Wild Edibles: An Introduction

Wild edibles can make the difference in a survival situation and save your life. Although meat is a better source of fat and protein than wild plants, hunting and trapping game is never easy and it is not reliable for consistently keeping food in your system. Wild edibles are extremely nutritious and contain essential vitamins and minerals. In fact, in some cases, wild plants can have up to 500 times the nutritional value of their domestic counterparts. So if they are so nutritious, you may ask why we bother going to the supermarket at all. There are several reasons, but some are more important to the concepts of survival. First, unlike their domesticated relatives, many wild plants have very short seasons where the plant either fruits or is edible. Secondly, many plants are only partially edible meaning they are only safe in small quantities or only part of the plant is edible. This is also true of many of the plants that we grow in our garden or buy in the store, but we know from our traditions what parts to eat. Most importantly, many wild plants are highly toxic. The misidentification of plants sadly still produces deaths even in modern times. The Buddha, for instance, died by eating a poisonous mushroom that was gathered by accident while collecting edible mushrooms. Additionally, by design or by a product of evolution, many poisonous plants mimic edible plants and the differences can be very subtle, case in point, Poison Hemlock and Queen Anne's Lace (Wild Carrot) look very similar, so be careful. In total, about two-thirds of all plants contain at least a poison part, so you are twice as likely to choose a poisonous plant, if you are just choosing plants at random. My advice is to keep it simple and avoid plants that are not easily identified or have a poison twin. You will find that many of the edible plants will be immediately recognizable to you even if you didn't know that they were edible before. I have included a list of easily identifiable plants and trees that are common and do not have a poison twin. Although this is just a small list of available plants, I believe in taking the safe route and keeping it simple. Find out what common edible plants grow in your area and try to memorize just a few that are very common and that you are already able to identify. Most specialists suggest that you learn about 10 edible plants to start with, and then go up from there.


Research these on your own, they are found all over the U.S.:
Pine Trees (Nuts, Inner Bark, Needles for Tea)
Oak Acorns (After par boiling to remove bitter taste)
Cactus Fruit
Blackberries (Fruit, Leaves for Tea)
Grapes (Leaves and Fruit)
Sunflower (Seeds, Leaves, Roots)
Wild Plums (Fruit only)
Wild Persimmon (Fruit)
Greenvine (Stems, Fruit, Young Roots)
Native Pecans
Native Walnuts (Hickory)
Mesquite (Beans)
Mulberry (Fruit and Leaves)
Hackberry (Fruit)

-Richard