For the record...!

[Sarge47]

Okay gang, WE wants me to back up everything I claim so my wife finally came through, bless her heart! Here 'tis:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...xtinction.html
>>>THE health of millions could be at risk because medicinal plants used to make traditional remedies, including drugs to combat cancer and malaria, are being overexploited.<<<


http://www.wholife.com/issues/10_6/03_article.html
>>>Dramatic declines in wild plant populations, to a great extent, is the result of commercial harvesting, particularly of root harvesting. The harvesting of the entire root means that the whole plant is being destroyed. It is gone forever. Coneflower (Echinacea spp.) is very near to extinction in this province because its root has been over-harvested. Senega snakeroot (Polygala senega) is on Save Our Species “watch list” because many tonnes of the tiny root (averaging 1–2 grams) are being dug by commercial harvesters every year.<<<

[wareagle69]

ah, sarge, sarge, sarge
me thinks were gonna need an officail sarge vs WE thread, but lets get to the meat and taters of this.
You had made the claim "trust me when it hits the fan evryone will be out looking for wild edibles" to paraphrase your comment (if i was any good at this computer crap i could pull up your exact statement, but you get the gist of it)

Your supposed backing up of your statement is really non-exsistant here, all you are saying is that a couple of plants are being overharvested, a fact i do not dispute. you have not shown any facts that everyone will head to the bush to harvest wild plants, a fact i hypothisize will be the opposite, let me tell ya why.
I talk alot at work about my passion for plants, well not just at work, actaully everywhere, and i have gotten a great many contacts from people that know one single plant and tell me about it and where to find it, its awesome, but heres my point, most folks are scared of plants, have heard that most will hurt them or poison them. In the show "after armagedon" someone actually made the claim that 70 percent of all the plants on earth are poisonous, (i would like him to prove that one) but folks watching that will be put off even more, i contend that most will not run to the bush to eat but will starve to death while sitting in the so called grocery store.
Well thats about it, unless you can pull some more facts out of your magic hat.
i eagerly await this one
WE

[Alaskan Survivalist]

I heard stories during the North Korean Famine that people where perminently scaring the land eating weeds, grass and the bark off trees.

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9704/08/korea.food/

[wareagle69]

that may be true, i can only reference what i know. i talk to allot of people about plants and most are scared to death of them. in my opionion that most would trampple over lots of the plants to get to a berry that they do know, and even if they manage to find an edible plant they most likely will not be able to know which part and when to eat it.
Look, the reason i study plants, or at least one of the reasons, is that i enjoy challenges and plants and mushrooms are a huge challenge and dedication to perfection, the easy plants bore me, i enjoy things like perfecting the aminaita family or the carrot family, the study of plants truely facinates me which i am very greatful for, some have it some don't, guns don't facinate me, to me i just point and shoot, thats it, thats all. but being able to supplement plants with my other food is awesome.
Yes i have heard about spending energy to gather plants, but how many times when out for a hike have you passed by edible plants, so just as you would gather some tinder for a fire as you go, so do the same with edibles, no effert required.
But i still need more proof that the forests will be full of folks taste testing plants at will.
We

[Sarge47]

As I said in another thread, I use the term "trust me" as a figure of speech. I'm not going to argue with you as I believe that a real SHTF scenario would have to happen to prove either of us right. Here where I live there are many folks who get out into the woods. Hunters, farmers, Scouts, etc.. During the great Depression people boiled the soles of their shoes sto make some kind of soup. I firmly believe, especially with shows like M.vs W., that people, around here anyway, will scour the fields, woods, stores, and so on if they get hungry enough. I believe that their is enough evidence from past history to prove that. I don't know about Canada, maybe they think Sasquatch exists up there!

[your_comforting_company]

I finally got a call back from the Cooperative Extension Office lead guy today and met with him. This fellow is well versed in plants, with a university degree.

he looked at me funny when I showed him a plant that neither of us knew the specific name of and told him that I knew it was edible.
"How do you know?"
I showed him the telltale characteristics of the mustard family plants. I explained to him that any plant that had this specific set of characteristics would put it into the brassicacea / cruciferae which are edibles.
Then we continued through my books, for similar plants, and further into his 1200 page book to find out the particular species, and sure enough, HIS book said it was edible.
I then showed him mustard blooms from the garden and the wild "field mustards" that were growing along their fencerow at the office. I made a special point to show him that they all had the same specific characteristic sets. I taught HIM something today.

If people with college education don't know what to look for, what is there to make me think normal, uneducated folk like myself will be any better at foraging food in a forest full of green stuff?

the plant was Cardamine hirsuta. A little off topic, but supportive of my argument in the referenced thread. If this post is out of line, or out of place, feel free to re/move it.

[wareagle69]

of course sasquach exsists, silly rabbit.
So sarge i guess we agree to disagree eh?
i think that while some may have boiled shoes or what have you back in the day, I think that we are now a completley different mindset, back in the 1930s and 40s people had a better connection to the earth, maybe saw their grandparents eat from the feilds, but nowadays i think they will sit and wait for someone to come help them, that is who we have become, of course there are always exceptions to the rule but for the most part, most will die.
I look at some of my european freinds here in canada whose grandparents taught them some plants, but maybe a couple of mushrooms and a few greens and i see folks marvel at how much they know.
We have become a society of fear and i don't see extreme times changing that.

YCC i assume you was using thomas j eppels botany in a day to learn about plant families, dude you are way ahaead of the scale by using that book, gives you great confidence does it not?
Gives me more reason to buy that book.
WE

[Rick]

If I may butt in uninvited. Aren't there really two pieces to this. One is having the knowledge to be able to take advantage of wild edibles. The other is having the mental acceptance of eating weeds. I would imagine that a great majority in urbania not only don't know what to look for but would find eating weeds disgusting. Some would probably chose starving to death before eating weeds. I'm almost that bad with grubs and muscles. Blech!!

[wareagle69]

i agree 10000000000000000000000000000000000000 percent, or so.
I say this all the time but just cuz you can eat it doesn't mean its palatable and if on the road trying to make it taste good will be a challenge, diffucult at home at best of times but a plate of lily tubers will be hard to swallow.
Lets say someone tries to eat stining nettle, how do ya think that will go over when the average joe tries to harvest it, learn a lesson real quick with that.
Also so many skills need to go into this lifestyle, the lady i study with lives on wild edibles year round, how you may ask? well she either dries allot or preserves other ways so she can have nettle soup all year round, so i know first hand it is possible to eat wild year round.
WE

[Rick]

That gal must be like 1 in a zillion. What a marvelous resource you have. When you are around her....be the sponge.

[wareagle69]

is that what 37 zeros is?
lydia is a great resource w/o a doubt. she grew up in poland and then germany during WW2 and learned allot from her mum.
I'll share a little secret as to how i have found so many to learn from, i tell everyone i meet how much i am into wild edibles and more often then not they tell me of someone in their family that knows a few things about edibles or at least where to find a few plants.
what is the old saying "when the student id ready, the teacher will appear."

[Rick]

Not only the Id but the Ego and the Super-ego. Yeah, I know what you mean.

[Sarge47]

of course sasquach exsists, silly rabbit.

MMMMM, BAR-B-QUED BIGFOOT, SOUNDS YUMMY!

So sarge i guess we agree to disagree eh?

I RECKON SO!

i think that while some may have boiled shoes or what have you back in the day, I think that we are now a completley different mindset, back in the 1930s and 40s people had a better connection to the earth, maybe saw their grandparents eat from the feilds, but nowadays i think they will sit and wait for someone to come help them, that is who we have become, of course there are always exceptions to the rule but for the most part, most will die.

I SUSPECT YOU'RE RIGHT WHEN LOOKING AT THE LARGE URBAN AREAS. A FEW YEARS AGO I SAW A VERY LARGE "TOUGH, STREET-LOOKING" PERSON JUMP 4 FOOT IN THE AIR, SCREAM LIKE A GIRL, & COWER IN FEAR WHEN A LARGE GRASSHOPPER JUMPED ONTO THE BUS. hE DIDN'T EVEN SEEM TO KNOW WHAT IT WAS. I CLUBBED IT WITH A NEWSPAPER & i THOUGHT HE WAS GOING TO HAVE TO CHANGE HIS PANTS! MY GRANDMOTHER WAS "DEPRESSION-WISE." SHE COULD MAKE GREAT TASTING DISHES OUT OF PRACTICALLY NOTHING. MAYBE WE OUGHT TO HAVE A THREAD ENTITLED "DEPRESSION RECIPES, WHAT DO YOU THINK?

I look at some of my european freinds here in canada whose grandparents taught them some plants, but maybe a couple of mushrooms and a few greens and i see folks marvel at how much they know.
We have become a society of fear and i don't see extreme times changing that.

WELL, YOU MAY BE RIGHT, MANY OF THE STUDENTS I SEE DAILY WOULD BE TOTALLY LOST WITHOUT THEIR LAP-TOPS, CELL-PHONES, & MP-3 PLAYERS.

[hunter63]

DW always has me save a piece of what ever I try, as far as gathered goodies, to show the rescue squad guys what I have been messing with lately.

[your_comforting_company]

WE, I won the Elpel book in a contest and it is BRILLIANT. If you don't own it, you should really get a copy. It's really helpful in learning family characteristics and it does build conficence. I still remember Thayer's rules though.. If you aren't ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN what the plant is, don't eat it.
I try to get a plant down to the ssp. before eating anything. Some families are all safe to eat, but there are some that have a few poisonous members. Some families only have a few that are marginally edible.
The general public lacks any of this knowledge and pretty much everyone I talk to in the course of a day outright refuses to even consider eating "weeds". Yesterday alone, weeds were denied by 3 people I talked to.
This particular one is a winter perennial. abundant in colder months down here. Elpel's book won't get you down to the species, but will definately help you learn families. This picture is a good example of characteristics that define mustard family plants. ALL are safe to eat but depending on the person's tastes, might not be palatable.
Guests can not see images in the messages. Please register in the forum.

Anyone remotely interested in wild edibles should get this book.

[wareagle69]

well, the thing i like about thayer is that he is quick to answer e-mails, and he is coming out with a new 500+ page book, which i beleive is available in april 2010, but epple is on my list of must haves.

[rwc1969]

I'll have to keep an eye out for both. I know that once I was able to get the shrooms down to family it was much easier getting them to sp. after that.

[DOGMAN]

Interesting thread here. Glad to see mention of Thomas J Epple. He lives in my area, what a great resource he is. I've met him briefly a couple of times, he has a store "Granny's County Store" that is the post office and general store for his community, at first it looks like your average rural area general store, but then you start looking around and there are Mora knives for sale, pre made "bow drill" fire starting kits, and a full library of self-sufficiency books. I like to go there once a year just to browse.

Next point. Will the masses of todays people take to the wilds and start eating wild plants when the poop flys? I'd say No. Most people in our culture today are too scared of nature to believe that they could actually be helped by something growing wild.

This conversation reminds me of a lecture I heard many years ago by Joseph Campbell. He was talking about Shamanism, Schizophrenia, Hallucingenic Mushrooms, LSD and Primitive Cultures vs Modern Cultures.

Campbell believed that LSD was a modern day "tool" to connect to the spiritual world, that came about so people of the current age could have the same mystical experiences as primitive cultures who ate mushrooms and peyote.

He figured that during this age of "Better living through Chemistry" nobody would believe spiritual insight could be gained from eating a mushroom that grew out of cow poop-nor, would they try it to find out...but, if the same experience could be had by eating something that came from a labratory then people would eat it in masses and pay money for it! But, go out on there own and find it for free- no way, thats far too dangerous. We are more likely to trust some unknown chemist, then we are to trust ourselves to feed our body or mind.

[Rick]

That's a valid point, Jason. Those same folks would never use their credit card over the internet but think nothing of handing it over at a restaurant so the waitress can take it into the back room to run up the charge. Far less folks are apt to see the card on the internet than in that back room.

[your_comforting_company]

sorry, it's driving me NUTS.
The man deserves at least the respect of spelling his name correctly.
Thomas J. Elpel

I have that much respect for him. Thank you very much.
If you go into the library and look for "Eppel" you will find NOTHING.