The ten commandments of foraging

By Kevan Palmer on 31st December, 2012, filed in Food, Foraging

Collecting food from natures supermarket is a great fun and a wonderful way to discover new and exciting flavours for free and on your door step. However, as has been highlighted by several recent events, if you aren’t very careful about what you collect you can end up seriously ill or in the worst cases even die from the effects of certain plant toxins. Kevan Palmer of Woodland Ways explains the simple rules for safe, and responsible foraging…

• Don’t eat any plant or fungi unless you have made a 100% positive identification. Try to match a least three points of identification as many poisonous plants look very similar to other perfectly edible ones. There is no substitute for experience so if you are not sure try to get someone who is more familiar with wild food to help you identify it. If in any doubt don’t take the chance
• Eat only small amounts of any new plant to test your tolerance – some plants may not necessarily be poisonous but may still disagree with you
• Forage from areas which haven’t been sprayed with chemicals and are not close to well used walkways
• Do not forage alongside busy roads
• Do not trespass to obtain plants
• Observe local bylaws if picking plants is prohibited
• Do not uproot a plant without the land owners permission – in fact, unless you are using the root, it is always best to try and leave the plant in a position whereby it can still regenerate.
• Only take what you need
• If a plant is rare or even locally rare try not to use it
• Do not strip all the leaves,flowers or fruit from a plant or area leave some for others and the wildlife

Kevan Palmer is Senior Instructor at Woodland Ways on of the largest providers of bushcraft & survival courses in the UK.