Edible Wild Food (Thistles) - Wild Food School #2

[micers]

Boil the leaves it will make the leaves edible.

[SonattaMorales]

thank you for the excellent video!

[dougie336]

can you eat prickly sow thistles? if so which parts. great vid thanks :)

[Douglas12982]

Are you able to eat the root of a thistle? Are there any poisonous species of thistle that I would have to worry about eating? (roots or leaves)? Please let me know. By the way: great video.

[wildfoodschool]

There may well be members of the thistle family outside northern temperate zones which are poisonous, but I am not familiar with them. As for roots... the roots of the spear and field thistle are edible but not very exciting, while I have tackled the root of the Cotton Thistle [Onopordon acanthium] with no ill effect although it isn't generally listed in any of the foraging books. The stems of the marsh thistle are the best.

[AdamHintz]

How do you prepare bull thistle flower heads?

[wildfoodschool]

That's an Americanism I believe, and is what we call the Spear thistle. If that's the case then there's not a great deal to do with them on the edible side except to cook the fresh heads on embers and then dig out the receptacle at the bottom of the flowerhead.

[AdamHintz]

Thanks!

[feralkevin]

Great video!