Walking in the countryside, you may have come across a tall, green plant with wide open leaves. If tempted to reach out to touch a leaf, you will have felt a painful sting on your hand. You should have been more careful. You just touched a nettle leaf.

Nettles grow all over the world. Despite their very unpleasant sting, the leaves have been used in medicine, food, and drinks for thousands of years. The sting is caused by tiny hairs on the leaves. When touched, they inject chemicals into your skin and it hurts. Moments later, the skin begins to itch. Don’t scratch the skin! That will make the pain even worse.

Now that you know a little bit about nettles, we want to introduce you to a competition. It has taken place for more than 30 years in Bridport in south-west England. It’s a nettle-eating competition. It all began when two farmers were arguing about the size of the nettles that grew on their farms. It was an argument that went something like this: “My nettles are bigger than your nettles.” It was resolved when one of the farmers said to the other, “If your nettles are longer than mine, I’ll eat them.” The next section of history is a little confused, but a nettle-eating competition began soon after.

How do you eat something that stings? Contestants are served half-metre stalks of nettles. They take off the leaves, fold them into small parcels, then eat them. This goes on for 60 minutes, when all the bare stalks are then measured by judges. The winner of the competition is the person with the longest stretch of nettle stalks. Simple.

So, what does it feel like to eat nettles? First, your lips begin to itch. Then your tongue swells. Your mouth turns black, and your hands feel as if they are on fire. Your mouth is black because nettles contain large amounts of iron. Contestants should note that nettles have to be chewed properly so the short needles are destroyed. If this is not done, the needles scrape the throat and can affect breathing.

The nettle-eating competition is extremely popular. More than a hundred people gather each year to watch. It is said that people travel to England from Canada and Australia to take part. Perhaps someone should tell the contestants that if the nettle leaves are boiled, the sting goes away, and they will not hurt if you eat them. When cooked, nettle leaves taste like spinach and cucumber. That sounds much more delicious! We asked ourselves why anyone would want to watch this kind of competition. Thinking carefully about it, seeing each contestant’s mouth and lips slowly turning black may be quite fun, even interesting.

QUESTION:

VIDEO: Would you eat stinging nettles?

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