The golden rule of safe foraging is: before you eat a plant or mushroom, you need to either get to know it well, which can take years, or consult an expert. An expert is a human being who is thoroughly familiar with what you intend to eat.
Make sure they look at all of it, not just a sample. You do not know enough to decide whether it’s all the same thing. For example, just because some white mushrooms are edible doesn’t mean that all white mushrooms are edible. Some are actually deadly. Although very few mushrooms are deadly or even toxic, many of those that are are quite common.
For a given edible, you are not an expert until you know “who, what, where, when, how, and why.”
WHO
Until you have spent a long time with an edible, sometimes years, anything else can “look alike.” Two plants or mushrooms that look different to you today can look the same to you tomorrow. Just like us, plants and mushrooms change throughout their lives, which can last a season, decades, or as little as a few days.
WHAT
Which part is edible? Yew is a shrub with red berries. The flesh of the berry is edible; all other parts — the seed, leaves, bark, and roots — are deadly.
WHERE
Where is the plant or mushroom growing? Is the location contaminated, such as near a building, a road, or in landscaping that has been sprayed? If so, then what was edible is now toxic. If you’ve already gathered it without thinking about where, an expert cannot help you to not poison yourself for that reason.
WHEN
Some plants are only edible at certain stages. Poke leaf is edible young and toxic thereafter. A mushroom is no longer edible once it’s rotten.
HOW
Edibles must be properly prepared, eaten in moderation, and even then, you might be allergic. Morel mushrooms and bamboo shoots and both deadly raw. Some people can eat violet leaves, pawpaw fruit, daylily shoots, wisteria flowers, and sunchoke tubers freely; others can eat only some or none without severe GI upset. And even if you know all the above, the people you live with may not, so consider labeling your edibles with “XXX.”
WHY
This probably sounds so complicated. Why bother? Because you don’t really have a choice. The edibles in your area are what makes it home. Unless you want to always feel lonely and never quite at home, it’s time to eat the neighbors.
For 300,000 years, foraging is what every human did. It was easy because we never did it alone. Nor did we ever feel that way.