Yew Berries?

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baggins

Full Member
Apr 20, 2005
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To be honest, yes they do taste ok, like wild jelly tots. But i really would refrain from eating them. As someone else has said, it only takes one ill informed person to see you do it and (in this day and age of digital media) before long somebody could be copying.
IMO the risk factor is higher than the nutritional and taste benefits.
 

punkrockcaveman

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Jan 28, 2017
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yorks
To be honest, yes they do taste ok, like wild jelly tots. But i really would refrain from eating them. As someone else has said, it only takes one ill informed person to see you do it and (in this day and age of digital media) before long somebody could be copying.
IMO the risk factor is higher than the nutritional and taste benefits.

That is a good description! And yes I completely understand your point of view, I've been almost regretting opening this thread all day (worried that it might encourage someone to be poisoned) however I think this thread has actually turned into a very useful discussion not just about yew berries but awareness of potentially toxic wild foods we might come across. I feel like it is more useful for would be foragers to see this thread and understand rather than be told 'don't eat that it will kill you' if that makes sense?
 

TeeDee

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Nov 6, 2008
10,447
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That is a good description! And yes I completely understand your point of view, I've been almost regretting opening this thread all day (worried that it might encourage someone to be poisoned) however I think this thread has actually turned into a very useful discussion not just about yew berries but awareness of potentially toxic wild foods we might come across. I feel like it is more useful for would be foragers to see this thread and understand rather than be told 'don't eat that it will kill you' if that makes sense?


No need to feel an air of dread.

You are only responsible for your own actions and outcome. That is personal accountability.

UNLESS you are a paid instructor and you're not acting in front of young impressionable minds.

Literally imagine all the other things out there that are potentially dangerous in the everyday world yet we all feel no automatic connection of culpability because of that.
 
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chimpy leon

Full Member
Jul 29, 2013
543
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staffordshire
I find them very sweet but a bit flavourless. Not unpleasant though. The juice has a sticky consistency like syrup.

Oh and make sure you spit out the seeds, they are poisonous don’t you know. :D
 

Toddy

Mod
Mod
Jan 21, 2005
38,937
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S. Lanarkshire
It is a syrupy like gloop, isn't it. Kind of like the jelly cubes we used to pop onto the top of our hot custard when we were little.

It's a little more than mind and spit out the seeds though, it's mind and not scrape the seeds with your teeth too.

I like them, but maybe folks are right to think of them as the fugu of the plant world :)
 

baggins

Full Member
Apr 20, 2005
1,563
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Coventry (and surveying trees uk wide)
That is a good description! And yes I completely understand your point of view, I've been almost regretting opening this thread all day (worried that it might encourage someone to be poisoned) however I think this thread has actually turned into a very useful discussion not just about yew berries but awareness of potentially toxic wild foods we might come across. I feel like it is more useful for would be foragers to see this thread and understand rather than be told 'don't eat that it will kill you' if that makes sense?

That is very true. This time of year, we spend all our free time out foraging for goodies and the number of folk we talk to who are interested but too scared to try it is amazing. Trying to educate people on what is good and what is not (and what scare stories the media are trying to peddle) is the first step in allowing folk to get closer to nature.
 

Spirit fish

Banned
Aug 12, 2021
338
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31
Doncaster
So I came across some ripe yew berries yesterday evening. After reading up about them recently I decided to try them. They were super soft, really watery almost, but kind of sugary-sticky, gloopy like. So I just popped one in my mouth and sucked the juice out of them and spat the pip out as per guidelines. I can't quite believe how sugary they are, like grenadine syrup!

Has anyone else tried them? Is there a way to process a whole bunch of them? Can you steep them for a sugary tea or squeeze them? Just a little concerned about the pip in the middle but they seem well worth the effort.

Discalimer: Please don't eat the pip/seed as it is poisonous.
yeh there like nature's energy gels don't eat to many there laxative . Good syrup inside
 
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