edibility of honey locust leaves/pods

In another thread, Dave mentioned eating honey locust pods. 

I've heard a lot of conflicting information on this.  Which probably indicates that it isn't a simple "edible" or "not edible".

I've heard that the pod seeds are too hard to eat.  But I know that squirrels will fish the seeds out of the pods.  And then I heard that you can feed the pods to cattle, and that the seeds just pass right through.

Dave!  What's the word! 

I would think if pods were used for human consumption, they would have to be used at immature stage, where the seeds aren't hard yet, like eating snap peas.  The mature pods I have broken open before and tasted the miniscule amount of honey that is in them.  Mature seeds would have to be grounded to have much use.  I feed goats the pods and the seeds pass through them and where ever I put the manure, have tons of seedlings coming up. 
I also have bought 4 different grafted honey locusts that suppose to produce good yields. 

There are two products here. 1) The seed & 2) The gooey stuff inside the pod between the seeds. This is very similar to tamarind or carob. As I understand sheep can digest the seeds, but most other animals can't. Either way animals will derive nutrition from the pods.

I found this information at http://www.pvcc.edu/faculty/awilson/agroforestry/, which I suggest reading if you want info on honeylocust or sources for grafted or seedling trees. That is the website of the chairperson of the honeylocust special interest group at NAFEX (North American Fruit Explorers). It includes research newsletters, etc. In other words, the author is probably one of the foremost authorities on honeylocust in the US.

Regarding the amount they produce, I would expect that random seedlings may not be the most productive. There has actually been a bit of work done on this. Thus we have several varieties of honeylocust that have been selected for pod production, notably Millwood & Calhoun.

Another great source on using honeylocust for agroforestry is Tree Crops: a Permanent Agriculture by J. Russell Smith.

As for human food, I don't think this has been explored in depth. I know that Keawe trees (a similar tropical cousin) produce similar pods which can be harvested and milled for a protein rich supplement (it tastes like Bit-O-Honey candies!). Advanced processing equipment may allow for the processing of the hard seeds as well as the pods. Either way, I've never seen the pods from a selected honeylocust. I'm eager to see if they provide more gooey goodness than your run of the mill tree.

The awesome thing about honeylocust for livestock is that their food is right on the trees and it falls on their head. However, I wonder if you could process the pods somehow (milling?) to crush up the seeds and make them digestable to more animals? If so, I suspect it would increase their protein content as a feed source.

*Addendum: I just read the summary statement at http://www.pvcc.edu/faculty/awilson/agroforestry/HoneylocustAgroforestry.htm. Apparently you can grind the pods to crush the seeds and feed them to cattle and goats as well.

*Another addendum: At the same link as above I found this interesting blurb of info that should provide an answer to a much asked question:

Honeylocust is a member of the leguminous family, but lacks the root nodules where bacteria symbiotically fix atmospheric nitrogen.  For this reason honeylocust was thought not to fix nitrogen.  Recent research at Yale University in the USA suggests that honeylocust does fix nitrogen directly in its roots without the formation of nodules.  Further research now being conducted will most likely confirm the ability of honeylocust to fix nitrogen although at lower levels than nodulating leguminous species.

So it sounds like the research will show that honeylocust fixes nitrogen, but not in the same way as other legumes, thus making it hard to confirm up to this point. This was strongly suspected due to its ability to thrive in nutrient poor conditions. I'm just excited that we've finally got some sort of answer from an expert on that issue!

I just got some seedlings from Millwood & Inermis Prolific. I'd like to get some more and plant out an area for future fall pasture. We'll see how they grow!

Cheers!

Dave

this made my day again! I just went to the wooded part of our property yesterday with the main purpose of trying to identify some of the trees. my dh cut some nice paths for me with the brush hog and after gathering a handful of blackberries to start my walk  I found many many honey locusts....I think......how do I distinguish between honey locust and black locust....isn't black locust toxic??? anyway. I figured that was what was bringing the deer in but I was unaware that it had the potential to be utilized as a food source by humans. oh and...apparently the thorns are a bit of a nuisance when they come whipping back at you after being pushed by the tractor though so says my hsuband! yikes!

Thanks for the info Paul and Dave.   We have black locust and are planting a lot more of them for future use of the wood.    We are going to double fence between paddocks with a 10 foot spacing for a variety of trees and shrubs and the honey locust sound like an excellent addition.  If sheep can digest the pods, I would think goats could also.   My neighbors all told me when I moved here, my trees were honey locust but further research proved they are black locust.    I found this link to photos of honey locust and the page contains a link to photos of black locust. 

http://www.pbase.com/hjsteed/foliage_locust
 
Lots of sites about black locust being poisonous.  Our goats reach over the fence and occasionally eat the leaves and chew the bark and don't seem bothered by it.  This occurs in areas where they have plenty of other food choices.

http://cal.vet.upenn.edu/projects/poison/plants/ppblack.htm

Black locust leaflets are somewhat rounded, while honeylocust leaflets are smaller & narrow. See pics below.

Also, honeylocust will have have much longer thorns (2-6 inches!) unless it is a thornless variety. Black locust have shorter thorns.

Leaf pics below: Black Locust first, Honeylocust second (the honeylocust pic is zoomed in further than the black locust).

Dave

Here are some pics of the thorns for reference: Black Locust first, honeylocust (Yikes! You've got to be impressed by any tree with thorns on its thorns!) second.

Dave

here's what I've got.......now that I can see them side by side in the posts I think I have honey locust! do you agree?

Those are definitely honeylocust. The scientific name Gleditsia triacanthos actually means:

[font=Times]'Tri-' = Three
+
'Canthus' = Spine
----------------------
'triacanthos' = triple spined![/font]

Keep an eye on them and see if they're productive. If so, you could consider some clearing for pasture. If not, you could consider grafting them to productive varieties. Or, of course, you could leave them just as they are. There's something about a thorny, knotty mass in the right spot that's just perfect.

Dave

An enormous amount of information about black locust, with a focus on using it for animal feed:

http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/theses/available/etd-11242003-154755/unrestricted/etd.pdf

paul wheaton wrote:
An enormous amount of information about black locust, with a focus on using it for animal feed:

http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/theses/available/etd-11242003-154755/unrestricted/etd.pdf

Thanks Paul, that is extremely helpful to me.

Gary,

As you are reading that, if you come across any interesting points you can summarize, could you please share them here?  Every time I look at that document, my mind tends to wander off.

paul wheaton wrote:
Gary,

As you are reading that, if you come across any interesting points you can summarize, could you please share them here?  Every time I look at that document, my mind tends to wander off.

  I couldn't read it either, I found an easier to read source.  Seems to be similar information. 
http://www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/plants/tree/robpse/all.html

I gathered from it that wacking the black locust of at .5 meters (about 1.5 feet) created the most forage material for the goats. the acid detergent and neutral detergent fibers (qualities of the feed) changed due to the growing conditions of that year (moisture/temp).

it has been shown to be as good a feed as alfalfa for goats in terms of weight gain. it produces a large amount of edible material in comparison to other browse species they tested.

it resprouts easily and it reproduces mainly from what amounts to suckers in my opinion but they don't call it that. they don't produce seed till they are six....I wonder if they produce seed even if they are wacked back to 1.5 feet?

produces excellent honey and is used in germany for that purpose.

it is prone to several insect infestations that prevent its use for commercial timber. its great for wood peckers.

the bark is the most toxic. and horses are particularly susceptable with death not being unusual after ingestion. cows are about 1/10 as sensitive as horses and not info about goat and little about sheep is available. (but since they used the leaves to feed goats to compare to alfalfa with great success I think it is safe to assume the foliage at least is safe for goats)

the leaves are extremely toxic to chickens.

tannins are a concern (or a good thing in my opinion if it is used appropriatly as tannins are shown to reduce parasites in goats) at low levels they can reduce bloat and increase bypass protein *protein that bypasses the rumen to be digested in the "second stomach" I dont' have enough time to figure out the molecular make up of tannins today to determine whether bl has the effective ones

thats  the useful info I got out of it.

I'm jumping in even though I know nothing of the honey locust just trying to learn more.  But...just reading this thread it reminds me a bit of mesquite.  Mesquite pod milling is becoming big here in the Southern Arizona with various groups, permies, native americans, etc getting grants to buy a hammermill.  Then individuals come and bring their pods to a milling event and pay a nominal fee to get their pods milled into flour.  The hammermill grinds up the hard seed also.  See more at http://www.desertharvesters.org/

Maybe if honey locust proves to be a great flour like mesquite, local permie groups could do something similar.

HOLY CRAP them are some nasty thorns.

aren't there some sorts of THORNless honeylocusts?

are the seeds viable, will they grow plants fairly easily? I know they tend to spread from runners.

if there are seeds available of thornless ones and if they are viable and will grow in zone 5, i would like to try some thornless ones..on my property..anyone that would like to send me some seed i'll pay postage for them..thanks..

JL Hudson has seeds of thornless honeylocust.  They grow easily from seed if you soak it first.

http://www.jlhudsonseeds.net/SeedlistF-G.htm

Hi all,
I'm new here and this is my first post. I'm so happy to have found this group!

We are trying to encourage the thorned honey locust on our property lines, to create stock tight hedges.

When we put up our fences, (5 and 6 strand high tensile electric) we installed it about 6 feet inside the property line.  Then we planted honey  locusts and rugosa roses right on the boundary. The hope is that by the time the fence is rotting away, the hedge will be established.

We also tried hawthorns, but have given up on those because they are  PIA fussy about transplanting. 

You might also want to try Osage Orange/ Bois d'Arc, which has been used for stock fence hedging in the past.

Our sheep like to eat honeylocust trees, so I'm not convinced they can be an effective stock fence.

this text often refers to them as edible as well as for fodder.

http://soultutor.com/pdf/Food/Garden/Forest%20Farming.pdf

gary gregory wrote:Thanks for the info Paul and Dave.   We have black locust and are planting a lot more of them for future use of the wood.    We are going to double fence between paddocks with a 10 foot spacing for a variety of trees and shrubs and the honey locust sound like an excellent addition.  If sheep can digest the pods, I would think goats could also.   My neighbors all told me when I moved here, my trees were honey locust but further research proved they are black locust.    I found this link to photos of honey locust and the page contains a link to photos of black locust. 

http://www.pbase.com/hjsteed/foliage_locust
 
Lots of sites about black locust being poisonous.  Our goats reach over the fence and occasionally eat the leaves and chew the bark and don't seem bothered by it.  This occurs in areas where they have plenty of other food choices.

http://cal.vet.upenn.edu/projects/poison/plants/ppblack.htm

Black locust is not poisonous. This is a very common myth. Samual Thayer and Eul Gibbons (two edible plant book authors) both claim to have eaten black locust seeds in large amounts with no ill effects. I have not eaten them, but I plan to in the near future and have no concerns. Also black locust flowers are edible and I have eaten them in large amounts.

As for honey locust, I have eaten the hard mature seeds (roasted and boiled). Roasted they are soft enough to consume, though still a bit harder then anything you would normally eat. A bit of a sweet flavor. Taste pretty good, but it's a bit like eating a sunflower shell (in texture). Boiled I have made a honey locust pie (taste like sweet patato pie), by boiling then mashing the seeds. But they still give a very unusual texture, they are soft, but unlike any texture found in normal foods (and most people were not fond of it).

Samual Thayer states that immature black locust seeds are preferable to mature black locust seeds and I suspect the same holds true for honey locust. Though I have yet to try immature honey locust seeds (but will be doing so soon).

I found the Honey Locust pods to taste moderately yucky. Slightly bitter slightly sweet. I imagine the taste varies as to soil. Most wild foods in our soil here are more or less bitter.

Brenda Groth wrote:HOLY CRAP them are some nasty thorns.

And they are poisonous! You get stuck and don't take care of it right you may be losing whatever got stuck, or at least lose that muscle group and leave a nasty scar. Many old farmers in these parts had lost toes or fingers or forearm muscle to thorn infections--almost as many that lost them to the machinery.

The thorn is the first thing that comes out of the ground, too. A 4 inch sapling with three 3 inch spikes--natural caltrops. I lose tires to them every year, and several pairs of shoes. They will go through any shoe and many boots. Hard to spot in the grass, too.

R Scott wrote:

Brenda Groth wrote:HOLY CRAP them are some nasty thorns.

And they are poisonous! You get stuck and don't take care of it right you may be losing whatever got stuck, or at least lose that muscle group and leave a nasty scar. Many old farmers in these parts had lost toes or fingers or forearm muscle to thorn infections--almost as many that lost them to the machinery.

The thorn is the first thing that comes out of the ground, too. A 4 inch sapling with three 3 inch spikes--natural caltrops. I lose tires to them every year, and several pairs of shoes. They will go through any shoe and many boots. Hard to spot in the grass, too.

Yes, so true, we have roped off areas to be sure no one parks there when they come to our house, been impaled through shoes, stuck by a branch ...painful and some inflamation for awhile and they do not decompose for a loooong time....I've been stuck though a glove from thorns in mulch. We have a "grove" of mostly black and some honey along with persimmon, muscadine and wild plum but we don't encourage any elsewhere.

We eat and preserve a lot of wild foods but haven't considered locust yet, it's never seemed like a very inviting tree.

Yeah. I know a guy who refers to his honey locust trees as "tire poppers".

I know it's an old thread but I thought I would chime in with my own experience attempting to taste honey locust pods.

For me, at least, they are highly allergenic.

It was last fall (pods already dry, still hanging on trees) when I decided to Google the thorny horrors that are reclaiming our former pasture. Discovered that they were Honey Locusts and that the pods were supposed to have a sweet substance inside.

So I cracked one open and put a tiny shred of the dried innards in my mouth. Yup, sweet! Put a slightly larger shred in my mouth, this time including perhaps a fragment of the pod itself.

Instant allergic reaction. Coughing, wheezing, mouth tingling, throat starting to swell up. Spat everything out, came inside, rinsed out my mouth, took a Benedryl. Symptoms went away, no harm done. But no honey locust pods for me!

That was probably in September. Fast forward five months, to today. I decided to pick up a bunch of dried pods and break out the seeds for saving. I've seen people looking for thorny Honey Locust seeds on various forum threads recently, so maybe trade goods to help me get a plant I want? Seemed like a good idea.

So there I am, sitting on my easy chair, leaned back, plate of pods resting on my chest right in my nearsighted field of vision, crunching them up and flipping the seeds into a pile on the plate. And darn me if breathing the dust from the crumbling pods didn't start making my throat tingle and close up!

I'll finish that project outside at arms length on my garden table on a day when there's some air motion to carry the dust away from me.

Obviously allergies are highly personal. But since I haven't seen any warnings about the allergenic potential of Honey Locust, I thought I should post this here for cautionary use by future tasters.

Yeah, for sure. I didn't have an allergic reaction, but here's my thoughts from another thread....

Johnny Niamert wrote:Watch out for the dust.
I don't know what sneezing powder is made from, but I suggest honey locust pod dust.

Old thread I know, but there doesn't seem to be much information out there about eating honey locust so I thought I'd add my experience. I have a mature thorn-less (but not pod-less) honey locust in my yard, every year it produces a number of pods and I find if I pick them when they are immature and the seeds inside are soft they are quite good, something like edamame. Our tree does not produce a lot of seeds though, in spite of the massive number of blossoms in the spring.

I ate some immature seeds this past summer and thought they were pretty good. I didn't eat a large quantity so I am no testament as to whether or not they are toxic.

This past fall I went to a nearby park and raked a truck load (well a small truck load) of the pods. The ground was covered with them, and there were still tons on the tree.



We ran out of time and did not haul all of them, but there would have been probably three loads like the one on the picture.



I was talking to a friend about them earlier this week and he thought he read somewhere that the pulp is edible, but the beans are toxic. So I called my dad who fed some of the ones we raked to his pigs and he told me that they liked them and did not show any signs of illness.

I also found this USDA document (http://plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/pg_gltr.pdf) that reports the following:

The geographic range of honey-locust probably was extended by Indians who dried the legumes, ground the dried pulp, and used it as a sweetener and thickener, although the pulp also is reported to be irritating to the throat and somewhat toxic. Fermenting the pulp can make a potable or energy alcohol. Native Americans sometimes ate cooked seeds, they have also been roasted and used as a coffee substitute.

J. Russel Smith also talks about them in Tree Crops as a great feed for livestock. He doesn't say however if the seed are digested by the animals or if they just go through their digestive system.

Sam Thayer, author of The Forager's Harvest, points out insightfully that myths about toxicity spread and persist, but myths about edibility don't.

I don't know if anyone still needs this information, but here are some comparisons between the black locust and honey locust.  They aren't really hard to distinguish once you've seen them both.

This post seems to have been resurrected from the dead a number of times, so hopefully it's not a problem that I'm doing it again! Reading the posts above, I wasn't particularly excited about the potential of eating honey locust pods, until I stumbled upon this: http://ledameredith.com/make-carob-honey-locust-pod-powder/

As mentioned above, in Forager's Harvest, Thayer talks quite a bit about eating the flowers and the green seeds (some here have already talked about the latter), but these are two different genera, so who really knows if that carries over. But Thayer doesn't mention, nor can I find any mention anywhere else, of treating the pods like carob pods. But it would seem to make sense given the "honey" substance in the pods. I definitely plan to try this next season.

Update: I also just found some information from this site (http://www.wildpantry.com/beans.htm), though it doesn't provide much in terms of citations. It backs up the eating young pods/seeds idea, and mentions two intriguing other ideas, including using the seeds as a coffee substitute (though I've read in two other places that the result comes out more like a tea) and brewing beer from the sugary pods. The site also mentions that average sugar content of the pods is 12-14% of weight (again, seemingly without citation), which compares pretty favorably with things like sugar cane and sugar beet. Feels like this tree has untapped potential!

Hello All,

I just wanted to provide an update on my experiments with Honey Locust this season, hopefully it encourages other people to try next year and we can do some testing.

In searching in my area for good sources for pods, I found two. One was at my old alma mater, Rowan University here in South Jersey. I found those pods in late September, maybe very early October. From what I'd read about the cultivated "Hershey" variety, which is known for its large pods, about 16 pods could add up to a pound. The pods from this site were close to that large, with maybe 18 or so adding up to a pound. However, I only took 6 or 7 pods, since this was my first time actually trying them and I didn't want to take a ton if they weren't my bag. I thought these were delicious and the pulp tasted like an overripe (in a good way) sweet banana. I'd seen various reports about whether you can pick them ripe off the tree, or should wait until they fall, but I picked these off the tree and they were really tasty – even my wife, who's usually skeptical of my new plant adventures – liked them.

The other pods I found were actually on my current college campus, where I'm in grad school. I collected these much later, just at the very beginning of November. Because it was over a month later, all of these pods were collected from the ground. The pods were notably smaller than the earlier tree, and so there was less pulp, but it was still relatively the same in taste to me. As a basic test of whether I'd be able to eat the outer pod as well (if ground up according to the Carob/Honey Locust powder recipe I listed in my last post, above), I bit the pod and chewed a bit, trying to get out the "honey" that way. It worked, but I felt like there was a faint "spicy" feeling in the back of my throat (felt more like way on the back of my tongue). Didn't give it too much thought, though, since I'd incidentally chewed a little on the earlier pods and didn't have any sort of reaction. I collected a bunch of these pods to make into a "cocoa powder" as that recipe described.

I soaked, removed seeds from, roasted, and dryed the pods, then put them into my food processor to blend up into powder. Sieved it for the finest stuff. A better blender to make a finer powder would have been preferable. Still, the finished product was definitely fine enough to treat like a cocoa powder, and looked like this:



To test it out, I decided to try making my favorite cocoa-based treat: brownies! (or, in this case, "locusties?"). I followed a recipe for making carob-based brownies, and they came out nice and moist and sweet, texturally just like I like them. They came out looking more like blondies than brownies. Bottom line on these: If you're looking for something that will replace chocolate, or even carob (a replacement of a replacement), you're out of luck. They really tasted good and pretty unique to me, but not chocolatey by even the farthest stretch of the imagination (and I can stretch quite a bit). Here's a picture of the finished product:


Here things got a bit weird. I ate the first "brownie" and that familiar spice/tingling at the back of my tongue was definitely there, and because I'd eaten a large amount of the product, seemed more prominent. I also felt very slightly light-headed and it felt like my heart rate picked up while my breathing got slightly heavier. I'm totally food allergy free and also typically oblivious to things like that in my body, so the effect was definitely significant in order for me to notice. This effect only lasted for a couple of minutes, but is still enough to make me a bit weary. Here are what I imagine are possible explanations:

1. I have some sort of slight allergy to honey locust. This is possible, but it just doesn't seem likely given how much of the sweet stuff I've sucked out of the pods of the first tree I tried. I know in doing that I must have gotten some pieces of the pod, and they did not give me that weird tingly feeling.

2. Something changes in the composition of the pods between their early harvest time and their very late harvest time. After roasting I did notice a hole in one or two of the pods, as if a creature had gotten in and eaten some of the good stuff out. But I got that tingle even just form chewing the outside of the pod, so it doesn't seem like it would be the result of spoiling – plus, the sugars, which I'd expect to go sour way before the more durable outside pods, were still good.

3. The batch of pods I ultimately turned into my "cocoa powder" (the second ones, from my current campus) were from younger trees, and were also definitely thornless Honey Locust (Gleditsia inermis), whereas I am 95% sure the first batch Honey Locust was the thorned, tricanthos variety. I wish I'd paid closer attention to this, but I was just so excited to find a tree with such large pods! I plan to go back in the next week or two and double check myself here. If I'm right, this could mean tricanthos is suitable food, while inermis should probably be avoided. I plan to test this next year by testing both groups of trees, both in September and then both again near the end of their season. This should help determine if there is a difference between the two groups of trees and, if there is, whether this is due to timing or species differences.

Hopefully other folks will try this as well, so we can figure out the uses and limitations of this really cool tree!

I would like to chime in here to point out that most tree "species" have rather a lot of genetic diversity within the species, which is why it's so common to plant a fruit tree seed and get a very different sort of fruit tree from the seedling.  Or why every wild persimmon tree has a different amount of tannins and gets ripe at a slightly different time of year.  

Thus it seems to me (who am highly allergic to the several honey locust trees that I've sampled growing on my own property) perfectly reasonable to imagine that the allergen I'm reacting to may not be universally present -- or present in the same amounts -- in every honey locust tree within the species.  We might react to the pods from one tree, but not the pods from another tree growing half an acre away.

Sadly I'm not inclined to make the experiment.  This is the only thing I've got a dramatic allergic reaction to, but it's sufficiently unpleasant I don't like to monkey with it.

Lew Bivona wrote:As a basic test of whether I'd be able to eat the outer pod as well (if ground up according to the Carob/Honey Locust powder recipe I listed in my last post, above), I bit the pod and chewed a bit, trying to get out the "honey" that way. It worked, but I felt like there was a faint "spicy" feeling in the back of my throat (felt more like way on the back of my tongue).

Thank you so much for the detailed description, Lew! I'm researching honey locust processing prior to buying some Calhoun, Millwood and Hershey cultivars - and I can find a lot more practical reports of processing results for the related Mesquite pod. Desert Harvesters' mesquite processing tips strongly supports your idea that it was the specific tree itself that caused you the problem.

Desert Harvesters wrote:Once you have found a tree that you want to pick from go ahead and TASTE one of the pods (watch out for the very hard seeds). If it tastes good to you, go ahead and pick from that tree. The flavor can vary widely from one tree to the next. If you are unfamiliar with the taste of good mesquite, it is a good idea to sample pods from several different trees..... The four undesirable characteristics you want to avoid in any pod are: bitter, chalky, or causing a burning sensation in back of the throat, or drying of the mouth. ... Keep in mind that no matter how you cook or process your mesquite pods, if you start with any undesirable characteristic in your pods, this will carry through into your end product.

I'm used to the idea of specific plants tasting more bitter than their neighbors, but this specific symptom being an individual trait is surprising!

Lew Bivona wrote:Hello All,

I just wanted to provide an update on my experiments with Honey Locust this season, hopefully it encourages other people to try next year and we can do some testing.

In searching in my area for good sources for pods, I found two. One was at my old alma mater, Rowan University here in South Jersey. I found those pods in late September, maybe very early October. From what I'd read about the cultivated "Hershey" variety, which is known for its large pods, about 16 pods could add up to a pound. The pods from this site were close to that large, with maybe 18 or so adding up to a pound. However, I only took 6 or 7 pods, since this was my first time actually trying them and I didn't want to take a ton if they weren't my bag. I thought these were delicious and the pulp tasted like an overripe (in a good way) sweet banana. I'd seen various reports about whether you can pick them ripe off the tree, or should wait until they fall, but I picked these off the tree and they were really tasty – even my wife, who's usually skeptical of my new plant adventures – liked them.

The other pods I found were actually on my current college campus, where I'm in grad school. I collected these much later, just at the very beginning of November. Because it was over a month later, all of these pods were collected from the ground. The pods were notably smaller than the earlier tree, and so there was less pulp, but it was still relatively the same in taste to me. As a basic test of whether I'd be able to eat the outer pod as well (if ground up according to the Carob/Honey Locust powder recipe I listed in my last post, above), I bit the pod and chewed a bit, trying to get out the "honey" that way. It worked, but I felt like there was a faint "spicy" feeling in the back of my throat (felt more like way on the back of my tongue). Didn't give it too much thought, though, since I'd incidentally chewed a little on the earlier pods and didn't have any sort of reaction. I collected a bunch of these pods to make into a "cocoa powder" as that recipe described.

I soaked, removed seeds from, roasted, and dryed the pods, then put them into my food processor to blend up into powder. Sieved it for the finest stuff. A better blender to make a finer powder would have been preferable. Still, the finished product was definitely fine enough to treat like a cocoa powder, and looked like this:



To test it out, I decided to try making my favorite cocoa-based treat: brownies! (or, in this case, "locusties?"). I followed a recipe for making carob-based brownies, and they came out nice and moist and sweet, texturally just like I like them. They came out looking more like blondies than brownies. Bottom line on these: If you're looking for something that will replace chocolate, or even carob (a replacement of a replacement), you're out of luck. They really tasted good and pretty unique to me, but not chocolatey by even the farthest stretch of the imagination (and I can stretch quite a bit). Here's a picture of the finished product:


Here things got a bit weird. I ate the first "brownie" and that familiar spice/tingling at the back of my tongue was definitely there, and because I'd eaten a large amount of the product, seemed more prominent. I also felt very slightly light-headed and it felt like my heart rate picked up while my breathing got slightly heavier. I'm totally food allergy free and also typically oblivious to things like that in my body, so the effect was definitely significant in order for me to notice. This effect only lasted for a couple of minutes, but is still enough to make me a bit weary. Here are what I imagine are possible explanations:

1. I have some sort of slight allergy to honey locust. This is possible, but it just doesn't seem likely given how much of the sweet stuff I've sucked out of the pods of the first tree I tried. I know in doing that I must have gotten some pieces of the pod, and they did not give me that weird tingly feeling.

2. Something changes in the composition of the pods between their early harvest time and their very late harvest time. After roasting I did notice a hole in one or two of the pods, as if a creature had gotten in and eaten some of the good stuff out. But I got that tingle even just form chewing the outside of the pod, so it doesn't seem like it would be the result of spoiling – plus, the sugars, which I'd expect to go sour way before the more durable outside pods, were still good.

3. The batch of pods I ultimately turned into my "cocoa powder" (the second ones, from my current campus) were from younger trees, and were also definitely thornless Honey Locust (Gleditsia inermis), whereas I am 95% sure the first batch Honey Locust was the thorned, tricanthos variety. I wish I'd paid closer attention to this, but I was just so excited to find a tree with such large pods! I plan to go back in the next week or two and double check myself here. If I'm right, this could mean tricanthos is suitable food, while inermis should probably be avoided. I plan to test this next year by testing both groups of trees, both in September and then both again near the end of their season. This should help determine if there is a difference between the two groups of trees and, if there is, whether this is due to timing or species differences.

Hopefully other folks will try this as well, so we can figure out the uses and limitations of this really cool tree!

Did you ever have any problems with your food processor overheating? I've never made honey locust powder before, but I had a bad experience trying to use a food processor to make corn meal from dry corn. The food processor blew out and it stopped functioning afterwards.

As of last night, I documented my attempts at grinding honey locust powder on an online video. It took me six hours to grind two cups of powder with a food processor and I generated a lot of airborne dust in the process. Maybe I should wear a dust mask next time and grind the pods outside.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/ddxfpXyOycvR/

Lew Bivona wrote:Hello All,

I just wanted to provide an update on my experiments with Honey Locust this season, hopefully it encourages other people to try next year and we can do some testing.

In searching in my area for good sources for pods, I found two. One was at my old alma mater, Rowan University here in South Jersey. I found those pods in late September, maybe very early October. From what I'd read about the cultivated "Hershey" variety, which is known for its large pods, about 16 pods could add up to a pound. The pods from this site were close to that large, with maybe 18 or so adding up to a pound. However, I only took 6 or 7 pods, since this was my first time actually trying them and I didn't want to take a ton if they weren't my bag. I thought these were delicious and the pulp tasted like an overripe (in a good way) sweet banana. I'd seen various reports about whether you can pick them ripe off the tree, or should wait until they fall, but I picked these off the tree and they were really tasty – even my wife, who's usually skeptical of my new plant adventures – liked them.

The other pods I found were actually on my current college campus, where I'm in grad school. I collected these much later, just at the very beginning of November. Because it was over a month later, all of these pods were collected from the ground. The pods were notably smaller than the earlier tree, and so there was less pulp, but it was still relatively the same in taste to me. As a basic test of whether I'd be able to eat the outer pod as well (if ground up according to the Carob/Honey Locust powder recipe I listed in my last post, above), I bit the pod and chewed a bit, trying to get out the "honey" that way. It worked, but I felt like there was a faint "spicy" feeling in the back of my throat (felt more like way on the back of my tongue). Didn't give it too much thought, though, since I'd incidentally chewed a little on the earlier pods and didn't have any sort of reaction. I collected a bunch of these pods to make into a "cocoa powder" as that recipe described.

I soaked, removed seeds from, roasted, and dryed the pods, then put them into my food processor to blend up into powder. Sieved it for the finest stuff. A better blender to make a finer powder would have been preferable. Still, the finished product was definitely fine enough to treat like a cocoa powder, and looked like this:



To test it out, I decided to try making my favorite cocoa-based treat: brownies! (or, in this case, "locusties?"). I followed a recipe for making carob-based brownies, and they came out nice and moist and sweet, texturally just like I like them. They came out looking more like blondies than brownies. Bottom line on these: If you're looking for something that will replace chocolate, or even carob (a replacement of a replacement), you're out of luck. They really tasted good and pretty unique to me, but not chocolatey by even the farthest stretch of the imagination (and I can stretch quite a bit). Here's a picture of the finished product:


Here things got a bit weird. I ate the first "brownie" and that familiar spice/tingling at the back of my tongue was definitely there, and because I'd eaten a large amount of the product, seemed more prominent. I also felt very slightly light-headed and it felt like my heart rate picked up while my breathing got slightly heavier. I'm totally food allergy free and also typically oblivious to things like that in my body, so the effect was definitely significant in order for me to notice. This effect only lasted for a couple of minutes, but is still enough to make me a bit weary. Here are what I imagine are possible explanations:

1. I have some sort of slight allergy to honey locust. This is possible, but it just doesn't seem likely given how much of the sweet stuff I've sucked out of the pods of the first tree I tried. I know in doing that I must have gotten some pieces of the pod, and they did not give me that weird tingly feeling.

2. Something changes in the composition of the pods between their early harvest time and their very late harvest time. After roasting I did notice a hole in one or two of the pods, as if a creature had gotten in and eaten some of the good stuff out. But I got that tingle even just form chewing the outside of the pod, so it doesn't seem like it would be the result of spoiling – plus, the sugars, which I'd expect to go sour way before the more durable outside pods, were still good.

3. The batch of pods I ultimately turned into my "cocoa powder" (the second ones, from my current campus) were from younger trees, and were also definitely thornless Honey Locust (Gleditsia inermis), whereas I am 95% sure the first batch Honey Locust was the thorned, tricanthos variety. I wish I'd paid closer attention to this, but I was just so excited to find a tree with such large pods! I plan to go back in the next week or two and double check myself here. If I'm right, this could mean tricanthos is suitable food, while inermis should probably be avoided. I plan to test this next year by testing both groups of trees, both in September and then both again near the end of their season. This should help determine if there is a difference between the two groups of trees and, if there is, whether this is due to timing or species differences.

Hopefully other folks will try this as well, so we can figure out the uses and limitations of this really cool tree!

I also attempted to bake with honey locust flower just this evening. I decided to make a cake since it was my birthday today. Unfortunately, the cake did not turn out as well as I hoped it would. The cake was still sweet because of the added sugar, but it had an astringant aftertaste akin to underripe persimons, green bananas, or bittersweet cider apples. I'm guessing the particular pods I used had a high concentration of tannic acid in them given the astringant aftertaste. I'm hoping the astringent, dry-mouth taste is just due to improper preparation and is not inherent in all honey locust pods. It looks like the above quoted member had the same poor experience when also trying to bake with honey locust. Maybe the astringency is only found in certain thornless cultivars of honey locust. I plan on uploading a video in a few days, but I don't have much more to say in it.

i seme to be allergic to Gleditsia triacantos 'inermis'

there are about a dozen of thornless Honey Locust cultivars used in landscaping. they sometimes all go by the name 'inermis'
for example:
Gleditsia triacantos inermis 'sunburst'
Gleditsia triacantos inermis 'skyline'

here a video how to make carob syrup. this may also work wit Honeylocust.

basically boil, press juice out. boil down juce to syrup.



a steam juice extractor is also worth trying.


process pods:
mabe you can use a woodchipper or a hammermill to shred the pods.

i used a TECHWORK plaster mixer. the two paddels work quite well to shred the brittle pods.
i did this to get the seeds out.
dometimes i also use the concred mixer to get seeds out. speciali for spini seedheds of thistle.
add seedhed and some stones or woodblocks and let it runn for a while.



maybe whe should sample the available cultivars.

thats the Honey locust Gleditsia triacantos cultivars i know of. thornless high yield and high in sugar

Honey locust Gleditsia triacantos "Methodist Church” 
Honey locust Gleditsia triacantos “Big Fatty” 
Honey locust Gleditsia triacantos ‘Millwood’
Honey locust Gleditsia triacantos ‘Calhoun’,
Honey locust Gleditsia triacantos ‘Hershey’
Honey locust Gleditsia triacantos ‘Ashworth

the reason i write the full name is, so this post can be easily found via google.




about the Hershey cultivars and his food forest

https://www.phillymag.com/news/2018/07/07/downingtown-food-forest-urban-farming/

https://www.shelterwoodforestfarm.com/blog/2018/10/17/exploring-americas-oldest-food-forest

i like to investigate tis furder. i also plan to make this cultivars available in my country. I'm a Swiss nursery man. i think this are great cultivars of Gleditsia triacantos for agroforestry and silvopasture.

the reason i write the full name is, so this post can be easily found via google.

excuse my spelling i am dyslexic.

if anyone likes to reach out.
here is my Instagram swiss_arborist_barmetbaumpflege

R Scott wrote:

Brenda Groth wrote:HOLY CRAP them are some nasty thorns.

And they are poisonous!  You get stuck and don't take care of it right you may be losing whatever got stuck, or at least lose that muscle group and leave a nasty scar.  Many old farmers in these parts had lost toes or fingers or forearm muscle to thorn infections--almost as many that lost them to the machinery.  

The thorn is the first thing that comes out of the ground, too.  A 4 inch sapling with three 3 inch spikes--natural caltrops.  I lose tires to them every year, and several pairs of shoes.  They will go through any shoe and many boots.  Hard to spot in the grass, too.

Sorry this is inaccurate,

I'd have no arms or legs and be called Bob by now if any of this were true.