Maple seeds are edible

I grew up in Michigan and I wish I knew about this one growing up. He shows multiple ways of preparing them so they aren’t bitter. If you have a small homestead and don’t mind the labor, sit around watching a movie while you shell a few bags of them, they’d make a good seasonal food for chickens. 8 ounce for a couple of birds is a lot of food. I say any thing to save on feed bills.

I tried posting the YouTube link but it didn’t work so below is a copy and paste.

That looks really interesting. I wonder if it worth trying Sycamore seeds? Those shed loads here, every year seems to be a mast year.
If I were feeding them to chickens I would try them without peeling first. Would the chickens peck them out of the cases?

An odd coincidence....I just came across this guy's video on prepping burdock root and shoot.  We have more than our fair share of that and I hope to once again delve into making testing some as a spring foraging addition to the evening meal.

Nancy Reading wrote:That looks really interesting. I wonder if it worth trying Sycamore seeds? Those shed loads here, every year seems to be a mast year.
If I were feeding them to chickens I would try them without peeling first. Would the chickens peck them out of the cases?

Odds are Sycamore seeds are safe. Can’t be a 100% sure but I believe cows eat the leafs so the seeds are most likely safe. For chickens I’d just throw them in a blender and pulse them a few times. Chickens are surgeons when it comes to picking out bits of food. They eat the seed meats and leave the hulls behind. I like to keep things simple. And much as I’d like to completely shell them it’s not really necessary with chickens. Okay, I looked it up and Sycamore seeds arent toxic to humans so they are safe for chickens. It’s a good bet if it’s safe for humans then it’s okay for chickens. I think most tree seeds are safe. The things to avoid are some flower seeds like Lupines. I love Lupines but the entire plant is toxic. They say birds can eat the seeds but I’d still avoid them with chickens. Even if they have some tolerance they can build up levels. Just be carful with flower seeds but so long as the tree isnt toxic odds are the seeds are safe. If you have pine trees most of the seed are too small to be a decent food source for humans but perfect for chickens. They can be a pain to extract but I say hit the pine cone with a hammer and toss the chickens the whole thing. They’ll have fun picking through looking for seeds.

When I was a kid my friend and I would jump on the trampoline and since we had two large silver maples above it it collected a lot of “helicopters”. We would peel them and collect the seeds just for fun, always trying to find a way to use them and earn money from selling some sort of product. Since for some reason no one wanted to buy 2 inch tall maple tree saplings, we tried to figure out if the seeds were edible. When we found out they were, we prepared them any way we could. We ate them raw, we put them in a bowl in the sun, we boiled them, roasted them, and even tried them with cinnamon sugar. (My favorite way to eat them was boiled with a little bit of salt.) One time I dried them and ground them into flour. All that to say, yes they are edible and not always disgusting.

I love the forager chef- he does a wonderful job teaching how to eat from nature (and he's in my region

I'm going to try roasting them and adding them to my granola.

Nancy Reading wrote:That looks really interesting. I wonder if it worth trying Sycamore seeds? Those shed loads here, every year seems to be a mast year.
If I were feeding them to chickens I would try them without peeling first. Would the chickens peck them out of the cases?

You’vegot me intrigued.  The seed pod from the sycamore trees I know have a compact little ball which fragments into tiny seeds with a lot of fiber.

Can you find a picture of the sycamore trees you are talking about?

I’m going to see if i can find useful information to clear up my confusion.  If it’s relevant I will post

Thekla McDaniels wrote:Can you find a picture of the sycamore trees you are talking about?

sycamore: Acer pseudoplatanus

Here's a picture of mine starting to fruit well in a previous year!  I haven't tried extracting the seeds, it may be much more difficult with these ones.

I sometimes get a lawn of seedling come up, but helpfully they mostly disappear. I think the deer and the slugs like them.

Thanks, Nancy,

That certainly clears up my confusion!  Sycamore -Maple or Maple- Sycamore is a maple .  But there are “true sycamores” which are in the Plantanus genus, family Plantanaceae.  In some places called Plane trees.  There is also a “sycamore fig” in the Ficus family, but sometimes referred to as a fig mulberry.

All this causing me to wonder about the origin of the word ‘sycamore’ itself…. Probably from Hebrew, with biblical references.  

It’s a rich topic, also a taxonomist’s perfect example of the problem with common names, and off topic as well.

But all these sycamores do have in common a very important human interest, they are fast growing shade trees.

Eugene Howe wrote:

Nancy Reading wrote:That looks really interesting. I wonder if it worth trying Sycamore seeds? Those shed loads here, every year seems to be a mast year.
If I were feeding them to chickens I would try them without peeling first. Would the chickens peck them out of the cases?

Odds are Sycamore seeds are safe. Can’t be a 100% sure but I believe cows eat the leafs so the seeds are most likely safe. For chickens I’d just throw them in a blender and pulse them a few times. Chickens are surgeons when it comes to picking out bits of food. They eat the seed meats and leave the hulls behind. I like to keep things simple. And much as I’d like to completely shell them it’s not really necessary with chickens. Okay, I looked it up and Sycamore seeds arent toxic to humans so they are safe for chickens. It’s a good bet if it’s safe for humans then it’s okay for chickens. I think most tree seeds are safe. The things to avoid are some flower seeds like Lupines. I love Lupines but the entire plant is toxic. They say birds can eat the seeds but I’d still avoid them with chickens. Even if they have some tolerance they can build up levels. Just be carful with flower seeds but so long as the tree isnt toxic odds are the seeds are safe. If you have pine trees most of the seed are too small to be a decent food source for humans but perfect for chickens. They can be a pain to extract but I say hit the pine cone with a hammer and toss the chickens the whole thing. They’ll have fun picking through looking for seeds.

It’s like I said, just use a blender or a coffee grinder and don’t fine grind them just blend them enough to break open the cases and the chickens will do the rest. Realize when chickens are pecking through a compost pile they are eating bugs the size of grains of pepper. They are surgeons and they’ll pick through the tiniest food scraps. Seeds and nut meats are high calorie, high energy foods so it’s gourmet eating to a chicken. It’s similar with things like walnuts and hickory nuts. Bust them open with a hammer and the chickens will pick out the nut meats. It’s how you get pigs to eat walnuts. You soak off the bitter outer husk then hit them with a hammer. The pig smells the nut meat and they will eat them shells and all but they won’t touch fallen walnuts or hickory nuts because of the bitter outer husk.

I did a little research on UK sycamore seed edibility. Pfaf doesn't really mention them, but I found at least one foraging site that has information about using them. Charnwood foraging says that nutritionally they are

Rich in carbohydrates, providing a natural energy source.
Contains small amounts of protein and healthy fats.
A good source of minerals like calcium and potassium.
Contains antioxidants that help protect cells from damage.

Since they suggest late summer/autumn to be a good time to harvest them (the seeds get tough later on) I took a handful of keys and tried them. They are a bit smaller than the maple seeds in the video in the first link. The seeds are fairly easy to remove by hand, and have a slightly fluffy coating. Raw they were a little bitter. I roasted them as the video suggested - well, there was actually quite a bit of oil in the pan I used, so they were sort of fried. I've just tried a couple and the taste is growing on me. Bitter and chewy I could see them being an interesing addition to a salad for example, but I don't think you'd want to eat them in volume. I'm still just nibbling on the odd one - so far no ill effects.
I did find information that the seeds are toxic to horses. I seem to remember that sycamore seedlings are extremely toxic to them, so it's probably wise to be fairly cautious trying them for the first time.

A good way to do these is to try to find somewhere that they self-collect so you don't have to pick them up one at a time....sweeping them up off a pavement, perhaps.  I got a bunch last spring that ended up where the downspout of a gutter dumped out.  

I'd be very cautious with Acer pseudoplatanus specifically. The substance that's toxic to horses is called hypoglycin A. In humans, it causes a condition called Jamaican vomiting sickness. According to this article, Acer platanoides and A. campestre might be safer. Some caution might be advisable with any maple, though, even if A. pseudoplatanus and A. negundo seem to be the riskiest.

What species was he using in the video? They look way bigger than the ones I'm familiar with. I've tasted seeds from A. platanoides some years ago, and found them quite bitter. I tried boiling them for a good long while, and they were still more bitter than I'd like. There might be a way to make them taste nice, but I didn't find it.