Purslane: Benefits, Nutrition, Omega-3s & How to Eat It

Dr. Josh Axe · Free quiz

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Gardeners often pull purslane as a weed, but it's one of the most nourishing greens you can pick, with smooth, reddish stems, fleshy oval leaves, tiny yellow flowers and a tart, slightly salty crunch.91 People have eaten it as food and used it as medicine for more than 4,000 years, and it's still a kitchen green across Latin America, Europe, Asia and the Mediterranean.1

What makes purslane worth eating on purpose is the fat it carries. The modern plate runs heavy on omega-6 fats from seed oils and processed foods and light on omega-3s, and that imbalance is one of the root causes of chronic inflammation.12 Purslane helps tip that balance back, because it's a leafy green whose small amount of fat carries far more omega-3 than omega-6, and omega-3 is the fat that helps your body put the brakes on inflammation.1312 Food is medicine, and this one often grows for free right outside your door.

Did you know?

• Aboriginal Australians ground purslane seeds into flour for mush and bread.14

• Purslane's small yellow flowers open only on hot, sunny days, from midmorning to early afternoon.9

• Purslane seeds 2,500 to 3,000 years old have turned up at Salts Cave in Kentucky and Icehouse Bottom in Tennessee.1516

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What is purslane?

Purslane's smooth, reddish stems spread out from a single taproot into a mat up to 3 feet across, and its fleshy leaves store water, so the whole plant is about 94% water.91 The small yellow flowers sit at the stem joints, and garden varieties grow more upright for easier harvesting.91

It belongs with the wild greens, alongside dandelion greens, stinging nettle and chickweed, and I count wild greens and bitter greens among the most nutrient-dense vegetables and herbs you can eat.18 Purslane goes by many names: verdolagas in Mexico, glistrida on Crete, ma chi xian in Chinese medicine, loni in Ayurveda and khorfeh in Persian.10191420

A short history of purslane

Purslane is one of the most widely distributed plants on earth, and people have eaten it fresh and dried in many places, Crete among them.2 The Greek physician Dioscorides wrote about it in the 1st century, calling it andrachne and recommending it for headaches, inflamed eyes, a burning stomach, bladder complaints, fevers, worms and dysentery.21 It grew in North America long before Columbus, and USDA lists it as both native and introduced in the lower 48 states.1517

Few plants fit the first food in Scripture as plainly: "And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat" (Genesis 1:29).22 Purslane is a seed-bearing herb that feeds people wherever it grows.

Purslane nutrition facts

Calculated from USDA FoodData Central FDC IDs 169275 (purslane, boiled and drained) and 169274 (purslane, raw) at the records' 1-cup weights; % Daily Value uses FDA adult label values. USDA reports raw purslane's vitamin A in IU only.323

The leaves cook down, so a cooked cup is the realistic serving, and it carries nearly a fifth of the day's magnesium for about 21 calories.3

Beyond the label: plant omega-3s and antioxidants

USDA doesn't list fatty acids for purslane, so its standout nutrient, plant omega-3, comes from laboratory analyses instead. One 100-gram serving of fresh leaves holds about 300 to 400 mg of alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), the plant omega-3.24 In a 1986 analysis, purslane leaves carried 4.05 mg of ALA per gram, against 0.89 for spinach, 0.48 for mustard greens, 0.31 for red leaf lettuce and 0.26 for buttercrunch lettuce, so purslane carried several times the ALA of any of them.252

If you want the most ALA, pick young leaves. In a Greek field study, ALA made up 54.92% of the fat in leaves picked 29 days after planting, and their omega-6 to omega-3 ratio was 0.207, roughly five omega-3s for every omega-6; by 52 days, the ALA share had dropped to 35.4%.13 In practical terms, 300 to 400 mg of ALA covers about 19% to 25% of the daily adequate intake if you're a man (1.6 grams) and 27% to 36% if you're a woman (1.1 grams).2426

The same leaves carry glutathione, 11.90 to 14.81 mg per 100 grams in a 1992 analysis, along with vitamin C, beta-carotene and vitamin E, in amounts that vary with how the plant is grown.2413 Purslane also carries betalain pigments, the family of red and yellow compounds that colors beets.27 In aging mice, betacyanins extracted from purslane eased memory problems more than vitamin C did in the same study, and raised the antioxidant enzymes SOD, catalase and glutathione peroxidase.28

How purslane works in your body

Inflammation is meant to switch on, do its job and switch off, and what's changed is the fat on our plates. People historically ate omega-3 and omega-6 fats at close to a 1:1 ratio, or at most about four omega-6s for every omega-3, while the average American today eats closer to 17 omega-6s for every omega-3, and some studies put it at 25, largely from processed foods and seed oils.12 A healthy body taps the gas briefly and then hits the brakes, but with that much omega-6 and so little omega-3, inflammation keeps running hot.12 Purslane works on that imbalance from the food side, adding omega-3 to your plate in a green whose own fat leans heavily toward omega-3.13

ALA is an essential fat, meaning your body can't make it, but your body can turn some of the ALA you eat into the longer omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA. In a tracer study of young women, about 21% of a dose of ALA became EPA, 6% became DPA and 9% became DHA,29 while in young men, EPA and DPA rose but DHA didn't.30 How well you convert depends partly on your genes. Heal Your Cells, the book I wrote with Dr. Will Cole, explains that variants in the FADS genes can affect how efficiently you convert plant omega-3s into EPA and DHA, and epigenetic testing is something we use regularly in our clinics.31 I did a genetic panel on myself, and I have a genetic variant where I don't convert omega-3s well, so fish and fish oil are where I get my EPA and DHA.32

So think of purslane as one omega-3 food among several, and our guide to omega-3 foods lays out the full list. On my show I've pointed out that walnuts, flax and chia bring plant-based omega-3s plus magnesium, vitamin E, fiber and polyphenols,33 and for EPA and DHA themselves, wild salmon and sardines rank first among the foods in my Anti-Inflammatory Reset, as the richest food source of the omega-3s that resolve inflammation.8

You can also measure where you stand with the Omega-3 Index, the share of EPA and DHA in your red blood cell membranes. It's one of the 25 root-cause markers in my bloodwork markers guide, and the root causes it lists read like a description of the modern plate: too little wild fatty fish, too much omega-6 from seed oils and, for some people, genes that convert plant omega-3s poorly.34

Purslane benefits

The benefits below start where the trials are strongest, with your blood fats, and then move to blood sugar, blood pressure, inflammation, the liver, the joints and digestion.

More ways purslane supports your health

Mouth sores. Purslane helped canker sores come back less often and heal faster: in a placebo-controlled trial of 50 adults with recurring canker sores, a purslane extract capsule (235 mg twice a day) for 3 months stretched the time between outbreaks to 33.12 days, against 17.88 on placebo, and shortened healing time, though the number of sores didn't change.49 In a placebo-controlled trial of 37 adults with oral lichen planus, an inflammatory condition of the mouth lining, about 83% improved partly or fully on a purslane leaf extract over 3 months, against 17% (partly) on placebo.50

Breathing. Ayurveda used purslane for the lungs and coughs, and old Iranian medical books recommend it for breathing problems.2051 In a single-dose study of adults with asthma, a boiled purslane extract opened the airways for about 2 hours, as much at its peak as oral theophylline, an asthma medicine taken by mouth; an inhaled salbutamol puff opened them further.51

Heavy periods. Chinese medicine credits purslane with stanching bleeding,14 and in a placebo-controlled trial of 95 women with heavy periods, everyone took the pain reliever mefenamic acid. Those who also took purslane seed capsules on the first three days of two cycles saw their menstrual blood-loss score fall from 314.54 to 169.25, against 319.74 to 203.83 on the drug with a placebo, according to a 2026 review of the trial; the trial's authors concluded that purslane appears to boost the drug's effect.5253

Purslane in Chinese, Ayurvedic and Mediterranean medicine

Long before anyone measured its omega-3s, the great healing traditions treated purslane as a cooling, cleansing food, and the trials in the cards above have been testing some of the same uses they described, from inflammation to the gut.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine, purslane is ma chi xian, and Chinese tradition calls it the "vegetable for long life." It's described as "cold in nature and sour in taste" and is used "to cool the blood, stanch bleeding, clear heat, and resolve toxins," especially for fever, dysentery, diarrhea, boils and eczema.14 The dried herb is listed in the Chinese Pharmacopoeia at 9 to 15 grams, according to a 2015 review.14 The profile below sums it up in Chinese medicine's own terms.149

I see excess heat in the body as something that often corresponds to inflammation, an underlying driver of just about every chronic health condition you can think of, and green leafy vegetables and yogurt are both on my list of cooling foods.54 Purslane is a textbook cooling green, and the trial in the inflammation card above measured the same idea in modern terms.

The sour taste comes from how purslane handles heat: in hot, dry weather, it switches to a night-time way of capturing carbon dioxide and stores it as malic acid, which turns back into sugar during the day, so leaves picked early in the morning taste the most tart.9 That sour note is worth having on your plate:

In Ayurvedic medicine, purslane is loni or lonna. It's named in the Charaka Samhita, one of Ayurveda's founding texts, and used in India for the lungs, liver, kidneys and bladder, for a burning sensation in the bowel and for coughs,20 and it's indexed in the Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India.55 Persian medicine knows it as khorfeh, Unani medicine prizes its seeds as tukhme khurfa, and Avicenna and Rhazes both wrote about it.2055 In Iran, its roots, leaves and seeds have been used for diabetes,20 and most of the modern seed trials on this page were run there.

Around the Mediterranean, purslane is a salad and soup green.14 On Crete it's glistrida, one of the wild greens, or chorta, of the island's traditional Mediterranean diet, eaten in mixed salads.19

How to eat purslane (plus recipes)

Purslane is a vegetable first, and its leaves, stems, flower buds and seeds are all edible. Raw, it's tart, slightly salty and crunchy.91 Cooked briefly, it stays bright and crisp; cooked longer, it turns mucilaginous and thickens a soup or stew.9 Pick young tips for salads, since young leaves carry the most omega-3,13 and wash it well.

Verdolagas: how Mexican kitchens cook purslane

Verdolagas is the Spanish name for purslane, and in Mexico it's a market green, stewed in green sauce and added to salads and enchiladas.10 For a simple version at home, cook verdolagas in salsa verde and serve them with eggs, black beans or chicken.

How much purslane should you eat?

Eat purslane as an everyday green and rotate it with your other greens through the week. If you're prone to stones, the safety section below explains why that rotation matters.

How to identify purslane and tell it from spurge

Purslane is easy to find through the summer in garden beds, lawns, fields and sidewalk cracks, and it's easy to recognize once you know its signs: smooth, fleshy, often reddish stems lying in a mat, fleshy oval leaves clustered at the stem joints, small yellow flowers and clear sap.91 Spotted spurge grows in the same places and the same flat mats, so check every plant you pick.11

Sources: University of Wisconsin, Mississippi State and North Carolina State Extension; UC IPM.911156

The snap test tells purslane from spurge: break off a small piece of stem, and if milky white sap seeps out, it's spurge; purslane's sap is clear.1 Horse purslane, a different plant found across the southern U.S., has hairy, maroon-purple stems and pink flowers.57

Where to pick purslane

Purslane pulls metals out of contaminated soil so well that researchers study it for cleaning up polluted ground,58 so pick it from your own garden or from ground you know, away from roads, industrial lots and any lawn treated with weed killers such as glyphosate. I encourage people to plant a garden at home, because food you grow in your own yard and garden, especially in good soil, is going to be more nutrient-dense.59 Some farmers markets and specialty stores sell it too.9

How to grow purslane

Purslane grows easily from seed and is ready to harvest 6 to 8 weeks after sowing. Sow it in fertile, well-drained soil, thin the plants to 4 to 6 inches apart and water regularly, since moisture-stressed leaves don't taste as good. Harvest the whole plant, or cut the stems back to within 2 inches of the crown and it will regrow for most of the summer.9 Broken stems root at the joints, which is how one plant becomes a patch.60

Purslane side effects and how to enjoy it safely

Purslane is an everyday food for most people, and oxalate is the main thing to know about. As I've written, oxalates aren't harmful in small amounts, but overdoing high-oxalate foods, especially with poor gut health, can deplete minerals and contribute to kidney stones in people who are prone to them.31

Kidney stones and oxalate. Purslane is a high-oxalate green, with most of it in the leaves: one analysis measured 2,345 mg of total oxalate per 100 grams of fresh leaves.61 If you've been put on a strict low-oxalate diet, count purslane toward your daily limit. If you've had calcium-oxalate stones, you can still enjoy it this way:

• Rotate it with lower-oxalate greens rather than eating it every day, and favor the stems and buds, which carry far less oxalate than the leaves (558 and 909 mg per 100 grams).61
• Boil and drain it, which cut total oxalate by 27%, or pickle it, which cut it by 16% in the same analysis and by more over a 21-day pickle in a second study.6162
• Eat it with yogurt: mixing purslane leaves with yogurt cut the soluble share of their oxalate from 53.0% to 10.7%, and goat or sheep yogurt, or cultured A2 cow's yogurt if you tolerate it, works well.63
• Eat calcium-rich food with the meal and drink plenty of water.64

Three published cases of acute kidney injury followed very large purslane meals, two of them about 0.75 and 1 kilogram (roughly 1½ to 2 pounds) eaten in one or two sittings, and kidney function improved in all three with treatment.6566 Purslane is also rich in potassium, 494 mg per 100 grams raw, so if you've been told to limit potassium, count it toward your daily total.23

Spurge, the toxic look-alike. Spurge is toxic if eaten: it can blister the lips and mouth and cause vomiting and diarrhea, and its milky sap can irritate skin and damage the eyes.111 Use the snap test and leaf check in the identification section every time, and leave any plant that doesn't pass.

Pregnancy and breastfeeding. Purslane in food amounts hasn't been linked to harm, but the seed powder and extracts used in trials haven't been studied in pregnancy or breastfeeding, so stick with the vegetable then.

Interaction check: Low. No interactions are documented for purslane as food. Seed powder and extracts lowered fasting blood sugar and systolic pressure in trials run alongside diabetes medicines,3844 so if you add those forms to a blood-sugar or blood-pressure medicine, check your readings more often and let your doctor know, since a dose may need adjusting.

Stomach upset. In the seed-in-yogurt trial in which each of 48 people tried both, 12 reported stomach or gut complaints on 10 grams of ground seed a day, so if you try the seed, start with less.38

The bottom line

Purslane: frequently asked questions

References

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3. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central: Purslane, cooked, boiled, drained, without salt. FDC ID 169275 (SR Legacy, NDB 11428). Accessed October 22, 2026.
4. Jafari N, Bahreini N, Dehghani A, Lak Y, Mirmohammadali SN, Samavat S, et al. The effects of purslane consumption on lipid profile and C-reactive protein: A systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis. Food Sci Nutr. 2023;11(11):6728-6748. doi:10.1002/fsn3.3555
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8. Axe J. The Anti-Inflammatory Reset. DrAxe.com protocol. 2026 (p. 22, "Top 10 anti-inflammatory foods: the foods that cool inflammation": wild salmon and sardines first, "the richest food source of the omega-3s that resolve inflammation"; leafy greens 2+ cups daily; walnuts and flax for plant omega-3s).
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22. The Holy Bible, King James Version. Project Gutenberg eBook #10. Genesis 1:29, quoted from this text.
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29. Burdge GC, Wootton SA. Conversion of alpha-linolenic acid to eicosapentaenoic, docosapentaenoic and docosahexaenoic acids in young women. Br J Nutr. 2002;88(4):411-20. doi:10.1079/BJN2002689
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31. Axe J, Cole W. Heal Your Cells. Avery; 2026. ISBN 9798217181353 (p. 81, oxalates; p. 88, FADS gene variants and plant omega-3 conversion; p. 89, epigenetic testing in their clinics).
32. Axe J, Redd J. What Would You Do? 9 Real Health Cases Solved | Dr. Josh Redd. The Dr. Josh Axe Show. 2026 (Dr. Axe on his genetic panel and omega-3 conversion at 24:23; YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_tmdW5nQ0s&t=1463s).
33. Axe J. How to Reduce Chronic Inflammation Naturally. The Dr. Josh Axe Show. 2026 (Dr. Axe, solo episode: walnuts, flax and chia bring plant-based omega-3s at 20:50; YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFeUM50IzBI&t=1250s).
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42. El-Sayed MI. Effects of Portulaca oleracea L. seeds in treatment of type-2 diabetes mellitus patients as adjunctive and alternative therapy. J Ethnopharmacol. 2011;137(1):643-51. doi:10.1016/j.jep.2011.06.020
43. Axe J. The High Blood Pressure Protocol. DrAxe.com protocol. 2026 (p. 15, "13 Blood-Pressure Foods · Ranked": leafy greens ranked first for nitrate, magnesium and potassium).
44. Wainstein J, Landau Z, Bar Dayan Y, Jakubowicz D, Grothe T, Perrinjaquet-Moccetti T, et al. Purslane Extract and Glucose Homeostasis in Adults with Type 2 Diabetes: A Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial of Efficacy and Safety. J Med Food. 2016;19(2):133-40. doi:10.1089/jmf.2015.0090
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Dr. Josh Axe, DC, DNM, CNS

Doctor of Natural Medicine · Founder, DrAxe.com

Dr. Axe is a certified doctor of natural medicine, clinical nutritionist, and multiple New York Times bestselling author. He has spent 20+ years in clinical practice helping people heal at the root cause and founded one of the most-visited natural-health platforms in the world.

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