Strange Foods to Try: Here Are 5 Tasty, Healthy, Weird Foods Not to Miss

There’s a scene in the new documentary film, Roadrunner, where food critic and traveler Anthony Bourdain slurps down a still-beating cobra heart. You may not be brave enough to try raw cobra heart, a Vietnamese delicacy believed to increase male virility. Even if you were, killed-while-you wait cobra is difficult, if not impossible, to find outside of Vietnam. But I just wrote an article for The Epoch Times about five other strange foods to try: interesting and unusual edibles that are as pleasing to the palate as they are good for your health.

Why try strange new-to-you foods? It’s good to diversify your diet. Trying new foods is exciting. And many foods that Americans don’t normally eat, like chicken feet and yak meat, are actually chock full of nutrients. In addition, it’s gentler for the environment to eat local wild-foraged plants and locally and humanely raised animals (like stinging nettles, which grow abundantly in southern Oregon.)

I can’t give away the whole list of strange foods to try but I can give you a sneak peek of three of my favorites: a meat, a vegetable and a fruit.

1. Camel milk (wow!)

   After a single serving of camel milk, my colleague Christina Adams, author of Camel Crazy: A Quest for Miracles in the Mysterious World of Camels, saw that her son’s symptoms of immune and neurological dysfunction started to improve. Her son acted calmer, his skin irritation began to subside, and he was able to communicate better. Parents of children who have recovered from autism say that camel milk can be a game-changer. I love the taste and find that it doesn’t upset my stomach the way cow milk tends to do.

   I make no claims about the health benefit of camel milk chocolate. But it makes a perfect gift for the foodie in your life. And it’s almost as delicious as it is expensive…

2. Stinging nettles (ouch!)

   Nettles grow abundantly in many different climates. And consider this: a 2018 scientific review by a team of Polish scientists revealed that nettles are “ordinary plants with extraordinary properties.” This plant provides humans with a rich array of both macro and micronutrients as well as antibacterial properties. 

   Just be careful when you harvest them!

3. Elderberries (yum!)

   Mary Alionis, co-owner of Whistling Duck Farm, raves about elderberries. She mixes the berries with organic local honey to make a tangy elderberry syrup that she sells at the farm. Whistling Duck also makes elderberry shrub, a concentrated liquid mixed with apple cider vinegar.

   Take some elderberry syrup as an herbal medicine before you get sick, Alionis recommends. As quoted in the article: “If you feel a puniness coming on, add a little [syrup] to carbonated water or take a shot of it. It tastes good, it feels good, and it seems to help. It reputedly has anti-viral qualities. It’s high vitamin C and I think it helps build your immune system.”

Read the rest over in the Mind & Body section of The Epoch Times.

How about you? Do you like to try strange things? What are your favorite weird foods?

Related posts:

Processed Foods: America’s Weapons of Mass Destruction
23 Reasons to Breastfeed Your Baby
Help Your Family Eat Healthier, Here’s How

About Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D.

Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D., is an investigative journalist, book author, and Fulbright awardee. She is the author of Your Baby, Your Way: Taking Charge of Your Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Parenting Decisions for a Happier, Healthier Family, co-author (with Paul Thomas, M.D.) of The Vaccine-Friendly Plan, and The Addiction Spectrum: A Compassionate, Holistic Approach to Recovery. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest.