Foraging for Food - Part Three, An Introduction to Medicinal Plants

An Introduction to Medicinal Plants

See Also

Foraging for Food - Part One, An Introduction to Foraging

Foraging for Food - Part Two, More Foraging Tips and Techniques


#1. Time to visit the Library or Book Store

You should try to find a good book on the topic of medicinal plants. You should be looking for a book that is both comprehensive and covers the region you live in. eg. Ontario, Canada.

I also recommend that the book be well illustrated so that you can easily recognize the plants in question.

There are plenty of books on this topic, so really a library will be your best bet for becoming an expert on the subject in a hurry. Borrow every book on the subject and then start reading them from cover to cover.

A lot of what you do with respect to learning about medicinal plants will ultimately come down to how much you can research on the topic and remember.

#2. Keep a Notebook on Medicinal Plants

As you reading and researching, take notes of which plants you think you might be able to find locally and which have useful properties you would like to use. Some you might decide you just want them as a herbal tea, others you might find useful for sleeping, for getting rid of headaches, etc.

Remember, you cannot remember everything so you might as well take notes.

#3. Learn how to Properly Extract the Medical Ingredients

Don't just eat the plant. That is stupid and even dangerous as some medicinal plants have parts of them that are toxic. What if you are supposed to eat the cooked root of the plant and you are eating the leaves instead? You have to learn which part of the plant is actually useful, how to extract that part of the plant, and how to prepare it in a manner that makes it taste better and works more effectively.

eg. When was the last time you saw someone eating chamomile flowers raw???

#4. Learn how to store the medicine

Some plants will rot over time so you need to figure out a way to safely store it so it stays "fresh" and useful to you. If it rots, molds, falls to pieces then it is useless. It might need to be preserved in honey, extracted and ground up with sugar into a pill, or any number of means to keep it fresh and useful. You might even decide to store it as bags of tea - in which case keep your medical tea away from your regular tea, you don't want to drink the wrong tea by accident.

#5. Start a Medicinal Herb Garden

You don't have to forage for everything. In fact, if you know you are planning to use a particular plant again and again a good solution is to plant it in a garden and grow it for future use.

Having the plants handy in the garden means you will be able to grow as much as you need, prepare it all and store it - and while starting and maintaining the garden is extra work and requires space, you will garner so much more from it than you would normally get from foraging alone.

Plus you can grow additional plants that are just for eating, not for medicine. So Win-Win.

Bowfishing Spots in SW Ontario

So I have been trying to create a map for use by people who are into bowfishing in Ontario.

The trick to this is fishermen sometimes don't like to share their favourite fishing locations. Which is sad, because our chosen prey for bowfishing is CARP - an invasive species the Ontario government wants killed off.

Which means bowfishers should really be sharing this information so that we can help each other to eradicate carp. Below is a list of locations I recommend checking out:

• Sixteen Mile Creek, near Oakville.
• Guelph Lake Conservation Area, near Guelph. Especially near the dam bridge.
• Conestogo Lake Conservation Area, near Dorking. Below the dam.
• Listowel, river in the park east of the hospital.
• Ayr, Ninth River.

So yeah, no map at present. But if you want to recommend places to go bowfishing please leave a comment below.

Foraging for Food - Part Two, More Foraging Tips and Techniques

See Also

Foraging for Food - Part One, An Introduction to Foraging

Okay, so back in Part One at the bottom of the page I listed the following:

A Few Quick Foraging Tips

• Improvise a piece of fabric to gather food into so you can carry it easily without dropping any.
• Use a digging tool, like a stick or sharp rock, when digging for roots.
• Find other people who are more experienced at foraging for food. They can teach you more about what foods are good to eat and what ones to avoid.
• Don't be afraid to ask for help.
• Research any foods you find that you are unsure about BEFORE eating them.
• Don't wander too far into the woods that you might get lost. Keep your bearings.
• Start off simple with common plants that you recognize. You will start to become an expert at the stranger plants over time.
• Learn how to mix various foods together, such as dandelion bits with slices of apple. It tastes better that way.
• Your body may not be used to eating wild plants - nibble a tiny bit at a time. Don't try to make a whole meal out of them if you are just doing this as a hobby and it is not an emergency.
• Even if it is an emergency and you are worried about how your body will react to a new food, stick to nibbling and snacking on them. Don't just gorge yourself on dandelions.

This time however we are going to go a step further than just tips and talk about foraging techniques - and ways so you can learn a lot more about the practice of foraging in a hurry.

#1. Keep a Notebook

When you find a new plant, take a sample of it and mark down in your notebook where you found, how wet the soil was, any interesting landscape features that were nearby, the date you found it, and possibly even sketch a few details of the plant.

Then when you are home, research the new plant to find out whether it is good to eat, poisonous, toxic, bitter, useful for medicinal reasons, makes a good spice or garnish, etc - and make any important notes you learn in your notebook.

#2. Don't Assume that if a bug, bird or animal ate it that it is safe to eat

In fact, try to avoid making any kind of assumptions at all. Always research the plants before you eat them. For all you know the bird that ate is now dead and rotting somewhere, for being foolish enough to eat something it didn't know was toxic.

#3. Rip out any Invasive Species you find

Sometimes you might find a plant that the Ontario government wants you to get rid of because it is ruining the local ecosystems. If you do find such a plant, rip it out and get rid of any seeds you find. Do your part by getting rid of it.

Once you have ripped it out however you might also research it and determine if it is useful for anything, good to eat, etc. Just because you ripped it out doesn't mean you cannot use it for something such as eating it in a salad or grinding part of it up for a spice.

#4. If you find a plant which is "At Risk of Extinction" take the time to collect seeds

And then cultivate them in your garden. The reason why is because some plants are in danger of extinction and you can do your part by cultivating those plants in a garden and later returning them to the wild. You could also share the seeds with friends, family and fellow people who are interested in such plants.

During this whole process you should also research what the plant is useful for - food, spice or medicinal. It might even make a great rat poison.

#5. Do not eat raw mushrooms!

This really should not be understated. Do not eat raw mushrooms! Mushrooms in general need to be heated to at least 212 degrees Fahrenheit in order to neutralize various chemicals in them to make them inert. Unless you like having stomach and gastric pain, you need to cook mushrooms first before eating them. Even the mushrooms you buy from a grocery store should be thoroughly cooked before eating.

#6. Do not eat Fiddleheads raw either!

Fiddleheads pick up pathogens and bacteria regularly because they grow in wet areas. They need to be fully cooked to kill the bacteria / pathogens.

#7. Just because it has a medicinal property doesn't mean you should eat it

Often when a plant has a medicinal property it means you need to extract the compound that is useful from it and only eat that part of the plant. Eating the whole plant could just make you sick, cause you to overdose on various chemicals, etc.

If you are collecting a plant for its medicinal properties, learn how to properly extract the part of it that is actually used for medical purposes.

#8. Just because it tastes good, doesn't mean it isn't toxic or poisonous

Examples:

• Hemlock is poisonous, but tastes like parsnip.
• Death caps taste pretty good, but will kill you.

There are also the reverse of this... Chokeberries (red, purple or black) taste really sour, but can be used in a variety of foods just like you would a lemon - and they are completely harmless (and good for digestion).

Red Chokeberries

#9. Double Check plants when you identify them

Sometimes mistakes can be made. You could mis-identify a plant that is toxic and think it is harmless. Sometimes there are look-alikes that look very similar and can fool you.

"Check twice first, eat once before eating more."

#10. Only pick as much as you need

Leave the rest for later so it can keep growing. It is completely unnecessary to harvest all of the plant. This way next year the plant will still be there. If you harvest it all however - all the berries for examples - how will it grow again next years with no seeds?


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