Edible Wild Berries

Learning to identify edible wild berries can be more than a fun way to supplement a healthy diet. It's useful when camping or hiking, and can be a life saver if you get lost in the wilderness for any amount of time.

Learn to identify wild berries that are edible.

Wild berries taste and look much like domestically grown varieties, though the edible berries which are allowed to ripen naturally are often sweeter and juicer but smaller. It doesn't take special training to spot common edible berries in the wild. You'll be able to easily recognize berries you customarily buy at the store or grow in your garden. These will include varieties of:

• Blueberries
• Blackberries
• Raspberries
• Strawberries

For the lesser known berries you find out in the wild, plan ahead when you know you'll be camping, hiking or even going for a short walk. Buy a good guide to help identify wild berries so you know which are edible and which are not. Carry a zip-lock bag or other container so that when you come upon edible berries you'll be ready to transport them back to your house to share with the rest of the family.

• The Wild Berry Book: Romance, Recipes, & Remedies
• Wild Berries & Fruit Field Guide of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan
• Alaska Wild Berry Guide and Cookbook
• Wild Berries of the Pacific Northwest

If you're looking for edible wild berries in the U.S. or Canada, most will be found on low bushes and creepers. What berries grow where depends on factors like:

• Climate
• Soil chemistry
• Topography

Many berry bushes sport thorns so caution is needed when picking the fruit. Full sun is best for most, and in many cases, if the base of the plant is in the shade, they grow long offshoots reaching toward the sunlight. However, you'll find most fruit-laden bushes in the sunlight along field edges and other places berry eating birds stop and spread the seed.

For the most part, wild edible berries can be eaten straight from the plant. However, there are a handful, such as Elderberries, that need to be cooked first, not necessarily because they are bad for you, but because they don't taste good until you add some sugar or honey. These berries make great pies or other confectionery treats, and can be frozen, canned or dried. Other berries, like the high bush cranberry, have a bitter flavor when raw and take a little extra preparation to make them palatable. When a berry is labeled "inedible" it is because it doesn't taste good. It doesn't mean they are poisonous.

Wild berries provide a wide range of vitamins and minerals. They are filled with natural sugar and provide quick energy. The following lists show a number of berries and whether or not they are considered edible.

Enjoy photographs of wild berries.

• Barberry
• Black Cap Raspberry
• Black Currants
• Gooseberry (Berries may be black, green, red, or yellow)
• Dewberry
• Himalayan Blackberry
• Indian Plum
• Oregon Grape
• Red Currants
• Red Huckleberry
• Salal
• Salmonberry
• Stink Currant
• Strawberries
• Thimbleberry
• Trailing Blackberry
• White Currant

• Bitter Cherry
• Black Twinberry
• Cascara
• Devils Club
• False Lilly of the Valley
• Orange Honeysuckle
• Red Elderberry
• Red Flowering Currant
• Red Osier Dogwood
• Snow Berry

• Bane Berry
• Daphne
• Jasmine
• Lantana Camara
• Mistletoe
• Moonseed
• Red Nightshade
• Yew

If you're lucky enough to find berries growing on your property but don't own a field guide and aren't sure whether or not they are edible, you can do a quick check on the Internet to see if you can determine what type of berry you have found. If still in doubt, other resources include your local library, Farm Bureau or Extension Office.

The following links provide more information:

• Wild Food School
• How to Test if a Plant Is Edible
• Edible Wild Plants
• Fall Fruits In the Wild
• Edible and Medicinal Plants

• Photographs of Wild Berries
• Herbs for Pets
• Health Benefits of Tumeric

• Boil Drawing Salve
• Black Drawing Salve
• Black and Blue Cohosh to Induce Labor
• Homemade Herbal Hair Dye
• List of 40 Spices

• Main Page
• Alfalfa Nutrients
• Identifying Wild Berries in Pennsylvania
• Identifying Wild Berries
• Guide to Edible Berries