Here we go again!
This post is also long, but not as long as the one on acorns, ready!
EDIBILITY OF PLANTS
Plants are valuable sources of food because they are widely available,
easily procured, and, in the proper combinations, can meet all your
nutritional needs.
WARNING
The critical factor in using plants for food is to avoid accidental
poisoning. Eat only those plants you can positively identify and you
know are safe to eat.
Absolutely identify plants before using them as food. Poison hemlock
has killed people who mistook it for its relatives, wild carrots and
wild parsnips.
At times you may find yourself in a situation for which you could not
plan. In this instance you may not have had the chance to learn the
plant life of the region in which you must survive. In this case you
can use the Universal Edibility Test to determine which plants you can
eat and those to avoid.
It is important to be able to recognize both cultivated and wild
edible plants in a survival situation. Most of the information in this
chapter is directed towards identifying wild plants because
information relating to cultivated plants is more readily available.
Remember the following when collecting wild plants for food:
* Plants growing near homes and occupied buildings or along
roadsides may have been sprayed with pesticides. Wash them thoroughly.
In more highly developed countries with many automobiles, avoid
roadside plants, if possible, due to contamination from exhaust
emissions.
* Plants growing in contaminated water or in water containing
Giardia lamblia and other parasites are contaminated themselves. Boil
or disinfect them.
* Some plants develop extremely dangerous fungal toxins. To lessen
the chance of accidental poisoning, do not eat any fruit that is
starting to spoil or showing signs of mildew or fungus.
* Plants of the same species may differ in their toxic or subtoxic
compounds content because of genetic or environmental factors. One
example of this is the foliage of the common chokecherry. Some
chokecherry plants have high concentrations of deadly cyanide
compounds while others have low concentrations or none. Horses have
died from eating wilted wild cherry leaves. Avoid any weed, leaves, or
seeds with an almondlike scent, a characteristic of the cyanide
compounds.
* Some people are more susceptible to gastric distress (from
plants) than others. If you are sensitive in this way, avoid unknown
wild plants. If you are extremely sensitive to poison ivy, avoid
products from this family, including any parts from sumacs, mangoes,
and cashews.
* Some edible wild plants, such as acorns and water lily rhizomes,
are bitter. These bitter substances, usually tannin compounds, make
them unpalatable. Boiling them in several changes of water will
usually remove these bitter properties.
* Many valuable wild plants have high concentrations of oxalate
compounds, also known as oxalic acid. Oxalates produce a sharp burning
sensation in your mouth and throat and damage the kidneys. Baking,
roasting, or drying usually destroys these oxalate crystals. The corm
(bulb) of the jack-in-the-pulpit is known as the "Indian turnip," but
you can eat it only after removing these crystals by slow baking or by
drying.
WARNING
Do not eat mushrooms in a survival situation! The only way to tell if
a mushroom is edible is by positive identification. There is no room
for experimentation. Symptoms of the most dangerous mushrooms
affecting the central nervous system may show up after several days
have passed when it is too late to reverse their effects.
Plant Identification
You identify plants, other than by memorizing particular varieties
through familiarity, by using such factors as leaf shape and margin,
leaf arrangements, and root structure.
The basic leaf margins (Figure 9-1) are toothed, lobed, and toothless or smooth.
These leaves may be lance-shaped, elliptical, egg-shaped, oblong,
wedge-shaped, triangular, long-pointed, or top-shaped (Figure 9-2).
The basic types of leaf arrangements (Figure 9-3) are opposite,
alternate, compound, simple, and basal rosette.
The basic types of root structures (Figure 9-4) are the bulb, clove,
taproot, tuber, rhizome, corm, and crown. Bulbs are familiar to us as
onions and, when sliced in half, will show concentric rings. Cloves
are those bulblike structures that remind us of garlic and will
separate into small pieces when broken apart. This characteristic
separates wild onions from wild garlic. Taproots resemble carrots and
may be single-rooted or branched, but usually only one plant stalk
arises from each root. Tubers are like potatoes and daylilies and you
will find these structures either on strings or in clusters underneath
the parent plants. Rhizomes are large creeping rootstock or
underground stems and many plants arise from the "eyes" of these
roots. Corms are similar to bulbs but are solid when cut rather than
possessing rings. A crown is the type of root structure found on
plants such as asparagus and looks much like a mophead under the
soil's surface.
Learn as much as possible about plants you intend to use for food and
their unique characteristics. Some plants have both edible and
poisonous parts. Many are edible only at certain times of the year.
Others may have poisonous relatives that look very similar to the ones
you can eat or use for medicine.
Universal Edibility Test
There are many plants throughout the world. Tasting or swallowing even
a small portion of some can cause severe discomfort, extreme internal
disorders, and even death. Therefore, if you have the slightest doubt
about a plant's edibility, apply the Universal Edibility Test (Figure
9-5) before eating any portion of it.
Before testing a plant for edibility, make sure there are enough
plants to make the testing worth your time and effort. Each part of a
plant (roots, leaves, flowers, and so on) requires more than 24 hours
to test. Do not waste time testing a plant that is not relatively
abundant in the area.
(continued on next thread.)
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