When I think of the word 'weed' I automatically think 'bad, annoying'. I studied up on them, though, and found that not all weeds are bad, in fact they can be beneficial if used right.
If you plant lamb's quarters or multiflora rose several yards away from your garden, they will attract leafminers and Japanese beetles away from your garden. Milkweeds, dandelions and goldenrod will repel wireworms and armyworms. Weeds also attract good insects such as ladybugs, praying mantis, hunting wasps, etc., that feed on bad insects.
Pigweed
Pigweed (also called amaranth) is very useful. It's edible. The young plants and the growing tips of the older ones are good veggies and can be boiled or eaten raw. The seeds are very nutritious and can be eaten raw, cooked as hot cereal or mush, ground into flour, popped like popcorn, etc. The greens have lots of iron, calciun, niacin and vitamins A and C.
Amerindians in South, Central and North America commonly used pigweed as a vegetable and a grain.
The Aztecs of Mesoamerice grew it as one of their major crops. It was known as huautli in Nauhatl and bledo in Spanish. It was used to make idols of dough, called zoale that represented their war god, Huitzilopochtle. These idols were used during a festival in May, honoring this god. The dough was made out of milled pigweed and toasted corn seeds mixed with honey or meguey sap. During the festival the idols were broken up and eaten in a communion ceremony. The Aztecs used pigweed during at least 6 other festivals honoring different deities. They also made tortillas and tamales out of pigweed flour and used the greens too. Since the use of this plant was considered sacriligeous by the Clonial authorities its use declined quickly through the Colonial age. Today some parts of Mexico still use this plant to make a popped food called alegria.
Some varieties of pigweed are used to make food coloring that gives corn wafers, corn beer and other things a reddish tint.
It can also be used as medicine for people with cardiovascular disease.
