Should You Forage for Wild Greens by the Roadside?
Foodthink Says
In recent years, wild vegetables and mushrooms have surged in popularity. Not only are pricey varieties now regularly stocked in supermarkets, greengrocers, and online grocery platforms, but “wild foraging” (the practice of heading out into nature to gather wild plants and fungi) has also emerged as a fresh trend among younger generations. Capitalising on this, numerous tour operators have even launched dedicated foraging trips.
On the one hand, wild edibles are championed as pure, unadulterated, and free from pollution; on the other, reports of people ending up in hospital after consuming them are alarmingly common. Is it safe to forage for wild plants in urban green spaces? Where do the wild vegetables and mushrooms sold in markets and online actually come from? Are they genuinely healthier or more nutritious than cultivated alternatives? Can the “miraculous benefits” attributed to matsutake mushrooms be trusted? And ultimately, what kind of natural history and environmental education do we really need?
Recently, Foodthink, alongside the Tencent Science series *Species on the Table*, brought together four experts—a farmer, a natural history writer, an anthropologist, and an ecologist—to discuss the ins and outs of consuming wild vegetables and mushrooms. For our previous discussion on the biodiversity surrounding wild edibles, refer to last month’s piece: Everything Green is a Vegetable, Everything That Moves is Meat.
Roundtable Guests
I. From Beijing to Canada: A Farm That Lets Things Grow Wild
Sun Shan: I grew up in Beijing. A childhood memory tied to wild greens is going out with my mother to pick shepherd’s purse. We’d bring it back to make dumplings, and they were absolutely delicious. I imagine many of my peers born in the 1970s, particularly those who grew up in the north, will relate. Looking back, foraging for wild vegetables is actually quite back-breaking work. Shepherd’s purse, especially, turns up with a lot of earth clinging to it. You have to wash it meticulously, and even then, you might still find yourself crunching on a bit of grit while you eat.
Sun Shan: As an adult, I studied ecology and went on to work in biodiversity conservation and biomedical research. Ironically, I actually found myself picking wild greens far less often than I did as a child. It wasn’t until ten years ago, when I turned to farming, that I began cultivating my own vegetable plots. Alongside standard crops, a key feature of our ecological garden is allowing the land to ‘go wild’—meaning we let so-called agricultural weeds thrive alongside our crops. A large number of these ‘weeds’ are, in fact, edible wild vegetables. Take the stinging nettles that begin to shoot up this season, for example: I’m particularly fond of them, and they’re genuinely packed with nutrients.
II. Is it safe to forage and eat wild vegetables in the city?
Tan Lingdi: I see foraging and eating wild vegetables as a way to connect with nature and appreciate biodiversity. So, as an environmental educator, I’m actually quite delighted when I see people foraging.
Of course, cities are divided into different zones. In wilder, less frequented areas, you can follow sustainable foraging principles: even if there’s an abundance of wild vegetables, take only a small amount so as not to disrupt their natural habitat.
Avoid foraging in heavily populated public green spaces, such as Beijing’s Olympic Forest Park. Firstly, foraging is prohibited there. Moreover, wild vegetables serve more than just a culinary purpose; they also hold ornamental value and can be a food source for other wildlife. So, please refrain from picking them in crowded areas, leaving some for others to enjoy and for other creatures to eat.
There’s another scenario: if you forage in a managed area, what you pick might actually be cultivated. So I’d advise checking beforehand whether you’re in a municipally managed green space, a crowded area, or someone else’s private land, and avoid disturbing these places.
Most importantly, avoid picking anything toxic. Never touch plants you cannot positively identify. In urban green space design, landscape architects often deliberately avoid planting edible species, while also steering clear of highly toxic ones. This is to prevent people from foraging them, but also to avoid liability should someone mistakenly eat a poisonous plant and fall ill.
As an ecological conservation practitioner, I certainly hope urban green spaces would use fewer insecticides and herbicides to support biodiversity. However, public expectations often exceed what natural ecosystems can deliver. For instance, we rarely tolerate visible pests or diseases, or we demand uniform avenues of identical trees, sweeping floral displays, or perfectly manicured lawns—none of which can be achieved through natural, free-growing flora. Consequently, the use of pesticides, including insecticides and herbicides, remains widespread in urban green spaces. Although mainly low-toxicity products are used, they are certainly not food-safe, so it’s best not to take the risk.
III. I got poisoned from eating wild vegetables
Li Ruijun: Whenever people find out I study wild mushrooms, they almost always ask whether I’ve ever been poisoned. I’d usually joke back, “I’ve never been poisoned, but I’ve been constantly testing the limits.”
Last year, I actually got poisoned by wild vegetables. It was from golden feather grass, a yellow legume flower that we often eat. It can be used in soups or scrambled with eggs. My whole family loves it, and whenever it comes into season, we buy it and eat it. Because it’s something we consume regularly, many people assume it’s completely safe. But last year, I ended up getting poisoned—probably because I ate too much and went over the limit. I felt dizzy and nauseous, with a racing heartbeat, as golden feather grass is indeed mildly toxic. My family didn’t seem too concerned about my poisoning, so I just lay down for the afternoon until the symptoms subsided. So, caution is indeed necessary when eating wild vegetables. It’s easy to assume that foods we eat frequently are risk-free, but many wild edibles do carry some degree of risk.
IV. Foraging Wild Greens on Campus to Relieve Constipation During Lockdown
Li Ruijun: It was actually quite an entertaining experience. During the lockdown in Shanghai, a few friends and I were staying in our offices on campus. Given the circumstances, our daily meals became rather monotonous with very little greenery. So, a rather embarrassing situation arose: we all became constipated. I’ve never suffered from constipation in my life, but I was no exception this time. It was likely just due to the severe lack of vegetables in our diet.
Determined to eat more greens to relieve the constipation, my Yunnanese instincts kicked in. I figured I could forage the campus green spaces for some wild plants to alleviate internal heat. So, I turned up a fair amount of dandelions. Initially, I was somewhat hesitant, as the campus groundskeepers occasionally spray pesticides or apply fertiliser. Therefore, I only dug up some dandelion roots at the time. After washing and drying them, I used them to make infusions to drink.
Li Ruijun: During that period, the campus was largely deserted and unsupervised, allowing various weeds to take over what had normally been neatly manicured lawns. My constipation was only worsening, so I decided I had to go foraging for wild vegetables after all. Later, I found an abundance of wild chrysanthemum greens (Ma Lantou) by the campus river; they were particularly plump and tender. The river actually ran right beside a laboratory building in one of our faculties, so I did harbour some reservations. But the circumstances were so unusual—if I didn’t eat them, the constipation would persist—so I decided to go ahead and eat them. I was well aware that toxicity risks are dose-dependent. Harvesting a small amount by the river each day and eating it in moderation posed no harm.
Li Ruijun: At the time, the school had ground to a halt, and the rhythm of society seemed to stand still as well. This stillness only heightened my awareness of my own biological clock.I had never perceived the turning of the seasons so vividly. Following Qingming came Guyu, and the growth of all things around me moved in perfect step with those traditional solar terms.So, whichever wild greens sprouted, that is exactly what I went out to forage.
In mid-April, when I first started eating *ma lan tou* (oxpepper), the leaves were exceptionally tender. Brought home, blanched and tossed into a cold salad, or simply boiled into a broth, they tasted wonderfully soothing. From then on, I was hooked. I scoured the campus grounds for other wild edibles. By then, the shepherd’s purse had gone woody, and the lucerne had finished blooming and toughened up as well. Later, I found wild vetches in the flowerbeds—some bearing white blooms, others purple 野豌豆. Knowing they were safe to eat, I treated them like young pea shoots. But after just two or three days of picking, they too had gone tough.
Li Ruijun: The thing that helped me most during that period was a plant identification app. I was actually quite bold: I’d see something, run it through the app, then scroll straight to the bottom of the entry to see if it was edible. If it was, I’d pull it up, take a small taste, and if the flavour seemed fine, I’d take it home to look up how to cook it. Later on, I also found and ate wild garlic, Chinese toon, ground fungus, and bamboo shoots around the campus. It was the first time I was struck by a wholly different kind of taste: the unmistakable freshness of spring.
V. The Accelerated Cultivation of “Wild Vegetables”
We’re also noticing that many items we once assumed were wild vegetables are now actually cultivated. Banxia, have you spotted this shift in Yunnan’s local markets? How do you view it?
Banxia: There’s a local saying in Yunnan—*shan mao ye cai*. “Shan” refers to prized mountain produce, “mao” to common grasses; together, they describe plants that grow completely untamed. Lately, however, they’re gradually becoming cultivated. Even in November, I can buy Chinese toon shoots shipped in from Xishuangbanna. But to me, those transported from Xishuangbanna don’t taste quite the same as the toon shoots growing naturally on trees in the villages around Kunming. Yunnan is currently pushing hard to develop its underforest economy, and quite a few of these ingredients are now being farmed. We can now even cultivate termite mushrooms and reishi in controlled settings, let alone woody wild vegetables. Take huolian and Liangwang tea, for example: these are relatively new woody greens, and most of what you’ll find in shops and market stalls these days is commercially grown.
Banxia: These days, there is an ever-growing supply of cultivated “wild” greens. If you want to taste genuinely wild vegetables, it is best to avoid the large commercial markets. On weekends, I head to Yi villages on the outskirts of Kunming to buy them. The first time I tried vetch shoots, I bought them at one of these rural markets. Take shepherd’s purse, for example: you will find both wild and cultivated varieties in the veg markets, but the wild ones are invariably tastier and pack a much richer flavour. To me, the whole point of eating wild greens is that robust, full-bodied taste.
Banxia: At present, the most expensive wild forage in Yunnan is bamboo-leaf vegetable, a plant belonging to the lily family. I’d never come across this mountain vegetable before a market stallholder recommended it to me. Broadly speaking, it looks like a small bamboo shoot, with leaves that resemble bamboo fronds. Harvesting it is exceptionally tricky. It only grows under strict conditions, above the 2,800-metre snowline. Because it toughens so rapidly, moving it requires a highly robust logistics operation. To beat the clock, foragers typically set off before dawn, heading into those remote slopes with nothing but torches. Given how lucrative bamboo-leaf vegetable is, it’s hard to say whether people might eventually engineer or simulate an environment to cultivate it.
These days, there’s a concerted push to develop the under-forest economy, with researchers and farmers alike investing heavily in scientific cultivation. My father was a true enthusiast of Chinese edible fungi. Back in the early 1980s, he subscribed to *China Edible Fungi* magazine—he might well have been the only person at the mine to do so. Our family began eating matsutake in the 1970s. My father bought a book called *Edible Fungi of Yunnan*, which featured colour plates. Using the illustrations and descriptions, he identified the mushroom. At the time, there was absolutely no export trade for it; locals in our area simply called it *da hua jun* (big-flower mushroom), because once the cap splits open, the gills fan out in a pattern that looks like a bloom. Once my father confirmed it was matsutake, he told the local mountain children to bring any they found straight to our house. We ate it for years at next to nothing—just five cents for a large one. But when I eventually returned home after studying elsewhere, it had vanished from our table. My father told me that commercial buyers had finally arrived.
Li Ruijun: Whether a food is truly healthy or natural is, in fact, largely a human-constructed concept, reflecting our perception of the environment. Take the termite mushroom, for instance. It shares a symbiotic relationship with termites and can only grow on termite nests. Consequently, people tend to view it as a premium product that is unlikely to be artificially cultivated or sprayed with pesticides, and therefore assume it is naturally healthy. In reality, however, termite mushrooms can indeed be cultivated artificially. Although mass production has not yet been realised, experimental cultivation has already succeeded.
Another variety that has been successfully domesticated is the black-skinned termite mushroom. It belongs to the *Oudemansiella* genus and is a saprotrophic fungus, making it entirely different from the symbiotic *Termitomyces* mushrooms. In the marketplace, the black-skinned termite mushroom has capitalised on consumers’ romanticised image of the traditional termite mushroom. Marketed as both natural and healthy, it sells exceptionally well.
VI. The best place to start nature education is at the dining table.
Banxia: Liu Huajie, a champion of China’s natural history culture, once used four English words to define “BOWU” (natural history): “Beauty” (the profound beauty of nature), “Observation” (meticulous observation, recording, classification, and inquiry), “Wonder” (childlike curiosity and a sense of marvel, where all things are miracles), and “Understanding” (the pursuit of comprehension and sustainable coexistence).
Recently, he proposed a new concept. The B now stands for “body” – your physical self. This reflects our growing realisation that nature possesses healing properties, making our physical well-being and health paramount; stepping into the wild is a healthy way of life. The O becomes “open”, meaning to open up both body and mind. The W turns into “wild”, embracing our wildness. And the U becomes “usually”, referring to the ordinary and everyday.
Banxia: What is natural history, or “BOWU”, really about? It means finding what captures your interest in the natural world, and then learning about it, observing it, classifying it, describing it, and ultimately forming an emotional connection with it. It’s about having a genuine affection for nature. As an independent volunteer for ecological conservation and biodiversity, I campaigned on social media against the invasive golden apple snails in Fuxian and Erhai Lakes in Yunnan. I called for a grassroots campaign against these non-native species, which eventually prompted local authorities to issue an official notice and publicly “declare war” on the snails.
Originally published on Tencent News in “Let’s Talk Science”.
Reprinted with permission from the Foodthink WeChat Official Account.
Compiled by: Mu Ye
Edited by: Tianle