Experts share their tips for identifying what to eat and what to avoid when foraging for food

• Experts on food safety and foraging spoke to Insider about how to safely eat from the land.
• Tamika Sims and Alexis Nikole Nelson both shared tips for identifying plants that are safe to eat.

Spring and summer of 2022 saw a rise in the popularity of foraging for food, with influencers like Alexis Nikole Nelson (@blackforager) leading the charge.

Nelson, a 2022 James Beard Award winner, told Insider that at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, "we saw how fragile our food systems were."

"A lot of people, I think, found foraging comforting," she added.

Videos and posts from Nelson and her peers make foraging look easy and fun, which it can be as long as you know what you're doing. But along with her videos of delicious finds and recipes like one for pine cone jam, Nelson is sure to warn viewers about the risks.

"This can be a dangerous activity," she told Insider. "We gotta be careful."

With those risks in mind, Insider also spoke with food-safety expert Tamika Sims, PhD, about her foraging tips.

It's tough to tell whether food found in the wild is safe to eat, said Sims, the senior director of food technology communications at the International Food Information Council. So, she shared some precautions new foragers can take.

Don't eat anything you're not 100% sure of

Both Nelson and Sims stressed the importance of correctly identifying your finds. Sims said it's best to get plant specialists like food scientists, botanists, and farmers to sign off, too. One way to do that, she said, is to email a botany scientist at any university to ask if they can examine images and/or chat on a phone call.

Nelson agreed, adding that you should never use just one source, or just one plant or fungi characteristic, to self-confirm the grub.

And even if you know for sure what the food is, Nelson said when dealing with new finds, try just a little at a time and wait a few hours to make sure you feel OK.

"No one wants the surprise anaphylactic shock," she said. "It's not a vibe."

If you're relying on the internet or guides, use trusted sources

Sims said a step toward confirmation without an expert would be using published guides. She said the best of these come from universities, the FDA, or the USDA.

Nelson said one mark of a great guide is if it's also highlighting things you might confuse with the plant that's safe to eat. She said that, for this reason, she loves the books and videos from Samuel Thayer. "If there is a lookalike, it's going to be highlighted," Nelson said of Thayer's content. "You're going to get side-by-side pictures."

The goal, Nelson said, is to remove plant blindness (when your brain registers one plant as something else that you're already familiar with), which she said is extremely common for people who aren't well-versed in botany.

She said it's great to use apps like iNaturalist, Seek, or Google as a jumping-off point to get to know a plant, though "that should never decide whether or not you eat something."

Stick to authorized foraging areas

Sims said you should feel free to eat food you find only in an area that's been marked safe by land management.

Nelson agrees that it's important to know about the land you're foraging on. But she said it's not easy to find out where these spaces are. Still, she does a ton of research, including looking at the EPA's interactive map for spills that may have happened on or near the site.

"Pesticides are a real worry," Nelson added, which is why she avoids a lot of city parks.

A great way to know if an area is safe for foraging, Nelson said, is if there's a permit that you can apply for to do so. Similarly, you should know what you can and can't take from the land — she's seen that some parks allow fungi, nuts, and berries to be harvested, but not leaves, bark, or other things that could affect the livelihood of the plant.

Clean what you find before consuming it

To avoid foodborne illness, Sims recommends handling with clean hands and washing your finds with clean water.

Nelson said she typically uses water mixed with salt or vinegar to draw out any dirt or bugs and to wash off any unwanted contaminants.

She said she'll let mushrooms soak in salt water for anywhere from one to five minutes. For things like berries or greens, she said a few vigorous dunks paired with a rinse under running water does the trick.

"I am one to eat a blackberry fresh off the vine, too, and I have been since I was very little," she said. "But you also have to be very mindful of where you do that."

Nelson said to be aware of where you're gathering from because that might inform some of your cleaning processes. For example, if she's picking berries from low on a bush in what she would call "the dog-pee zone," she's going to let them soak a little longer in the vinegar mixture.

If foraging becomes your main food-finding practice, take classes

"I have learned at the feet of many a person from a very young age," said Nelson, who grew up learning about plants from her mom and cooking them with her dad. She said her biggest piece of advice would be to get to know a plant extremely well before you try to eat it.

Sims recommends taking trainings or even getting certified if you want to forage often.

Regardless of how much you choose to incorporate foraging into your life, Nelson wants everyone to be OK with not eating something the first time you identify it: "There's no pressure. It will be there again."

Better Me tips for sustainable living

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