About half of all modern American adults have one or more preventable chronic diseases.[1] Before colonization by Europeans, the diet of Native Americans was widely diverse. A partial list of plant foods eaten by native Californians, compiled by Kat Anderson, follows.[2]
Dry Fruits, seeds, and grains: walnut, hazelnut, California bay, buckeye, chinquapin, acorn, pinyon pine, sugar pine, gray pine, blue wild rye, California brome, wild oats, Indian ricegrass, coast tarweed, common madia, lupine, cockbur, California lomatium, woolly sunflower, peppergrass, chia, mule ears, witchgrass, cattail, valley tassel, desert ironwood, yellow pond lily, evening primrose, desert nama, white navarretia, arrow-grass, meadow foam, melic grass
Bulbs, corms, rhizomes, taproots, and tubers: bracken fern, wild onions, camas, soaproot, purple amole, balsam root, yampah, pussyears, mariposa lily, sanicle, common goldenstar, harvest brodiaea, Kaweah broadiae, blue dicks, ookow, snake lily, wild hyacinth, leopard lily, redwood lily, Washington lily, bear-grass, white brodiaea, golden brodiaea, ituriel’s spear, fire cracker flower, small ground-cone, Hartweg’s orchid
Leaves and stems: agave, yucca, mountain dandelion, wild onion, pigweed, angelica, wild celery, clover, cattail, tule, nettle, violet, American vetch, mule ears, narrow-leaved milkweed, red maids, jewelflower, tansy mustard, shooting star, dudleya, horsetail, soaproot, miner’s lettuce, bractscale, goosefoot, Indian rhubarb, California ground-cone, thistle, candy flower, nude buckwheat, cow parsnip, prince’s plume, fiddleneck, sweet cicely, watercress, water parsley
Fleshy fruits: manzanita, madrone, Oregon grape, wild strawberry, wild plum, islay, sourberry, lemonadeberry, wild currant, serviceberry, gooseberry, wild rose, elderberry, buffaloberry, desert fan palm, desert apricot, thimbleberry, blackcap raspberry, California blackberry, desert peach, salmonberry, huckleberry, purple nightshade, western chockecherry, wild grape, redberry, twinberry, bridal honeysuckle
[1] https://health.gov/dietaryguidelines/2015/guidelines/introduction/nutrition-and-health-are-closely-related/
[2] Anderson, K. (2005). Tending the wild: Native American knowledge and the management of California’s natural resources. pg 244. Univ of California Press.