Seems your countrymen are trying to eat them to eradication:

Dinner, where is thy sting? By Gideon Long

Fri Jun 17,10:59 AM ET


LONDON (Reuters) - A handful of hardy souls will descend on a quiet
English village this weekend to stuff their mouths full of stinging
nettles in a bizarre competition which started as an argument in a
pub.

Combatants will gather at The Bottle Inn in Marshwood, southwest
England, Saturday night to take part in the 9th annual World Nettle
Eating Championship.

It is a mouth-watering prospect.

Competitors must pluck and eat as many leaves as they can from the
feathery, stinging plants in the space of one hour. Their achievement
is measured in feet and inches -- the combined length of the bare
stems they discard.

"You have to adopt the correct technique to stand any chance of
winning," said Shane Pym, landlord of the Bottle Inn.
www.thebottleinn.co.uk.

"The art is to fold the top of the leaf inwards, get it past the lips,
crunch it and then get it down the neck. You can't let your mouth get
dry or you will get stung."

The championship has a short but colorful history.

It started in 1986 as a heated argument in the pub between two farmers
who both claimed that the nettles at the back of their silage pits
were the longest.

The landlady of the Bottle Inn intervened and declared an competition
to resolve the dispute. Other farmers were also invited to take
part.

Three years later, local man Alex Williams threw down a gauntlet to
his rivals in the shape of a nettle measuring 15 feet 6 inches. If
anyone could produce a longer one, he boasted, he would eat it.

For the next eight years, Williams was forced -- almost literally --
to eat his words. Each year, someone would step forward with a longer
nettle and, each year, Williams would dutifully chomp his way though
it.

In 1997, the event evolved in to a straight fight to eat the most
nettles, a format which has endured until now.

The rules are strict.

Competitors cannot wear gloves and must eat the leaves of ordinary
"Urtica Dioica" stinging nettles supplied by the pub. Beer is allowed
but mouth-numbing drugs are strictly forbidden.

Around 40 entrants are expected to take part this year and while most
of them are local farmers from rural Dorset, a few are coming from
Ireland and Belgium to take part.

Last year's winner ate 42 feet's worth of nettle leaves while the
world record is an impressive 74 feet.

"We've never had any serious injuries but we do have ambulance men
standing by, just in case," Pym said.

"It can sometimes get a little bit contentious."




I tend to just ignore the minor brushes. The irritation is made no
better by scratching. I've heard mud helps, not tried that yet.


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