![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Feb. 25th, 2011 12:13 am
Here's an article on eating insects - old news, really.
And another one about foraging in general. The comment to this second article is astounding:
All three suggestions can result in death, you know. There are more than 1,000 edible insects, but also many that are poisonous.
Many wild mushrooms are also poisonous. As are many weeds!
Also you're confusing edible plants with the commonly accepted definition of weeds.
Yes, all three suggestions (especially the mushrooms - please educate yourself before going mushroom hunting!) can lead to death if you don't know what you're doing. That's true of a lot of things. Going into the pool can lead to death if you don't know how to swim. Going for a drive can lead to death if you don't know how to, well, drive. Going hiking can lead to death in oh so many ways, particularly if you don't know how to mark or follow a trail and also don't know how to identify edible plants. If you don't know how to identify edible plants (or more accurate, how to recognize poisonous ones) you can even die in the supermarket. There have on occasion been deadly mushrooms accidentally sold as safe ones, and my mother still talks about the time she went to the store and found them selling rhubarb "on a bed of its own leaves".
The solution isn't, I think, to be ignorant. It's to learn! Get a book, talk to people, learn how to identify edible plants and insects (and mushrooms if you must, those mycologists are really fun guys if you get to know them, but mushrooms are just evil), and you'll be safer! (And there's so much power in just knowing things. I know very little about things like this, growing up and living in a city as I do, and yet I am thrilled whenever I can point to a plant and confidently say "I know that plant, I can eat it". This is why the nieces love porcelain berry - not because it tastes good, but because they know they can eat it!)
Or you can make snide comments when people attempt to broaden their minds. Because, you know, people on the internet are so stupid that when you tell them that some wild plants are edible, they go out and eat every pretty red berry they can find.
As far as the "common definition of weed", would that be, as Merriam-Webster has it (and I do too, tell the truth) a plant that is not valued where it is growing and is usually of vigorous growth; especially : one that tends to overgrow or choke out more desirable plants? Because knotweed and chickweed and pokeweed (all three of which even have weed in their names) would definitely apply almost anywhere. Maybe not in the wild (if they're non-invasive, anyway), but most anywhere else. Neighbors of mine had a great patch of purslane growing at the edge of their fence and next to the sidewalk, and one day they just hacked it all away and left it lying in the sun. Didn't want it, thought it was a weed, and to them I guess it was.
And another one about foraging in general. The comment to this second article is astounding:
All three suggestions can result in death, you know. There are more than 1,000 edible insects, but also many that are poisonous.
Many wild mushrooms are also poisonous. As are many weeds!
Also you're confusing edible plants with the commonly accepted definition of weeds.
Yes, all three suggestions (especially the mushrooms - please educate yourself before going mushroom hunting!) can lead to death if you don't know what you're doing. That's true of a lot of things. Going into the pool can lead to death if you don't know how to swim. Going for a drive can lead to death if you don't know how to, well, drive. Going hiking can lead to death in oh so many ways, particularly if you don't know how to mark or follow a trail and also don't know how to identify edible plants. If you don't know how to identify edible plants (or more accurate, how to recognize poisonous ones) you can even die in the supermarket. There have on occasion been deadly mushrooms accidentally sold as safe ones, and my mother still talks about the time she went to the store and found them selling rhubarb "on a bed of its own leaves".
The solution isn't, I think, to be ignorant. It's to learn! Get a book, talk to people, learn how to identify edible plants and insects (and mushrooms if you must, those mycologists are really fun guys if you get to know them, but mushrooms are just evil), and you'll be safer! (And there's so much power in just knowing things. I know very little about things like this, growing up and living in a city as I do, and yet I am thrilled whenever I can point to a plant and confidently say "I know that plant, I can eat it". This is why the nieces love porcelain berry - not because it tastes good, but because they know they can eat it!)
Or you can make snide comments when people attempt to broaden their minds. Because, you know, people on the internet are so stupid that when you tell them that some wild plants are edible, they go out and eat every pretty red berry they can find.
As far as the "common definition of weed", would that be, as Merriam-Webster has it (and I do too, tell the truth) a plant that is not valued where it is growing and is usually of vigorous growth; especially : one that tends to overgrow or choke out more desirable plants? Because knotweed and chickweed and pokeweed (all three of which even have weed in their names) would definitely apply almost anywhere. Maybe not in the wild (if they're non-invasive, anyway), but most anywhere else. Neighbors of mine had a great patch of purslane growing at the edge of their fence and next to the sidewalk, and one day they just hacked it all away and left it lying in the sun. Didn't want it, thought it was a weed, and to them I guess it was.
