Neko

Philosophy

Safety

The organisation of this document is by my personal preferred order to teach beginning foragers.
The safest, most edible, easiest to spot plants are generally first. The lethally poisonous plants immediately follow them. In my experience, beginners usually get into the most trouble on the *slightly* obscure poisons.
Everyone responsible avoids hemlock until they are confident, but what about unripe Pawpaw? What about overgrown Giant Puffball? Dandelions, too close to a major road?
All of these plants are safe to eat in some contexts and some seasons. The context makes the poison. There are contexts in which it is safe to eat Amanita Muscaria (Fly Agaric) but those situations occur rarely enough that it isn't worth counting as an edible.
Especially if you are an American, it might be difficult for you to learn that all food can be dangerous. American food outsources the danger in sanitized packaging.

But honestly, isn't that half the fun of foraging? Your food is alive and well, and thriving in an occasionally hostile world.
It invites you to participate in this exuberance.

Don't touch it if you can't name it.
Don't eat it if you can't name it, its seasons of edibility, every single one of its lookalikes, and which part of the plant is safe, and in what preparation.
Morels are only safe when cooked! Pokeweed is only safe if you eat just the carefully leeched leaves in three changes of water!

A note for the reader: I am not a professional forager. I make no claims anywhere on this website to accuracy.
I have foraged for years - but only in Ohio - and the foods that are safe in Ohio may not be safe somewhere else in the world.
You may know a plant by another name. You may live in a place with heavy metals in the soil.
Go to a library or Libgen, and find a foraging text in your locale if you want specifics. Disclaimer over. Happy Hunting!

Credits and More

Eat the Weeds
Mushroom Index
Patterns in Plants
Plant Families
Wild Edible Directory
The State of the World's Plants and Fungi (Kew Research)
Ecological Terms
Midwest Region Indigenous Wild Plant List
Trees of Ohio Field Guide

Quotes

Even a wounded world is feeding us. Even a wounded world holds us, giving us moments of wonder and joy. I choose joy over despair. Not because I have my head in the sand, but because joy is what the earth gives me daily and I must return the gift. - Braiding Sweetgrass

We need acts of restoration, not only for polluted waters and degraded lands, but also for our relationship to the world. We need to restore honor to the way we live, so that when we walk through the world we don’t have to avert our eyes with shame, so that we can hold our heads up high and receive the respectful acknowledgment of the rest of the earth’s beings.

Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart.

Never take the first plant you find, as it might be the last—and you want that first one to speak well of you to the others of her kind.

“The last word in ignorance is the man who says of an animal or plant: 'What good is it?” ― Aldo Leopold

“Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how. To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet; one need only own a shovel. By virtue of this curious loophole in the rules, any clodhopper may say: Let there be a tree - and there will be one.” ― Aldo Leopold

The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land... In short, a land ethic changes the role of Homo sapiens from conqueror of the land-community to plain member and citizen of it. It implies respect for his fellow-members, and also respect for the community as such.” ― Aldo Leopold

“Conservation is getting nowhere because it is incompatible with our Abrahamic concept of land. We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.” ― Aldo Leopold

Before eating, always take time to thank your food. -Arapaho saying

Shall I not have intelligence with the earth? Am I not partly leaves and vegetable mold myself. Henry David Thoreau

“Thick boughs of white oak shaded the ground, sheltering riches of sage, red clover, sometimes mushrooms. Harriet breathed in the scents of the fecund earth as she crouched beside a patch of nettles to begin her morning's work. It was a good day for her labors. She found a lovely bit of mugwort beside the nettles, and deeper in the woods she spotted burdock, which could be elusive. There was amaranth, too, the herb the shepherds called pigweed.” ― Louisa Morgan, The Age of Witches

Ralph Waldo Emerson: “And what is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.”