Hello everyone, our episode today is a bit different. We have an exciting interview to share with you. We’re speaking to a special guest, Dr Wesley Adams. He has a very diverse background. including expertise in paragliding, scuba diving, and primitive survival. He’s even featured on an episode of the survival show, Naked and Afraid, in Ecuador. He’s also written several books on foraging for food and that is what we’re going to talk about today. Enjoy.
M: I’m Professor Megan
S: and I’m Professor Susan, and we’re...
Both: Your Nutrition Profs!
M: We are registered dietitians and college professors who have taught more than 10,000 students about health and nutrition. We have answered a LOT of questions about nutrition over the years –
S: Some questions we get asked every year and some are rarely asked but very interesting.
M: We’re here to share our answers to these common (and uncommon) nutrition questions with you.
S: So bring your curiosity and let’s get started.
Both: Welcome to our class!
S: Hello everybody, welcome. Today we have a really exciting episode for you. We have a special guest, Dr. Wesley Adams.
M: We have had the pleasure of knowing and working with Dr. Adams for several years. He is currently a professor of kinesiology and education here in Texas and he has an educational background that includes kinesiology, exercise science, higher education administration… he is very diverse. He is also the author of several books including Common Edible and Medicinal Plants of Texas as well as Common Edible and Medicinal Plants of the U.S. as well as several others. So he could talk about so many different topics but today we’re focusing specifically on foraging.
S: One thing my sister asked me before we get started she said, “Foraging isn’t the same as dumpster diving, right?”
W: No.
M: Oh…
W: No, well I mean it is a food. Technically you’re foraging around for food. But I think the more technical definition- what most people think of- is actually having a knowledge of either a plant resource, could be mushrooms, could be small insects, small animals. I mean, you’re just looking for a food source. I think most people think plants but it could be any of those categories.
M: Oh cool.
S: I’ll tell her.
M: Alright, Wes, can you tell us a little bit about how you became interested in foraging for wild foods.
W: So growing up, my grandma on my dads side- we all lived out in the country and for a long time they didn’t have electricity, running water, it wasn’t until the late 60s that they actually got electricity. So a lot of their food had to come from either what they grew or what they knew to forage for. Or they had to hunt. And so that background knowledge- we weren’t too many generations removed that I got introduced to that early on. And so when I stayed with them that was a big part of their education was to pass on that knowledge. So a lot of the neighbors and when I say neighbors, I’m talking about people that live miles away but people that were in the area would come by and ask my grandma when to plant things, where to find things, what’s edible? Especially if they were new to the area, a lot of people in the area would tell individuals to go see here and so that’s really where I got started. I saw the importance of it and I thought everybody was taught that information and then as I grew up I realized that is not the case.
M: Definitely not.
S: Yeah.
M: Not when you grow up in the suburbs like me.
S: So, that’s what you did when you were a kid, right? So you’ve written these books. Why do you feel that it’s a valuable skill to have now?
W: Well I think COVID taught us a lesson. There was a run on supermarkets. People didn’t really have their priorities correct. I mean, they were more worried about toilet paper than food. And so- but we did see a big run on those food stocks that would last a long time like canned foods, rice, flour, those things that store for a long time. The individuals that had their priorities right, went after the right things and they had to put limitations on how much you could buy at certain times. I think COVID, for this generation, was one of those moments that we’ll never forget. And I think we should learn a lesson from that. Those books- that first book that you actually mentioned went live right around that time. And I saw a huge spike in sales and I don’t think it would have sold as well had COVID not happened. I think people were worried and didn’t know what to eat and wanted something that if things got worse, if the internet went down, there was still some sort of reliable information that they could go in and look at. At least find out at least this is what I should focus on if I’m looking for things to eat. At least plant based food sources.
M: With the prices happening at grocery stores right now, I think it's, you know, kind of continuing on- you know the importance of being able to plant something in your back yard or go to a park and be able to find cool and interesting things that you can consume.
S: Right.
W: COVID was the first time in my history that I saw others actually foraging in a park… So I would walk and would go and check out what was going on campus and for people that don’t know. Our campus borders Live Oak park and down at the lake there are a lot of wild edible plants obviously. But one that was around during that time was wild onion. There was a lady- there were two ladies down at the lake and they had baskets full of wild onions. And I’m like, oh man, people are really taking this seriously and at least they know what they’re looking for. But yeah, that was the first time in my lifetime that I've seen people actively foraging in a park.
S: Wow.
M: That’s cool.
S: So my concern about foraging is- is there an easy way to identify an edible plant vs a plant that might look like it but be toxic?
W: Yes, especially in Texas, it gets a little bit more problematic, depending on the area of the world. We’re fortunate because Texas, especially this part of Texas, is really biodiverse and the poisonous or toxic plants that would kill you are fairly easy to identify and they’re fewer in number. Here’s what I mean by that, most of your edible plants have a toxic or poisonous mimic. So the one that everyone should know, especially in South Texas or even all of Texas is hemlock. Either water hemlock or just regular hemlock that would grow in your backyard. If you’re going to confuse a plant, more likely it means you're out in search of wild carrot, prairie parsley- a lot of these plants that look like hemlock. They’re in the same family and that is a plant that if you get it wrong, it’s almost like eating a poisonous mushroom. There is no known antidote, so if you get a lethal dose, there’s not a lot anyone can do for you.
S: Yowzer!
W: Hemlock is one that I tell all my students, I’m like that is the plant that you need to identify. Another example of that would be wild onions… we just talked about it. It does have a toxic mimic but it’s not going to kill you, right? You would have to eat a lot of its toxic mimic to make you sick. So that’s called crow’s poison. They grow right next to each other just like wild carrot and wild hemlock grow right next to each other in the same area. You would have to eat a lot of crow’s poison... if you made the mistake you would get an upset stomach at most but obviously dose makes the poison. I’m sure there is a level that if you ate enough of it, it could become fatal. But I don’t think you would get there before you started becoming nauseous from eating it. Here’s a great example, I had a student… Y’all know this student, I won’t mention him by name. But he caused some issues on campus, so I think you know the one I'm talking about.
S: Yeah.
M: Oh goodness!
W: He took a lot of my classes, for some reason he liked me quite a bit, and we had covered wild onions and he goes “Oh I’ve got that in my backyard” and I said “Why don’t you bring that in” so he brings it in… and I knew it was the time of year when wild onion would be difficult to find and if he’s seeing it, it’s probably crow’s poison. And the way you tell the difference between the two is that if you crush it up, if it smells like onion, it’s onion, I mean, there’s just no way around it. Crow’s poison is not going to smell anywhere close… it’s going to have a grassy smell to it. So before he brought it out. I asked “alright does it smell like onion?” and he says “No but it looks exactly like onion, it’s got to be” and I was like “Well if it doesn’t smell like onion, then it’s not wild onion. So we argued back and forth and I‘m like just “Pull it out” and “Now crush it up. What does it smell like?” And he said “Well it smells like grass” and I said “Exactly, that’s crow’s poison.” But that's how similar they are in appearance.
S: And so if I were going to go to a park and I’m going to look for wild onion or I’m going to look for wild carrots or something like that... Is there an easy way for me to find pictures? I mean, obviously if I know that ahead of time, I guess I can google it or read your book but, I mean, I wouldn’t even think to do that if I were first going out… Are there things that before someone would start foraging that they really should learn?
W: Yes. So I kind of learned backwards but I had an expert in the field, right? I had my grandma. She knew the plants in our area, she had grown up knowing those… what I would recommend and this is what I recommend to my students, I would get a top 10 list. These are the plants that are found year round or the majority of year round that are easily identifiable and they don't really have a toxic mimic. Learn those first. Get practice. Sometimes a photo is not enough, you know one single photo… that’s why I wanted to put videos in my books to give a little more detail than I could in illustrations or in writing. I wanted people to kind of see what I was seeing in the field. But you really have to go out in the field. I also recommend- don’t waste your time on plants that are not calorically dense. You’ll learn those as you go through but don’t spend a lot of time or you’re going to spend more calories searching this plant out than you would actually get from consuming it.
M: That’s good advice.
W: It’s not necessarily worth your time. You know, we ran into that in Ecuador. Where we were at a high altitude- we’re at ski level resort altitude. So between 8 and 9000 feet- we were probably expending or burning 3x the amount of kcal we would at sea level and we were going out collecting Pony’s Foot and Dandelion… the ones that we knew didn’t have a toxic mimic that we wouldn't misidentify. But we weren't getting enough substance, we were burning more kcal- even the lemons that we went up… we had to hike 3 miles and go from 8000 to almost 10,000 feet and when we got up to those lemons. We spent who knows how many kcals trying to get to those but we were so hungry.
S: Yeah.
W: That hunger took over and we weren’t really strategizing correctly. So yeah, you definitely want to make sure they’re worth your time. That they are calorically dense or nutrient dense.
S: Mmm hmm, right. So you mentioned videos, can you just kind of talk a little bit about what your books look like? So that if someone wanted to forage and look at one of your books, how would they use that?
W: Yeah, they’re laid out as a field guide. I didn’t want to make them too large. I wanted them to fit in a small backpack so somebody could take it with them and wouldn’t weigh down their backpack. And they could go to it- if they have cell phone access and which most of us do. Like if you’re going to go to a park you can use the videos out in the field. So you can scan it with your phone, watch the video if you need a little bit more information. But once you’ve watched the video a couple of times and you know that plant, you don’t need that element of the book anymore. Now you know that plant, you can check it off your list and go and learn other plants and use the book to continue that learning. But again, I would go back to… go into the top 10 plants that are calorically dense, nutrient dense that are found year round. Learn those first and then you can expand your knowledge. And that’s really how you should use the book. I tried not to put- cause there a lot of edible plants and there are some that are not calorically dense but they’re nutrient dense or maybe they’re not calorically or nutrient dense but there is so much of it, you would spend very little effort trying to find it and its found year round so I included in the book because it could be used as a filler with other nutrient dense plants.
S: Right.
W: And those are the ones I would learn and then that’s how you should use the book… have an idea of what you’re going to search for and look at when it’s available and use the maps in the books. The newest edition of the Texas book also has the U.S. map and the Texas map separately, so it’s shown where it's found throughout the U.S. but it also shows more specifically where it’s found in Texas because Texas has so many regions.
S: So many different biodiversities here!
W: And that’s the great thing about San Antonio and why I wanted to write the ebook. It’s not only to expand on what my grandma knew but to give students a resource that is specific to this area. But the problem is that it’s almost every plant in Texas because we are right at this edge of the Hill Country, we’re at that black clay soil that we have up in North Texas- it’s found over in St. Hedwig and those areas. We’re right on the edge of the coastal plains and all those South Texas plants. We are right here… And it’s the reason why Native Americans, like the Comanches fought so hard for this land because of what was here.
S: Yeah that makes sense.
M: That’s awesome. Alright so, could you tell us a little bit about- so ok, as a dietitian people assume that I am a good cook. And I’m just not. I want to be- I try really hard but it doesn’t come naturally to me… ingredients and just whipping stuff together. Like I need recipes, I need to know what to do. So if I’m going out and getting some of these amazing wild plants, how- what would I do with them. The only thing I can think of is salad greens, it’s the only thing I can imagine doing.
W: Use them in known recipes. So that’s what my grandma would do. And that’s what my mom learned from my grandma… she took her east Texas recipes and blended it with what my grandma knew. So here’s a good idea- we just talked about wild onions. You can go to the store, you can buy green onions, very similar in size, taste, flavor to the wild onion you would find out at the lake on our campus. Start cooking with that. What recipes would you use green onions for? Well for us, we would normally cook it with okra and squash, fry those together, that was a common recipe. You would use it in soups. Almost every soup that we make, chicken noodle soup, my mom’s beef stew, that wild onion would go in there instead of something like a yellow onion or a white onion
M: Ok.
W: Anything that you would normally cook with, you can find an equivalent to it in the stores. And that’s how people should learn, right? Go out and look at your existing recipes and just replace one of those items with something that’s a wild edible. You can pickle a lot of the purslane and the sea purslane. You’ve got to be careful because the stems get kind of woody over time. The purslane leaves, the purslane you can find in San Antonio, and more specifically the sea purslane tastes like sweet corn when you cook them with butter.
S: Yum
W: Especially the sea purslane. The good thing about a lot of the sea plants is that they come with their own salt. So sea rocket is like a wild mustard that grows on the beach. Sea amaranth…. But a lot of your sea plants, they all are loaded with salt.
M: Of course.
W: You don’t have to add any salt to them.
S: No seasoning required.
M: That’s great.
S: No salt anyways.
M: Right?
S: So if we’re going to go out and forage what kind of tools would we need or equipment?
M: Oh, good question.
W: Plant dependent. Often when I’m driving back from the beach and you get out towards Pleasanton and those areas where there's a lot of prickly pear cactus. Obviously prickly pear comes with its glochids and thorns…. And you know, glochids you can’t necessarily see and you cannot even wear, like welder’s gloves. You would think it would be thick enough but it’s not. Those little glochids will work their wear through the fibers even in that leather.
S: Yes they do.
W: So a good way, if you were unprepared to harvest a plant like that, would be to take a plastic bottle and cut the end off it. It's about the size of a prickly pear and you can fit it over it and grab them that way. And those glochids won’t go through that….
M: That’s cool.
W: Or if you’re prepared, bring tongs. And I always carry, I have a little knife- it’s a little multitool
S: Oh yeah.
W: And it comes with its own set of pliers.
S: Little snippers.
W: Exactly. You can't grip the whole prickly pear but at the base of a prickly pear it narrows down and you can knock it off- knock it in the bucket. Now they’re still going to have the glochids and you’re got to burn those off. So, like I have a little MAP cutting torch and you just burn them off with that before you can handle them. Other plants can be irritating so… I don’t know if y'all have ever picked okra. It’s not a wild edible plant, but there are plants that will irritate your skin similar to that- where they have fine little hairs. Probably the best known would be stinging nettle… super nutrient dense and a lot of people will have recipes where they make soups out of it. But how you handle it is important because it's not necessarily formic acid, it’s like formic acid. Most research will tell you that it’s very similar in chemical composition to formic acid. So that’s what an ant stings you with… so it’s about that level of a sting if you get hit by those hairs. Same thing for bull nettle. It’s actually a different type of plant but it has similar sinting hairs but they are worse and they can last for days.
M: Oh my gosh.
W: They’re almost like fiberglass and they get embedded in your skin and like with stinging bull nettle I can get stung with that and be ok within an hour or two. But with bull nettle, it’s the gift that keeps on giving. When you irritate it releases a little bit more formic acid so you get another dose of it two or three days later. So you definitely want to wear gloves for things that have hairs that will irritate you. Another one, and this is that same student that we were talking about with the wild onion. I had warned him against agave, and he’s like “Well I want to bring this to class…” because we had mentioned how useful the fibers were. And that’s what they make tequila out of. Before it sends up its flower stalk, all the carbohydrates and sugars that are in that ball… that’s what they ferment. So they chop all the leaves off, they cook that down to cook out the sugars…. Well if you look at those guys that harvest the agave. They have really long axes or things that chop. They're kind of like extended machetes.
S: Right, right.
W: Because you don’t want to get any of that sap on there. That sap will burn you.
M: Wow, I didn’t know that.
W: That individual that we’re talking about got that on him and he got rashes and he was like “Do you know where that rash would come from?” And I’m like “It’s from the agave…”
S: …that I told you not to bring!
W: Yeah, we talked about this and why I didn’t want to bring it in.
M: Oh my gosh. Oh that’s great.
W: There are other ones like prairie parsley and that grows a lot through central and north Texas. We don’t have it down here as much, but it can be activated by the sun. So it’s photosensitive. It’ll make you really photosensitive if you get that sap on you. And you may not have an issue until that area of the skin is exposed to the sunlight and then you start to develop a rash.
M: Wow!
S: So if I’m making a list, I’m going to want gloves.
W: Yes
S: I’m going to want maybe some kind of multi-use tool.
W: Yes.
S: I’m going to want maybe tongs.
W: Yes.
S: I’m going to want a bucket.
W: Yeah, if you don’t know- you don’t know because you’ve never foraged before. You don’t know what you don’t know, I guess.
S: Yeah.
M: Mmm hmmm.
W: It's a good idea- go with a digging implement in case it’s a plant with a root source like with bull nettle, most people aren’t going to harvest just the seeds, they’re going to want the root. Even though it’s fibrous, it has a lot of carbohydrate in it. So yeah, you would want gloves there to get past the plant and then you’d want some sort of digging implement to get into the ground. So some sort of sharp shooter, like a spade, you don’t want the little, small digging implements unless it’s close to the surface because you’re going to wear yourself out. So, like the military style shovels that fold.
M: Oh!
W: Those would be great, the ones that you see for camping- those are really good. Those would get you deep enough for most plants that have a tuber. But if you were going to go out and get sunchokes. Those look like sunflowers, their roots are equivalent to what you would get in the same size of a potato when it comes to caloric density and those are easy to dig up. Like, sometimes you can just pull on the plant itself and pull them directly up. Sometimes…
S: Like pulling a weed.
W: Yeah, just like pulling a root weed, and it’ll pull most of it up, but you had a small shovel, that would help. But if you don't know your plant or know the issues…. Always some sort of protection for your hands, some sort of digging element, something to store for whatever it is that you’re going to bring back. Like when I go to Pleasanton, there’s two rest areas there, on 37. And there is mustang grapes. So those are going to be ripe from July-August on average depending on how much rain we get, how much sunlight. So when I go down there, I bring 5 gallon buckets. Because my sister wants the mustang grapes and they grow really good along a fence line.
M: Oh….
W: These are easy to get to and I can get 20-25 gallons of grapes at one of those rest stops.
S: Wow!
W: Yeah and it doesn't take long either. Same with prickly pear, if you go and you’ve got the right tools and enough people, you can get more prickly pear than you’ll ever use. So that kind of goes into foraging guidelines, don’t take more than you need. Don't take all of the plant, you want to leave a little bit of it for the next year so that it’ll continue to grow, continue to seed, continue to spread. So like Native Americans, let’s say they’re out looking for wild mustard. They might take a few leaves from one plant and go get a few more leaves from the other. But they wouldn't harvest an entire plant, because they want to leave that plant to seed for next year. And that also gets into legal issues. You don’t want to get into areas that they don’t want to forage. So like, a state natural area unless they specifically say you can or you’ve gotten permission. You shouldn't take it from any state park, definitely no national park. It kind of goes into those camping rules, “Leave it as you found it.”
S: Yeah.
W: So I’ll take a picture, and say “yes this plant is here” but you don’t want to be harvesting or foraging in any of those areas unless they allow it. There are some national parks that allow it because it’s a large enough… Like mushroom foragers. There are certain national parks where you can go in and forage for mushrooms, not an issue. But if you don’t know, you need to call ahead and get permission before you go so you don’t violate any state laws or national laws.
M: That’s really good advice.
S: It really is. And so, like you’re talking about a rest area, right? That’s just a public area, so no problems there?
W: No problems.
S: You talked about the park…
M: Yeah, the city park.
S: …near campus, the city park. Do you have to get permission from the city or it’s just…
W: Now the ladies that were taking the wild onions, they were taking quite a bit. I’ve never called Live Oak, I’ve never taken enough to matter. I might take something to let a student try it but I’m not harvesting large amounts enough to use. But yeah, you definitely want to call ahead. If you’re going out to forage and you’re going to take a substantial amount. Or even if it’s a state park or national park, even if you're going to take a small amount, I would get permission.
S: And certainly not on private property.
W: Exactly. Now you've got to be really careful that you don’t- you’re not in an area that is open to the public for foraging then you don’t accidentally cross on to someone's land. That is a huge thing, especially in Texas, we don’t have a lot of public lands like they do in other states. A lot is privately owned and it’s really easy to get in and get on somebody's land and not realize it. Especially if they don’t have fence lines… you know to indicate where the property line is. That’s another common problem with people that forage by river. So Texas Parks and Wildlife says you can be- if they haven’t changed the guidelines, I think it's 150 ft from the navigable water way. So anything you can navigate by hike is completely legal for you to go on, nobody can own that property. But people will get on these lands and not necessarily know the rules, they’ll start to forage along the river and they might end up on someone's private property. And that has become an issue. Now you’ve trespassed on someone else's land. Not only have you trespassed, you're taking something from their land.
S: Their resources, right.
M: Wow, that’s a lot of really great information.
S: Oh my gosh.
M: That was amazing.
S: So what’s your favorite foraging experience that you can tell us about?
M: Yeah, do you have like a memorable thing you want to share with us?
W: One comes to mind fairly quickly, is… there is sumac that grows up in north Texas, it grows through central Texas. I’ve seen it down here a little bit but it's not as common. And it’s got like a sweet, salty taste to it. It has these red berries on it and you have to wait until they're completely dry and you lick it and it’s kind of like a sour head candy.
S: Ohhh!
W: It's really tart. My grandma used to make, like a lemonade, from it. But if you lick it without it being diluted with water, it is really stout. So that’s one. And my- the very first person I met in my kindergarten class, Dawn Harden, I don’t know if I should mention her name…
S: Hi Dawn! Maybe she's a listener.
W: The very first person I met in my kindergarten class, before school had ever started, was- we were foraging. It was my mom and dad, her mom and dad, and dewberries which are like blackberries but smaller, sweeter. Every April, May, June we would go out and just pick on the weekends. And that’s how I met her and that’s how I knew she was going to be in my class. And when we rolled into school that September, I already knew her. And that’s something I still remember, is meeting her for the first time when our families were out foraging for dewberries.
M: Well look at that. Foraging bringing people together. I had no idea. I love it.
S: So you’ve been , you’ve talked about being in other countries like Ecuador, but you’re located in Texas, I know that’s kind of your main place.
M: Have traveled quite a bit.
S: We have listeners from all over the country and even internationally. So I suppose the rules might be different in other countries, other areas. Where would you find those kind of rules?
W: Foraging Texas is a really good site. Merriwether is probably one of the best known foragers in the state of texas and he’s got a list of resources, laws, regulations, especially for texas. Now once you get out of Texas, obviously state laws change. And other states have more public land. And even if they have equal amounts of public land, their laws will vary. Once you get out of the state, you’re fairly safe on a public… I’m trying to think of how to explain it- like, if you’re right off a highway, and you're looking at plants, you might take a few here and there. I’ve never heard of an issue, doesn’t mean there’s not one. But you would definitely want to research the area that you’re going to go into and look at the local laws. Those I don’t know as often. I do travel- most of your rest areas are going to be fairly safe. But again, you don’t want to be taking from that, almost anywhere that you’re going to be at in any state- it’s fine to go out and look for these plants, to see what’s there but I would be really hesitant to take anything unless you knew the local laws, you know, for that area.
S: Right.
W: I would say, even some of the restrictive states that have more environmental laws than other states, I think that’s really where you want to be concerned with. I mean, I would check no matter where you’re going to go, but I’ve never really harvested out of state. I’m there to identify and like, see what’s in my state. And I don’t want to give bad advice, like don’t worry, take it from a public place but as long as they’re public. But then you're pretty wide open in public places, as long as they are public, then you get into that, are you really in a public are? Are you taking things from that? Those are all considerations. Check ahead before you go because I don’t want to tell you it’s ok, and then you end up getting in trouble. The only places I’ve really harvested that would be out of Texas would be like Ecuador. Where we had to to survive. But the people that we were with already had permission.
S: Right. So they had already looked into what the laws were and knew.
W: Yeah, but in most of the countries I’ve been in, like Mexico, Costa Rica, I’ve spent a lot of time in Costa Rica. Those countries are fairly lax. There may be official rules on record, but nobody to enforce it.
S: But like you said, even if you are harvesting, you wouldn’t be taking the whole plant, you would just take enough for yourself, for what you needed.
W: In that situation, if you’re not using it to survive. If you don’t necessarily need it to eat, for nutrients, why take it?
S: Yeah.
M: Yeah.
W: Take a photo of it. That’s what I do, especially if I’m traveling. I’m like, alright, what is similar to what we have in Texas? What are the known plants in Texas that I’m seeing here in New Mexico, in Colorado, and Nevado, Oregon- wherever I’m at I want to know what would be common throughout the United States or Canada or Mexico, or all of the Americas? That’s what I was looking for when we went to Ecuador and Costa Rica. What was common across all of these countries? That keep popping up, things like dandelions, cattail, dock, like curly… We have curly dock or yellow dock. Wood sorrel was all over the place, ponyfoot, prickly pear… you know especially, in Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador. Before we got into the cloud forest, we went to the dry arid desert, it looked alot like New Mexico just with taller mountains that were coming off.
S: If listeners wanted to know more about what you do, or like we said at the beginning, you’re so diverse. How would they find you online?
W: Probably the best thing is to go to my youtube channel, Texas Wes Adams, if you want something that’s more outdoor adventure like kiteboarding, paragliding, that kind of stuff.
S: Texas Wes Adams?
W: Yes and then I have kinesiology college on youtube.
S: Ok.
W: If you just type in kinesiology college edible plants, a lot of the plant videos, some of the same ones that are in the book are on there. So if someone wanted to kind of look at it, check it out, it would have a lot of those plants on kinesiology college.
S: And you’ve written a recipe book too, right? For foraging?
W: Yeah, so what I did was take my mom’s recipes, the ones that we would have on Sundays and I integrated some of the more common edible plants, like for okra, the replacement for that would be devil’s claw. Very similar in taste but a little bit more bitter. So you’ll really want to fry it to get some of that bitterness out. But yeah, I just took some of my mom’s recipes and mixed it in. Like we were talking about with wild onions, in the recipe if you don’t have wild onions, you can go get green onions in the store. And some of these plants that you would forage for you can find in the store. Like black walnut. There’s a black walnut pie in there. And it tastes totally different than English walnut. It has a good taste but it has an aftertaste, so I think that’s why it’s not common.
M: Ok.
W: Mesquite flour, anybody that likes chocolate, that is a really good flour. A lot of these will come with their own recipes on the back of the packaging. The problem with mesquite flour, kind of like black walnut, is that it has a chocolatey taste so you can use it in similar recipes, like brownies, and chocolate cake but it has an aftertaste. A strong aftertaste.
S: So be prepared.
W: Be prepared.
S: Well look for a bunch of links in the show notes so people can find you. Is there anything else you want to tell us? This is fascinating.
W: I think it’s a great skill to have. And it’s one of those that you want to learn before you need it. It’s not something that you can learn off the cuff. That’s how people get themselves in trouble, they try to rush it. Take your time, make sure you know that plant. Make sure you know it well. If you’re thinking about consuming it, it’s a good idea to have an expert in the field verify what you found. Especially if you’re brand new to it and you don't have a family history, get someone else to verify that you made the correct identification and know those most toxic plants or at least the edible plants that have the mimic, the toxic mimic so you don’t get yourself in trouble.
M: Good advice.
S: That’s really, really good advice. So are there foraging groups in most cities or areas that you could become part of if this is something you’re interested in?
W: In Merriwether’s Foraging Texas, that website I mentioned earlier, that’s probably the best resource to begin with. Because not only does he put on classes and you’d have an expert in the field. I mean, this guy has been around, I’ve learned a lot from him. And if you look at a lot of my references, they come from him. And he’s not the only one, but I know where he’s got a lot of his sources for. There’s the Mormon book, which is a popular foraging book and he’s pulled a lot of his stuff from it, but he has a family history like me, but even more so. His website is probably the best all around resource for finding classes, getting in with groups, just the knowledge that is on that website is amazing and how he’s put it together.
S: Alright well we’ll link that one too in our show notes.
M: Yeah.
W: That would be my go to, like before you invest in a book, start there and if you’re truly interested learn a couple of plants from that and if you want something more permanent, then buy a book.
S: Excellent, wow!
M: Sounds good.
S: Well thank you so much Wes, this was great!
M: Thank you!
W: Yeah, I liked it. This was cool.
S: Thanks everybody.
M: Thank you.
M: Thank you so much to Dr. Adams for being our first interview and sharing his expertise on foraging. If you would like more information on foraging, we’ve got some links on our show notes at YourNutritionPRrofs.com. You can purchase Dr. Adams books on Amazon, watch either of his two youtube channels (@Texas Wes Adams or @Kineisology College) or connect with him on instagram @Texas_Wes_Adams. We’ee linked these as well.
S: Join us next week for what we're calling “Season’s Eatings” an episode all about holiday food
Both: Class dismissed
S: We hope you enjoyed this episode. You can find the show notes and a list of sources on our website, yournutritionprofs.com.
M: Your homework is to follow us at your nutrition profs on Instagram and to listen to our next episode. You can listen on Amazon Prime, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere podcasts are found. We’d appreciate it if you’d “like” us, write a review, subscribe, and invite your family and friends to join us too.
S: If you have a nutrition or health question you’d like answered, let us know! We may do a show about it! Send an email to [email protected] or click on the “Contact Us” page on our website: yournutritionprofs.com
M: Thanks to Brian Pittman for creating our artwork. You can find him on instagram @BrianPittman77
Both: See you next time!