Zach Muller wrote:Hey N thomas,
I can relate to that experience, since I have made a few wrong plant identifications and eaten the plant. Lucky for me I never had poisonous reactions like you are describing. I am a lover of mugwort and cultivate a 9 foot tall plant outside my kitchen.
I have actually never heard of mugwort being used as a primary salad green, so it is hard to say if your ID was incorrect or if you had mugwort and ate too much of it. Traditionally it was used as a poultry herb, medicinal smoke, dried smudge, ceremonial etc. How did you get the idea to make it a whole salad?
My theory of the stomach and health include a diverse diet that includes things that can poison and kill. In other words I dont subscribe to the thinking behind avoiding all active alkaloid plants because they can do damage to the body. It sounds like what you did went a little beyond what your bodily system can handle. Swelling of any kind is always a caution since airways are so precious.
Just as an example of stupidity, I ate an unknown nightshade one time thinking it was lovage. Thats a serious laugh in retrospect, but could have cost me my guts, or life.
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Samantha Lewis wrote:Forgive me, but I would question if you were actually eating Mugwort. It is a bitter herb. You said this was a few weeks ago, unless you are at high altitude the tender first greens would be long gone.
Lee Gee wrote:Hello N Thomas (and all those who experienced negative reactions),
I empathize with your suffering and learning by experience.
Mugwort aka Wormwood (and there are many different subspecies) can cause an allergic response in some people. Even the pollen of it on another plant can cause an allergic response. And when you forage it you never know if it has been sprayed as many consider it an invasive species. It can eagerly take over a space, and quickly. Treat all new forage as if you were in the wilderness trying an unknown plant for the first time trying the smallest amount possible and observing for actions/reactions both immediate and over 24 hours. If all is well, then try a little more.
It is a wonderful medicinal plant with many beneficial effects. One of them is anti parasitic. Having eaten so much at once, and experiencing nausea, you may have a parasitic infestation and not known it. 80% of the world's population are harboring some sort of parasite and may have no symptoms. You could have caused a die off effect, hence the nausea.
Eating it raw, at different times in its life cycle and different parts, leaves, roots, flowers, infusing it, tincturing it, drying it and burning it all change its medicinal effects, and your individual constitution, age, health will affect the herb's interaction with you.
Hope this is helpful.
To your health and well being.
Lee
Jamie Chevalier wrote:The important point in all this is that herbs are not necessarily foods. Plants strong enough to have curative powers when you drink a little as tea are much, much too strong to use as staple foods. Even the herbs we use in food are seldom the whole dish--think ginger, thyme, rosemary. You wouldn't drink Robitussin instead of lemonade, and you wouldn't eat penicillin pancakes....herbs are medicine.
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Samantha Lewis wrote:Can you post a picture? Or look online and see if the plant you ate looks like the mugwort pics you find.
N Thomas wrote: Would it be fair to say if a food shows up both in a guidebook for wild edibles & for wild medicinal herbs, I should research it very carefully or avoid it altogether to prevent safety issues?
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Rebecca Norman wrote:
N Thomas wrote: Would it be fair to say if a food shows up both in a guidebook for wild edibles & for wild medicinal herbs, I should research it very carefully or avoid it altogether to prevent safety issues?
I would think if the plant is well known or in books as edible, that's fine (unless you turn out to have an allergy to it specifically). But I, like others here, have always seen and heard of mugwort (Artemisia) as a medicinal, not as an edible for eating as a salad. Did the wild plant expert that you were with in person say that mugwort was edible as a salad, or as a medicinal?
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Jamie Davis wrote:Sounds to me like you followed most best practices:
Positive id
Non polluted area
Local expert confirmation
Where you may want to tweak your approach
1) the difference between medicine and poison is dosage
2) preparation notes matter on many plants, for example poke (must be blanched, change of water (or two) )
3) you ramped up your intake pretty quickly, take it slower next time
Bettina Bernard wrote:I had a learning experience with stinging nettles. I harvested them growing next to flourishing honeysuckle. Great, I thought, the parks department didn't spray herbicide. Cooked them up, extremely bitter and chemical tasting. Tell take sign: the nettles didn't develop many stinging hairs, they protected themselves with herbicide.
Sharol Tilgner wrote:It sounds like a dosage issue. I would not recommend mugwort as a food, only as a medicine. If you want a quick look up for herbs in the future, you might check here: http://www.herbaltransitions.com/MateriaMedica.html
An article on wildcrating herbs is available here: http://dreamingabeautifulworld.blogspot.com/2011/12/harvesting-herbs-wildcrafting.html
Arteisia vulgaris - mugwort is used for moxibustion in chinese medicine. This is a safe way to use it. Internal medicinal use is usually safe when dosed correctly. I would not suggest it as a food item. I would not give it to a pregnant woman. This is traditionally not given to pregnant women and has been used as an abortifacient. It has some recent research to support that. It has been shown to have anti-implantation activity in rats:
Chin J Nat Med. 2014 Mar;12(3):180-5. doi: 10.1016/S1875-5364(14)60030-3.
Antifertility activity of Artemisia vulgaris leaves on female Wistar rats.
Shaik A1, Kanhere RS2, Cuddapah R2, Nelson KS2, Vara PR2, Sibyala S2.
Author information
Abstract
AIM:
To evaluate the antifertility activity of Artemisia vulgaris leaves on female Wistar rats.
METHOD:
The plant extract was tested for its effect on implant formation at two dose levels, 300 and 600 mg·kg⁻¹, respectively. The effective methanolic plant extract was further studied for estrogenic potency on ovariectomised immature female Wistar rats.
RESULTS:
The data presented in this study demonstrate the antifertility potential of Artemisia vulgaris methanolic leaf extract, which shows a strong and significant decrease in implant formation (100%), and a strong estrogenic effect resulting in a significant increase in uterine weight in immature ovariectomised rats. These observations suggest that the methanolic extract of Artemisia vulgaris leaves has strong anti-implantation activity and estrogenic activity.
CONCLUSION:
The methanolic plant extract of A. vulgaris has antifertility activity.
Copyright © 2014 China Pharmaceutical University. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Roberta Wilkinson wrote:I think it's worth noting that with all foods, wild or not, toxicity is a matter of dosage. If you ate your weight in apples, you wouldn't be surprised to end up with a belly ache and some interesting stools, but you wouldn't write off apples as "poison" if that happened. The things we consider edible still contain compounds that can be problematic if overindulged in, though the amount needed to get a toxic effect can vary from a few grams (with spices) to so many pounds that a person would be hard pressed to cram in that much food.
Since wild plants have generally not undergone the generations of selection for human-friendliness that our garden plants have, that maximum dose tends to be lower than in their domesticated counterparts, so a little more care in figuring out your maximum dose is probably warranted. Like mentioned above, I would suggest starting with a careful taste, then a small serving, slowly increasing your consumption to however much you'd like to be eating (unless you run into an adverse reaction before that point). When tasting, take some time to really chew the plant and feel the flavors in your mouth. If anything in it makes you want to spit it back out, take that as a warning and either skip it entirely or proceed with caution.
I hope this experience doesn't turn you off from foraging. I've been inspired by the wealth of food and medicine waiting for us all around our home as I've learned to recognize it. You'll get a feel for things as you study and practice and taste, and it should all come to feel a lot less mysterious.
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