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Plants & Gastronomy

Almost everything we eat is reliant on plants at some point in the food chain. So even if we don’t like eating our greens, plants still make their way into our diet in one way or another.

Fruit and vegetables are the most obvious way that we eat plants, but what about the flavourings which make our food and drink so tasty? We might not think twice about a sprinkle of pepper, but it actually comes from the dried berries of a vine. Garlic, ginger, chilli, vanilla – the list of herbs and spices is as long as it is varied, and they each add their own particular accent to regional dishes.

Even the things we drink originally come from plants. Tea is the dried leaves of the tea bush and coffee starts out as a berry. Grapes are used to make many different types of wine, and hops and malt give beers their distinctive tastes.

When we eat a juicy steak or a lamb chop, the cows and sheep that provide the meat are herbivores, so plants indirectly provide most of the protein we eat as well as the carbohydrates.

See the top 10 plants that we think have made the biggest difference to this category.