do not taste plants if you don't know what they are
do not identify a fruit as edible just because it tastes sweet
hope you didn't eat any fucking seeds, bro
And today, we have this winner:
I saw the photo in my feed and went ohh, dude, no, we do not handle yellow rocks with our bare hands until we know for sure what they are. And I know that orange...
In comments, they continue:
and that's where I started cussing at the computer monitor. But someone else had got there first:
So just as a reminder, folks. If you don't know what it is, don't put it in your fucking mouth!
YOU GODDAMN STUPID MOTHERFUCKER
Good fucking god, people, if you don't know what it is, DON'T PUT IT IN YOUR STUPID MOUTH.
Oh my god. Good lord. I learned that when I was TINY. I was the tiniest, dumbest baby child and I knew better than to do this. What is wrong with you.
At Halloween last year, the tiniest little girl dressed as one of the Folk came to my door. There's an increasingly magnificent native beautyberry to one side of my stoop, with its marvelous electric purple berries served up in great tumbles, and she was transfixed by it. She got her candy, I complimented her costume, she started down the stairs, and then stopped, and turned back around. Her: "Are those for-eating berries?" Me: "Oh, you are so smart and clever for asking first! That is such a good idea, I'm so impressed! These are Callicarpa, called beautyberry, and they are edible. Usually they are for cooking, though, to make syrup or jam, and they're not very nice right off the bush. But they are a food berry, and you're so smart to ask!" Her: "Can I...try one?" Me: "If your mother says you may." Her mother, from the walk: "Are you SURE, like, 100% sure. That those are food." Me: "A hundred percent sure, ma'am. I could show you a couple of websites on them, if you want." The Girl: *waits for her mother's nod, then gently reaches out and takes three very small berries and puts them into her mouth* The Girl: *makes an inquisitive face as she chews, walking down the path toward her mother* Me, turning back inside: "Husband, you should have seen this very smart little girl just now!"
I always assumed when ancient people were figuring out what was edible and what wasn’t, it was a really scary thing people were forced to do to survive. I didn’t realize this was a service that some people just feel instinctively driven to provide, even when there’s literally no reason to do it and almost every reason not to
But also back on the topic of the yew. On my second week of being a biology student our plant taxonomy teacher walked us out to the botanic garden to show us some trees and stuff, and when we got to the yews he just popped a berry into his mouth to freak us out. Wikipedia is right, the flesh *is* edible but he also really emphasised that you need to throw out the seed. The word "toxin" comes directly fron the latin name of this tree.
If you have a small child who is perhaps *not* quite as cautious and good at safety around new berries as the girl in the above story, please allow me to suggest that you make friends with the term "birdie-berry."
Birdie-berries, you see, are any berry that you cannot solidly identify and/or that is definitely not edible for humans. Basically, any berry that is NOT known to be 100% safe to eat is, until your child can be trusted, "a birdie-berry."
Why a birdie-berry? I'm glad you asked. You see, that enticingly-colored berry isn't UNKNOWN! My goodness, no. That might make your child want to test it! (At least if your child is anything like mine...) Nor is it poisonous, which, again, for some godforsaken reason, might make your child want to test it (again... if your child is anything like mine). It is a berry which the birds—which your child probably loves, again, if they are anything like mine!—NEED TO HAVE AVAILABLE TO THEM. We can't eat those! Those are BIRDIE-BERRIES. They are explicitly and exclusively FOR THE BIRDS. They need them. And therefore we cannot touch them.
Anyway. If you don't need that, great. Maybe YOUR kid is great about not trying to eat every berry they come across, or very obedient when you tell them not to eat something, or has a reasonable fear of death when you say the word "poison." Or maybe your child has much better plant identification skills than thinking that everything faintly blue is a blueberry.
But if your child makes you wonder how in the name of all the gods humanity ever survived to figure out flint-knapping, let alone modern civilization... that's my best advice for you on berries.
