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How to Determine If A Plant Is Edible by John J Marshall
Rated "G" by the Author.
One question that often enters my mind when eating any herb, spice, fruit or vegetable is, “How did someone decide THIS would be a good thing to eat?”
I don’t claim to be a fanatical foodie, though I love to cook and eat. But I am fairly serious about food, particularly native plants. My impressive credentials include:
One question that often enters my mind when eating any herb, spice, fruit or vegetable is, “How did someone decide THIS would be a good thing to eat?” Was it tested on "Mikey" first?
Kirsten Rechnitz, Head Instructor at Boulder Outdoor Survival School (Utah) suggests the following test for edibility if you’re in a survival situation where you have to subsist on mice and a few greens.
“The first thing you want to do is take a tiny bit of it and rub it on the inside of your wrist. And then you want to wait a number of hours to see if you have a reaction. If you don’t have a reaction…take the tiniest of bites, put it on your tongue, leave it there for a few seconds and then spit it out, and then rinse with some water. See what happens after a few hours, if you have anything going on. If you don’t, then maybe you want to take a tiny piece, chew on it, actually swallow it, take it down with some water. If you don’t have a reaction within a few hours, go for a small but larger gathering of that plant. Have that, then wait a full day and see what your system actually does. Anything like diarrhea, …itchy throat, ...stomach ache. Maybe that food isn’t actually poisonous, but it’s new to your body and if it’s causing you harm, you probably shouldn’t be eating it.”
That's one way it's done; courage born of starvation. Sylvester Stallone once remarked, “When I was a kid, my mother used to feed me mashed-potato sandwiches, Brussels sprout sandwiches; my brain cells were starving from lack of food. I'll eat anything. I'll eat dirt.”
Or, determining whether something is edible or even delicious can be born of an adventurous spirit.
There isn't anything I don't eat, although I'm not too keen on creepy crawly things. Other than that, I'm quite adventurous.- Cherie Lunghi (Actress)
From your reading list, I'll take that you are an expert. My uncle was fond of Herter's Wild Cook Book, primarily for its humor. I learned that you could make any gamy meat palatable by wrapping it in bacon and I proved that with a bunch of old tough pigeons that I shot. Getting back to the humor, my uncle was most happy with the instructions: "Go out into the woods and take 40 wild leeks [leaks]."
I have been watching people starve to near-death the reality show Naked and Afraid and others, like Alone. I think the method described above might work if you had a lot of time before you were going to die of starvation. Otherwise, I would highly recommend one of those books that would tell you what kind of plants (and other things like bugs) are edible before you stick your neck out and try your survival skills with all kinds of late-model tools like fire starters, etc.
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I have been watching people starve to near-death the reality show Naked and Afraid and others, like Alone. I think the method described above might work if you had a lot of time before you were going to die of starvation. Otherwise, I would highly recommend one of those books that would tell you what kind of plants (and other things like bugs) are edible before you stick your neck out and try your survival skills with all kinds of late-model tools like fire starters, etc.
Ron