaca oleracea

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Reference for vitamin E values?
The text under the nutritional table on the right hand side seems to indicate that all the data in the table comes from the USDA nutritional database, but the USDA's entry does not include any value for vitamin E. The vitamin E value appears to come from this paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1354675  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.134.24.148 (talk) 19:53, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Thoreau Walden
In his book Walden Pond (1854), Thoreau mentioned that he made a "satisfactory dinner of a dish of purslane," that he gathered and boiled.

In the book Herbs and Old Time Remedies by Joseph VanSeters, the herb Purslane (Portulaca oleracea) is one of the herbs presented. VanSeters gives some history of the herb as follows: “In the 1854 classic Walden, Henry David Thoreau gave us a glimpse of one man’s attitude toward the simple vegetables, plants and herbs that could sustain us in life, which are often shunned while searching for more glamorous and tasty foods. To this, he said ‘I learned that a man may use as simple a diet as the animals, and yet retain health and strength. I have made a satisfactory dinner of a dish of purslane which I gathered and boiled. Yet, men have come to such a pass that they starve, not for want of necessaries, but for want of luxuries.’”

I LEARNED from my two years' experience, that it would cost incredibly little to obtain one's necessary food, even in this latitude; that a man may use as simple a diet as the animals and yet retain health and strength, Thoreau wrote. I have made a satisfactory dinner, satisfactory on several accounts, simply off a dish of purslane, which I gathered in my cornfield, boiled and salted. -69.87.199.246 (talk) 21:32, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

wild picking and nutritional value
Since this is a common weed, wild harvesting is tempting. What are the challenges/dangers in field identification? -69.87.199.246 (talk) 21:32, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Nutritional value otherwise: According to the charts in USDA's 1963 book, Composition of Foods (Agriculture Handbook No. 8), the so-called "red book", Purslane is also an excellent source for Vitamin A, which I added in this Wikipedia article. For7thGen (talk) 19:12, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I have gladly eaten purslane weeds for at least 6 years now, following Euell Gibbons' book, Stalking the Wild Asparagus (1962, my hardcover = ISBN 0-911469-04-4). Gibbons discusses field identification well enough to satisfy me completely.  I am very happy with his book, although 1962 was too early for him to mention Omega-3 fatty acids.


 * I recently attended a presentation in Faro, Portugal, in which one of the conclusions was that P.O. is good for its high levels of both omega-3 and omega-6, and specifically the ratio between these two roughly equal to 2 which was said to be very unusual (normally only found in fatty fish) Benkeboy (talk) 09:37, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

windowsill
Is it practical to grow this on a windowsill? -69.87.199.246 (talk) 21:32, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Netherlands
In the Netherlands it is cultivated and eaten fairly regularly as a vegetable. (At least it was in my family). I know that something similar grows in South Africa known by Africans as marokh and eaten as a (wild) vegetable. Any South Africans know more? Maybe it is just a look-alike, I dont' know. Jcwf (talk) 20:29, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Non-English names
I have heard this plant called by many names -- a Lebanese woman I knew called it something that sounded like "baht-lah" and I've also heard something like "sheet-al-nubia" However, I do not have WP:RS for these, and I'm not inserting WP:OR. Just that, as is the case with a great many plants of worldwide distribution, it would be useful to have a catalogue of alternative names. DavidOaks (talk) 23:29, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

Oxalic acid
According to the table in oxalate, purslane has one of the highest concentrations of oxalate among edible foods (910 mg in 1/2 cup), higher than rhubarb leaves. Is this correct? If so, isn't this a health concern, and shouldn't it be noted in the article? All the best, --Jorge Stolfi (talk) 00:48, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

Netherlands / Non-English names
The Dutch name of the vegetable is "postelein". In the Dutch wikipedia it is mentioned that the Netherlands is the only country in Europe where "postelein" is commonly eaten. (I know it is one of those things that are greatly missed by Dutch expats...) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.21.215.44 (talk) 16:52, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

the section on companion plants is completely unreferenced. Unless proper scientific references can be provided this section should be removed. In particular, the claim that corn uses purslane to grow its roots sounds highly unlikely, given the relative sizes of the root systems — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.197.87.151 (talk) 17:26, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

References to similar looking plants being poisonous
I've removed an edit that some unidentified plant looks similar to P. oleracea and is poisonous.

First off, the material is unsourced. Until it is given a reliable source, it can't be added.

If the material is being added, as the editor originally claimed, so that people will know not to eat the wrong plant, then this is clearly a "how to" edit, and in violation of WP:NOTGUIDE.

If that is not the purpose, then the material provides no information at all about P. oleracea, which is what this article about. By knowing that some other, less common, unidentified plant looks "similar" the reader doesn't learn anything at all about P. oleracea. It simply provides no information at all about this plant, and as such isn’t relevant to this article. If we can find a RS that says that somebody was poisoned through confusing the two plants, that would be notable. The fact that an uncommon poisonous plant looks somewhat similar to a common edible one tells us nothing about the edible one.

If we start doing this for these two plants, then we need to do it for all plants. It’s one thing to describe a plant as being like a tomato or similar common plant. It is very different to describe a tomato as being like a Desert Raisin, which is what is being done here. The very term “similar looking” is so subjective as to be meaningless. There are literally tens-of-thousands of species that look similar to P. oleracea, by some arbitrary standard of similar. Most of those will be poisonous by some arbitrary standard of poisonous. This will be true of every single edible plant in the world, P. oleracea isn’t special in this regard. We’re going to have to add lists to every edible pant food article on Wikipedia of every poisonous plant that looks arbitrarily similar. After all, we aren’t adding this information so that people know not to eat the poisonous plant. We are apparently adding it simply because it is notable in its own right that, for example, the tomato looks similar to thousands of other Solanaceous plants that are poisonous. Mark Marathon (talk) 03:12, 28 January 2014 (UTC)

P. "oleracea" cultivars (=P. umbraticola)
Probably worth mentioning in this article, if only because of the rampant confusion and mis-labeling in the horticultural trade, is that numerous showy cultivars that are almost universally labeled and marketed as P. oleracea are in fact P. umbraticola: http://australianportulaca.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-history-of-portulaca-umbraticola-in.html (And before anybody asks me to add it myself, I've given up on attempting to edit Wikipedia as my additions are always immediately reverted or otherwise removed.) 160.111.254.17 (talk) 15:31, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Pharmacological effects
Editor Mark Marathon deleted the following:
 * The oral administration of the homogenates of P. oleracea reduced the blood sugar level of alloxan-diabetic rabbits to normal. The extract of the leaves and stems reduced muscle tone in individuals suffering from spasticity and exhibited skeletal muscle relaxant activity both in vitro and in vivo. The extract produced dose-dependent negative inotropic and chronotropic effects and pressure response on rat blood pressure. The diuretic action of the herb is attributed to the presence of high percentage of potassium salts.

suggesting that the cited source did not meet wp:medrs. I am curious about Mark Marathon's reasoning since this is not a primary source, but a secondary one, Springer is a reliable publisher, and the author C. P. Khare seems to be respected in his field as a compiler of herbal pharmacology. See, for example, the number of citations to his work in Google Scholar. Is the objection to the Ayurvedic pharmacopoeia in toto because many of the remedies have not been through vigorous double-blind clinical trials? --Bejnar (talk) 06:26, 23 December 2014 (UTC)

Image displays upside down
Not really sure where to post this, but when I open the following image in Media Viewer, it is displayed upside down. I am using Opera on Windows 10.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portulaca_oleracea#/media/File:Common_Purslane.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.222.154.229 (talk) 20:09, 21 January 2017 (UTC)