How to start foraging … Without killing Your family!

How to start foraging … Without killing Your family!
Austin Martin “Homesteady Live“ Audio in player below!

Last year i was super excited when my wife came inside and told me that she thought she found a patch of Morell Mushrooms in our backyard. I ran outside to look, and yes! There were lots of little mushrooms poking up through the ground.

We grabbed some jars and started picking away. Heading inside with our bounty, and after posting a picture to Instagram, we enjoyed a delicious Morel omelet.

A few minutes after eating the mushrooms my 5-year-old son said his stomach hurt. I broke out in a cold sweat…

Were they actually Morel mushrooms? Did I miss identify them? Was my son’s stomach ache a side effect of a poisonous mushroom?

DID I JUST POISON MY FAMILY?

I rushed back to the Instagram photo. A friend of the show, The Foraging Beard on Instagram, commented on the photo that they looked like Half Free Morell mushrooms. Still an edible mushroom, but very similar looking to a false morel. Harder to distinguish from the false morel.

So which was it? I didn’t have any mushrooms to look at, as we had already eaten them. Fortunately, I had the Instagram pic. We looked hard at that photo, and concluded that it was likely we had a half-free morel, not a false morel, wich is poisonous (although probably not a deadly mushroom, was scary….).

The rest of that day I was nervously watching for any sign of mushroom poisoning. It was a long, scary day.

The lesson I learned that day was a big one… Dont make sure of your mushroom identification after they are eaten. That is too late. I Made this mistake because I had found morels before, and was too confident in my abilities to identify. I am an absolute beginner to mushrooming and foraging, and so should have triple checked my finds and been trained by someone who knows better.

And that is why Tuesday night we will be talking to my friend, The Foraging Beard, about foraging. Jared, the foraging bearded dad behind the foraging beard, will discuss with us foraging for beginners. He will help us know what wild edibles are easy for a beginner to identify, how to safely identify wild edible, and most importantly, how to not poison your family.

I didn’t poison anyone. We were fortunate. But I learned a hard lesson. Don’t learn a harder one. Join us on this show to learn about foraging the safe way for beginners.
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