There are more than a lifetime's worth of new wild foods to try, and once you get the foraging bug, it can be hard not to rush into new things. But there's a process to follow to significantly reduce your odds of making a mistake and getting sick. In this article, we will talk about that process and my approach to eating new wild foods.
Confidence & Comfort
There's a golden rule for foraging:
Only eat wild food once you're 100% confident in your identification of that food.
If you stick to this rule, you will never make a mistake and eat the wrong species, but I prefer to take the rule one step further.
Only eat wild food once you're 100% confident in your identification and comfortable with trying something new.
Following those rules, I've avoided getting sick from eating new wild foods for over 25 years. I might be 100% confident identifying a species, but I might not feel comfortable eating that species yet. That lack of comfort could come from reports of some people having adverse reactions to the species, or a lack of solid information about edibility for more obscure species, or maybe I'm just not feeling it yet. That's okay. Skipping a new species is okay, and you shouldn't feel bad about it. Every time you interact with that species, you gain more confidence, and maybe, eventually, you'll feel comfortable enough to eat it.
Allergies & Sensitivities
No matter how religiously you follow the golden rule, you can't prevent allergies or individual sensitivities to wild foods. Unfortunately, the only way to truly learn about them is to experience them. Luckily for most people, these reactions are rare, and there are some ways to reduce the chances of having a bad experience.
Avoid eating species that are closely related to known food allergies. At the very least, species from the same genus should be avoided. Family-wide food allergies are pretty rare, but caution is better than a severe histamine reaction. For example, if you're severely allergic to mangos (Mangifera) or cashews (Anacardium), you should probably skip sumac (Rhus). These plants are all in the Anacardiaceae family, which also includes Toxicodendron, the genus of poison ivy, poison oak, and poison sumac.
Note: Poison sumac (Toxicodendron vernix) is very different from the edible sumac species in Rhus but is confusingly named the same because it has similar-looking leaves.
Start with a small amount and wait 24 to 48 hours. Limiting your portion to a small amount can reduce the severity of an adverse reaction if you have one. When trying a species for the first time, I eat at most one or two ounces.
Only try one new species at a time. If you react to eating a new wild food, you want to know what caused it, so avoid mixing multiple new species. It would suck to have to avoid all the species you ate or to get sick again to find out which one was the culprit.
Clean and cook well. Food growing in the wild can come in contact with contaminants you wouldn't want to eat. I feel more comfortable eating wild food fresh from nature than eating produce right from the grocery store, but it's best to clean both to reduce the chances of bacterial contamination. Wild foods, especially mushrooms, can sometimes be nibbled on by critters or even have animal waste on or near them. Wiping or rinsing and then cooking them well will prevent any issues from those possible exposures. As a bonus, cleaning mushrooms also helps remove sand or grit and makes for a more pleasant eating experience. Cooking mushrooms well also helps our bodies break down the chitin-containing cells. Consider a quick boil for new mushrooms or plants before cooking them further. This method has gained a lot of popularity in recent years. So much so that many people always cook mushrooms in water before sauteing them.
Save a portion of the new species in your refrigerator. If you have a reaction from wild food and need medical attention, saving some allows medical professionals to seek expert identification and offer quicker treatment.
Alcohol
It's best practice to avoid alcohol the first time you're trying a new wild food. Some species have compounds that should not be combined with alcohol at all, such as the alcohol ink cap (Coprinopsis atramentaria), which contains coprine. It isn't a recommended edible species anymore, anyway. However, alcohol can also increase the severity of allergic reactions. I have had several people tell me about various alcohol-induced allergic reactions to wild foods and other allergens that, without alcohol, are not an issue for them.
I mentioned that I'd avoided getting sick from eating new wild foods for over 25 years. However, I may have recently experienced a poisoning from a wild food that I've been eating for most of my foraging career because of an alcohol-induced reaction. A couple of years ago, I had some freshly picked hawk's wings (Sarcodon imbricatus) with dinner, which included some recent leftovers from a restaurant and a beer. Early the next morning, I experienced several hours of moderate gastroenteritis. I can't completely rule out a bout of poorly timed food poisoning, but the leftover food was from two nights before, and no one else who consumed it at the restaurant became ill. Additionally, the day before this experience, during a mushrooming class, someone told me that their partner couldn't eat hawk's wings with alcohol. Universe foreshadowing?
Since my experience, I haven't eaten a hawk's wing mushroom. I plan on trying a small amount this year without alcohol to see if it was the combination or if I've developed a sensitivity to them.
My Process for Eating New Wild Foods
Every year, I challenge myself to eat at least one new mushroom species. This challenge keeps me learning new things and forces me to explore new areas in search of my next mushroom meal. This could easily be expanded to plants, and I often eat several new plant species every year, but I'm extra captivated by mushrooms, so I focus on those. Here's my process for becoming confident and comfortable enough to try a new species.
The time it takes to gain confidence in my identification is highly variable, and it will be the same for most foragers. It depends on past experience, region, resources used, and more. I'm lucky to have a large foundation of knowledge to pull from, so I can become comfortable with new species a little more quickly. When I find a plant or mushroom that I want to identify, I go through a few steps:
Take many good, clear photos of the species and make mental or physical notes. Where was it growing? Did it have any unique textures or odors? Are there any other traits that might not show up in a photo?
If it's a mushroom, I pick it and look closely at all its traits. There are no toxic-to-touch mushrooms, so handling and up-close observations are encouraged!
For plants, look closely for signs of small spines, stringers, or compounds that might be an issue when handled. If none of those are present, it's likely safe to gently examine them. Some plants have juice that can cause issues, like carrot family members causing phytophotodermatitis.
While going through these steps, my brain subconsciously looks for patterns it recognizes. Pattern recognition in foraging is worth an entirely separate article, but it's foundational for identifying plants and mushrooms. I pay attention to familiar patterns and jump on any that pops up in my mind. Sometimes, this is enough to get me 90% of the way to confidence. If not, I start digging.
Usually, I use my phone for the initial research. While unreliable for confirming edibility, identification apps can be used to narrow our search. Instead of starting with an entire kingdom of life, these tools can often get to at least a family or even a genus level—a much narrower search!
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I also use online searches to help with identifications. There's some nuance to quickly finding what you're looking for. Try something like, "plant with [notable trait], and [notable trait], in [region]." Or if you drilled down using an ID app, use those search parameters with your region. Scroll through both the image and hyperlink results when searching.
Finally, use books! If you're starting from zero, look for regionally relevant books with dichotomous keys. Often, these will be botanical or mycological books, not foraging books. After confirming your identification, you need to confirm edibility. This process includes searching the index of foraging books and online resources. You can also look for foraging groups or experts to ask.
Once I've confirmed the identification and edibility, I ask myself if I feel comfortable eating the new species. That comfort is based on a few variables, but the main ones are how commonly other foragers eat the species and how familiar it is to me. If it's a more obscure species or in a genus or family with which I only have a little experience, I usually skip it the first time. On the other hand, if it's in a group that I'm very comfortable with, like mustards or chanterelles, I will usually try it right away.
The entire process I just highlighted can take me minutes for familiar species or years for the more obscure ones. I tend to lean more on the side of caution and often skip eating a new species until I have more time to research and become comfortable with it.
Foraging Calendar
I created a Foraging Calendar & Wild Food Database to help keep track of seasons. You can use it to quickly learn new species and confirm their edibility. You can try the demo version to learn more, and join my Patreon to gain full access to the Foraging Calendar and other exclusive perks! Joining is the best way to support all the work I put into my content and website to help you learn about foraging! Thank you for checking it out!
