Foraging 101: Foraging Safety
Note: if you've followed along for a while, you'll have noticed that I generally abhor telling other people what to do. So take this as a suggestion that can save your life. This post is brought to you by the letter "I" for identification. Know your identification apps and their shortcomings, and, for the love of all of the gods, don't blindly trust AI.
If you are going to forage AT ALL, there is one rule that you absolutely cannot forget: YOU ARE THE PERSON RESPONSIBLE FOR WHAT YOU EAT OR PUT ON YOUR BODY.
Not the books, not the websites you visit, not an AI identification app - YOU. And yes, I do think that means double-checking and triple-checking your work from completely different sources.
This is a really big deal because eating the wrong thing can make you really sick or kill you. I'm not kidding. (You should already know this but...)
And it's not just inherently poisonous foods that can make you sick - a lot of plants uptake and accumulate heavy metals and other toxins from the soil. That means eating foods from the wrong area can make you very, very sick even if the food itself wasn't poison.
So, in order to safely wild harvest, you need to not only get a proper plant identification but also to know where you are harvesting from. Is it close to a major roadway? Is it downhill from a cemetery? Is it near a polluted waterway? Is it close to any major industry that may have dumped or leached chemicals into the environment? Does somebody nearby spray with dangerous pesticides?
If the answer is "yes" to any of these questions, skip eating it. You can still harvest it for other craft purposes, of course.
I m aware that for some of you who live in unlucky areas means you might not be able to wild harvest (to eat) at all. That sucks and I'm sorry, but trust me, ifs for your best good. It's vitally important. Wild harvesting can be fun and incredibly rewarding, but it is not worth your health or your life.
Sidenote: if you have harvested safe-to-eat and not safe-to-eat botanicals, make sure that you have a system for keeping track of which is which. What I do is keep my safe to eat stuff in my kitchen and my not safe to eat stuff in my office.
