5 Laws for Wild Edible Plant Safety - For Beginners - Best Survival / Bug Out Food

Hey guys, welcome to Ultimate Survival Tips. I'm David. Thanks for joining me. In the Northern Hemisphere, it's the time of the year that foragers like my wife and I start to get excited about all the wild edibles and medicinal plants that are popping up everywhere, free for the taking. But no matter where you live, it's likely that there is an abundance of tasty, nutritious, and easy to identify wild edible plants all around you. How do you get started? How do you know the difference between what is safe to eat and what can kill you? So today I'm going to cover five essential rules of wild edibles to keep you safe. And before we're all finished, I'll let you in on one killer mistake that you must avoid. This mistake has claimed the lives of even experts in wild edible plant identification. But before we get into this, I want to thank today's sponsor, the one, the only, Tiny Survival Guide and Cards. Now let me cut to the chase, tell you that section M in the Tiny Survival Guide covers the basics of what you need to know to find, identify, harvest, and prepare several common safe to eat wild edible plants and bugs and includes 34 illustrations. Section M is only one of 19 sections in the Tiny Survival Guide. Tiny Survival Guide is available right now at tinysurvivalguide.com. Okay, let's get into five essential rules of wild edibles. Rule number one, never eat anything that you're not a hundred percent certain of its identity. I cannot emphasize this enough. You need to be positive what a plant is and know for sure if it is edible or not. You also need to know what parts of the plant are edible and at what stage of growth or time of year you can eat various parts of the plant. Beyond that, you will need to know how to prepare each plant or part for consumption. You also need to know that many wild plants have lookalikes that can make you sick or even kill you. And remember this, if in doubt, leave it out. Rule number two, focus on learning wild edibles that are plentiful, safe, and easy to identify. Now you may have been discouraged after rule number one, but it is likely that you already know or at least have seen a few great wild edibles, two of which may even be in your yard right now. Dandelions and plantain are two perfect examples of where to start your journey of wild edible plant discovery because they're easy to identify, generally safe, common, and in many places plentiful to the point of being considered annoying weeds. Yet dandelions and plantains are among the most nutritious and beginner-friendly wild edible plants known to man. So stop spraying your lawn and eat weeds man. Rule number three, don't eat a wild plant in a survival situation that you haven't confidently identified and eaten before a survival situation. This ensures that you don't have a negative reaction to a plant when your life may be on the line. Plus, in a survival situation, any number of stressors can cause your judgment to be dramatically impaired when the chips are down. So don't add to your problems by eating questionable wild plants. Just know that you are not likely to die of starvation even after several weeks without food. For additional help, see my survival guide section E or listen to the Survival Show podcast. Episodes seven and eight contain essential information on the rule of three and how to identify survival priorities in any situation. Rule number four, never eat plants that may have been treated or sprayed with chemicals. But no matter where you are, whether it's the backwoods or in a city, you need to wash all wild edibles and boil any that are questionable. Here's the bottom line, biological or chemical contaminants are everywhere, so err on the side of caution. Rule number five, get trained. I don't mean watching YouTube videos. Watching a video like this one is not going to train your brain and senses to positively identify plants. So you need to get out there and take a wild edible plant class or two and get a few great books to take with you when you go out foraging. Here's a few books that I recommend for beginners. The Peterson Book of Wild Edible Plants. The next one is Wild Edible Plants, Wild Foods, From Dirt to Plate. The next one is Wild Edible Plants, The Pocket Naturalist Guide, and for everyday carry and a quick reference, grab The Tiny Survival Guide. Okay, now here's a bonus tip. For the beginner, never, never, ever eat wild mushrooms, period. There are too many edible mushrooms that have toxic or deadly lookalikes. So even if you are mostly right, you can be deadly wrong. For your convenience, I put a link to all the gears I've mentioned in the video description. Don't forget to subscribe to this channel and click the little bell icon below to get notified when I post sweet new videos. Check out The Tiny Survival Guide and my hot new podcast with author, woodland ninja, and all around great guy, Craig Cottle over at The Survival Show Podcast. It's available everywhere. I'm David. Thanks for watching. I hope to see you on the other side and remember, be prepared because you never know.