In recent months I have found myself surprisingly spellbound by studying, searching, and subsisting on the wild shrubs, seeds, shrooms, and seaweeds (to my perplexity, they're a polyphyletic pile of prodigious protists, in place of the presumed pelagic plants) that sprout in my surroundings (southwest UK). For now, fortune favours my family with fields and forests full of fresh fragrant fruits. But is it too terrific to be true? Is this in fact a foolish fad, ready to be ruined at random by a ransack of rancidity and retching?

Non-exhaustive examples of foul fates include severe suffering, disabling injury, or death arising from:

• Gastrointestinal infections via ingested pathogens or parasites aka 'food poisoning' (e.g. campylobacter, norovirus, liver fluke)

• Ingested toxins aka regular poisoning, whether natural (e.g. death cap, hemlock water-dropwort) or artificial (e.g. toxic metals, pesticides)

• Physical defence mechanisms of plants (e.g. thorns, spines)

• Physical accidents (e.g. falling off a cliff, drowning in a river, whacking my head on a rock)

• Getting lost or stuck in the wilderness

• Conflict with people (e.g. land owners, police, gangs, serial killers)

• Conflict with animals (e.g. cattle, deer, adders, wasps)

The foul fate should occur during or plausibly due to a foraging session to qualify. For suffering alone to qualify as a foul fate, it must be severe enough that I regret ever pursuing the hobby. For reference, the numerous nettle stings and light bramble thorn scratches on my legs and hands I received recently don't qualify, but a thorn hypothetically scratching or piercing my eyeball almost certainly would.

My current main information sources on identification/edibility are:

• The Forager's Calendar by John Wright

• Collins Gem Food for Free by Richard Mabey

• Wikipedia

• iNaturalist

• Wild Food UK

• Bing Copilot AI (just to point in right direction)

Things I've already successfully foraged and feasted free of foul fates:

• Cherries

• Strawberries

• Blackcurrants

• Blackberries

• Water mint

Things I've foraged but haven't got around to trying yet:

• Stinging nettle seeds

• Elderberries

Things I've spotted but haven't foraged yet (often due to not being right time of year):

• Fibre, vitamins, and minerals stuff

  • Fruits

    • Sloes

    • Cherry plums

    • Crab apples

    • Hawthorn berries

    • Rowan berries

  • Veg plants

    • Stinging nettle leaves

    • Dandelions

    • Sea beets

    • Wild onions*

    • Wild leeks*

  • Fungi

    • Oak moss* (actually a lichen, don't ask)

  • Seaweeds

    • Bladderwrack

    • Gutweed

• Proteins and fats stuff (seeds, nuts, and beans)

  • Poppy seeds

  • Beech nuts

  • Hazelnuts

  • Acorns

  • Chestnuts

• Starchy carbohydrate stuff (cereals, tubers, and pulps)

  • Oats

  • Silverweed*

* Suspected but not yet certain identification

Things I haven't spotted yet but am familiar with and looking out for:

• Fibre, vitamins, and minerals stuff

  • Fruits

    • Raspberries

    • Cranberries

    • Plums

    • Service fruit / chequers

  • Veg plants

    • Watercress

    • Wild garlic/ramsons

    • Chickweed

    • Common mallow

  • Fungi

    • Giant puffballs

    • Common puffballs

    • Hedgehog mushrooms

    • Chicken of the woods

    • Beefsteak fungus

    • Summer truffles

  • Seaweeds

    • Dulse

    • Pepper dulse

    • Oar weed

    • Sugar kelp

    • Sea spaghetti

• Proteins and fats stuff (seeds, nuts, and beans)

  • Radish seed pods

  • Sunflower seeds

  • Walnuts

• Starchy carbohydrates stuff (cereals, tubers, and pulps)

  • Pignuts

  • Burdock

  • Sea holly

  • Goatsbeard

  • Common reed

  • Bulrush