Wild Food Foraging- Season 3- Milkweed, Tree Cambium, Fiddlehead, Pine, Cattail, Evergreens, Birch

this is common milkweed in Latin it is known as Asclepius syriaca if you tear one of its leaves petioles or break its stalk you will immediately understand where milkweed derives its name from as you can see common milkweed is full of milky sap that readily drips from any injury on the plant now before I go any further I want to caution you common milkweed is mildly toxic and therefore cannot be eaten raw however the toxin can be neutralized through boiling this is good news because common milkweed is a tasty and nutritious plant when properly prepared the United States Department of Agriculture has identified 76 species of milkweed that grow in the US alone however common milkweed is the only species that is considered safe to eat after being properly boiled of course other species are not even if the common milkweed is a plant that you only wish to admire rather than eat it is still a good idea to familiarize yourself with it you never know when such knowledge might come in handy the more you know about the wild edibles around you the better if you are a butterfly enthusiast then you're going to love milkweed that's because milkweed plants are magnets for monarch butterflies monarchs lay their eggs on the underside of milkweed leaves and the caterpillars that hatch from them feast on the plants milkweed is the only food a monarch caterpillar will eat they use the plants toxin as a defense against predators that might try to make a snack of them the monarch is immune to the toxin which is why they can eat the plant as they eat the toxin is store up in their bodies making them taste bitter to predators it's a pretty smart defense if you ask me if you see a milkweed leaf with little bumps on its underside leave it alone those will likely be monarch butterfly eggs and of course if you see a butterfly or caterpillar on a milkweed plant leave them alone as well anyway common milkweed grows over much of North America and they love to grow in direct sunlight which means that you will most likely find them growing in open fields common milkweed has a single thick stalk that grows straight up in is around three to five feet tall at maturity when the stock is broken you will see that it is hollow in the center this is an important feature to remember the leaves are oval and meaty with smooth margins and they always grow in pairs opposite each other from the stalk each pair is usually rotated 90 degrees from the pair above and below it from mid to late summer the common milkweed will flower the flowers are quite unique in appearance and they grow in dense spherical clusters the seed pods are equally as unique and they to develop during mid to late summer the elongated seed pods are covered in soft projections when the seed pods reach maturity they will break open during autumn to release their downy seeds into the wind several parts of the common milkweed plant are edible when properly cooked in the spring the young shoots and leaves can be boiled later in the summer the buds flowers and immature seed pods can also be cooked and eaten for this episode I will be focusing on the seed pods when handling milkweed make sure not to get the SAP on or near your eyes for this reason it is a good idea to wash your hands immediately after handling milkweed or you might want to wear gloves while handling the plant only the immature seed pods can be eaten cuz the silk inside a young pod is moist and tender enough to eat you but as the pod matures the silk dries out solidifies into fluff making it too tough to eat when picking the seed pods I try not to pick anything that is over two inches long but you can probably get away with anything up to three inches at most when cooked people will often extract the silk inside the young seed pods and use it to mimic the texture and appearance of melted cheese you heard me right the silk inside a seed pod can be used as a melted cheese substitute in different dishes before I get to cooking the seed pods you should be aware that common milkweed can sometimes be mistaken for other species of plants that are not edible in any form this is why it is always a good idea to thoroughly research each wild edible for yourself before handling it better yet have a knowledgeable expert take you into the field and show you how to properly identify certain plants my point is just because you read about it online or see some guy on youtube eating a certain wild edible doesn't mean you should take them at their word alone anyway the two plants that are most commonly mistaken for common milkweed are dogbane and butterfly weed both plants cannot be eaten under any set of circumstances but don't let that scare you because there are a few key features you can look for that will help you easily identify common milkweed apart from dogbane and butterfly weed let's start with dogbane dogbane and common milkweed are often confused in the spring when the plants are still young at a quick glance the shoots and leaves of both plants can look similar and both drip milky sap when injured but here are three key differences number one the stock of a common milkweed plant is hollow whereas a dogbane stock of those soft is solid number two common milkweed and dogbane stocks and leaves may look similar near their bases but there is an obvious difference further up the plant as it matures dogbane quickly branches out and the leaves often get smaller higher up the bush however common milkweed branch out and the leaves remain relatively the same size all the way up it's single stalk and finally number three dogbane seed pods are long and slender similar in shape to string beans common milkweed seed pods are much meteor and have a teardrop shape to them now on to butterfly weed butterfly weed belongs to the milkweed family but as I stated before it is not edible under any set of circumstances now I don't have any footage of butterfly weed as I haven't found any in my area yet but the describe differences are easily noticeable anyway here are the two main ones number one the flowers of the butterfly weed are red or orange whereas the flowers of the common milkweed are light purple or sometimes light pink or even white number two the sap of butterfly weed is clear whereas common milkweed sap is milky after confirming these plants as common milkweed I harvested some of the younger seed pods as I picked I made sure to leave at least a couple pods on each milkweed plant all the pods that you see here are between one and two inches long a perfect size for cooking and eating after taking the seed pods home I started by rinsing them with water then I dumped them into a large pot of boiling water the more water the better remember it is very important to boil the seed pods first in order to make them edible I always boil common milkweed seed pods for 8 to 10 minutes with a pinch of salt thrown in if you boil the pods for any longer than 10 minutes they will start to fall apart after the boiling is finished dump the water out the pods are ready to eat their texture is unlike anything I've had before which is why they are one of my favorite wild edibles and they taste similar to asparagus or broccoli sometimes I eat the boiled pods as is but this time I'm going to show you my favorite way of preparing them I mix some butter and soy sauce together in a wok and I threw the pods in to cook for a few minutes longer the flavor is absorbed into the seed pods silky Center which is why they are excellent in stir fries there you have it from seed pods - flavour pods in 15 minutes flat did you know that certain types of tree bark are edible this knowledge could come in handy if you should find yourself in a survival situation stay tuned to learn more about tree cambium during the spring and summer months there are many wild edibles that one can choose from when late autumn rolls around the options begin to dwindle and by the time winter hits wild food sources become scarce but even in the winter time nature provides an emergency food cache for those who really need it to find these emergency caches one doesn't need to look any further than the trees that surround them this emergency food lays underneath the outer layer of bark and certain species of trees between the outer layer of bark and the actual wood of the tree is a thin layer of inner bark called cambium the cambium layer is only a couple of millimeters thick but it is packed with digestible starches vitamins minerals and a little bit of sugar cambium also contains a large amount of fiber now though all trees have cambium not all cambium is edible that's because some trees are known to be toxic for human consumption here are some species of trees that are generally safe to gather cambium from birch willow maple spruce pine and fir there are other trees out there that contain edible cambium but those are the main ones however all the mentioned species of trees have multiple subspecies for example there are literally dozens of different kinds of pine and so although most species of pine are edible not all of them are this is why it is extremely important that you thoroughly research the trees in your area to discover which ones are toxic for human consumption and which ones are good to gather from traditionally pine is the most popular choice when it comes to harvesting cambium personaly pine is the only species that I have harvested cambium from and I've only eaten cambium a few times in my life like I said before cambium is classified as an emergency food that's because removing the cambium layer will stunt the trees growth at best and can easily kill it at worst the cambium is where the trees nutrients are transported up from the roots and into the leaves and so without the cambium the tree will quickly starve since trees are such a slow growing and valuable resource the cambium should not be harvested under normal circumstances it is just not worth harming or possibly killing a tree for a simple snack so here are the only two circumstances that want you to harvest cambium under number one if a person finds themselves in a survival situation and they need something to eat number two if the tree is already being harvested for firewood or lumber today I will be harvesting some pine cambium and although I'm not in a survival situation I will be returning to harvest this pine tree in the near future I used my axe to carefully shave away the outer layer of bark being very careful not to accidentally remove the delicate cambium layer in a survival situation it is better to remove small patches like this from several trees rather than harvesting all the way around a single tree a tree can recover from having a small patch of cambium removed but it will die from having its cambium removed from all the way around however in a survival situation it's best to harvest whatever is available human life takes precedence over trees in the case that the tree will be harvested for materials anyway you might as well harvest as much cambium as you possibly can from it now that the cambium layer is exposed all I have to do is gently shave it from the tree cambium feels soft and a little gummy it is also very easy to bend and it is very easy to peel away from the tree after starting a cut it might be hard to see in the video but the wood of the tree is slightly more yellow in color than the whitish looking cambium it's pretty easy to tell the difference between the two layers since cambium is easy to peel away but the wood itself will barely peel at all in a survival situation probably the best way to eat cambium is straight from the tree from my experience I find that pine cambium can vary slightly in taste and texture sometimes it's mild in flavor and easy to eat other times it can taste quite bitter and is a little harder to chew I've noticed that cambium gathered in the dead of winter is likely to be the most pleasant and easy to eat but since I haven't eaten much cambium myself I can't confirm if that's generally the case for all cambium but whether it tastes good or not cambium contains a good amount of nutrients to keep you going if need be you may want to chew the cambium to extract the nutrients and spit it out or you may want to swallow the cambium to have something in your stomach there are pros and cons for each but if you want to cook the cambium you can make a sort of tree pasta by tearing the cambium into strips so that they loosely resemble noodles and boil them boiling the cambium will make it easier to eat and a little more palatable to taste when you're done eating your tree pasta make sure to drink the water that they were boiled in as well pine cambium has also been collected dried and ground into flour in countries like Sweden and Finland this pine flour has been used to make pine bark bread for centuries today however I'll be frying my cambium strips in olive oil with salt until they turn brown and crunchy I call them cambium chips and they don't taste all that bad but I'll give you a fair warning hot oil especially over an open flame can easily ignite this would obviously destroy your precious batch of cambium in a heartbeat believe me this has happened to me before so be very careful if you feel the pan is getting too hot or if you see the oil smoking you'll probably only have seconds to remove it from the flames before it ignites cambium chips definitely have a pine flavor to them but if the batch of cambium is a mild one the flavor mix is quite well with oil and salt it's an acquired taste for some but I really like it in the spring shortly after the snow melted away fiddleheads begin to sprout from the ground by their appearance one can see why they are appropriately called fiddleheads but what you're actually seeing here is an ostrich fern in its early stages fiddleheads grow fast and before you know it they will have unfurled into a fully mature three to four foot tall fern at this stage the ostrich fern becomes inedible and so it is only in their fiddlehead form that they are good to eat fiddleheads grow and damp even swampy soil or in hardwood forests with rich soil although they are very easy to identify because of their unique appearance there are several different species of fiddleheads some of which are not edible and so the species that I'm looking for today is of the ostrich fern variety the good news is that it's easy to tell an ostrich fern fiddlehead apart from all the other inedible species once you've located a fiddlehead there are three things you should look for to make sure it's the right kind number one the fiddleheads should have bits of brown paper II material on it that can easily be picked off the second sign you need to look for is that the stem of the fiddlehead is both smooth and free of any hairs and thirdly the stem of the fiddlehead should have a deep u-shaped groove you these three signs indicate that you have an ostrich fern fiddlehead which means it's safe to eat however they should not be consumed raw you'll have to properly cook them first before eating them before I continue I'd like to show you an example of a fiddlehead that's not good to eat notice how these are fiddleheads but they are clearly not of the edible kind let me prove it to you by using the three identifiers that I just listed first of all these fiddleheads are absent of any brown paper II material secondly the stem is not smooth but is covered in fibers and thirdly the stem has no hollow u-shape to it instead it is completely round this tells us that this is definitely not the plant we want okay let's return to the patch of edible fiddleheads that I discovered when picking fiddleheads only gather the ones that are less than eight inches tall if the fiddleheads are any taller they are not good for eating so when I pick fiddleheads I usually play it safe and pick ones that are about five inches tall or shorter fiddleheads will grow in clusters so when picking them make sure to leave at least one or two of them behind so that the fern plant will remain healthy after I picked what I needed I brought them home to cook I started by thoroughly washing the fiddleheads making sure to remove all the papery material and any lingering bugs that may be hiding out you then I toss them in a pot and seven minutes after boiling the fiddleheads I sauteed them in a frying pan with butter and garlic powder for a few minutes and now they are ready to enjoy they have a pleasant flavor that is similar to a mild asparagus and I love the texture of them you you although I have made teas from many different wild edibles throughout the years I never got around to making pine-needle tea until now pine needle tea is a very healthy drink considering that a cup of pine tea contains five times the amount of vitamin C that is found in a lemon vitamin C of course is an antioxidant and an immune system booster it also contributes to the health of the cardiovascular system skin and eyes in addition to Vitamin C pine tea also contains loads of vitamin A which benefits skin and hair regeneration eyesight and red blood cell production although pine needle tea has many health benefits there are a couple cautions that I should share with you first pregnant women should not drink it and secondly although there are literally dozens of different species of pine trees that are good for making tea out of there are three that are considered to be inedible these three poisonous Pines are the Norfolk Island pine ponderosa pine and you although it is unlikely you will need to worry about these inedible species of pine it is still important to do the proper research on anything before you ingest it but now that we've got all of that out of the way I decided that it was finally time to give pine needle tea a try you a good species of pine to start with is white pine a white pine looks like your typical evergreen with its needle-like foliage and pine cones but a white pine tree has long green needles that grow in clusters of five here's what a cluster looks like again notice that there are five needles you here's what the bark of a white pine looks like when I identified that this was in fact a stand of white pines I harvested a few handfuls of the needles after setting a small pot of water on the fire to boil I pulled the pine needles apart into smaller pieces and added them to my mug I also recommend bruising the needles between your hands or between two rocks this will help to release the juices [Applause] when the water came to a boil I added it to the needles in my mug I set a lid on the mug and allowed the tea to steep for a few minutes the reason why I didn't boil the needles in the water is because I didn't want to destroy the vitamin C that the needles contained however boiling doesn't affect vitamin A after the tea at steeped for five minutes I strained out the needles in a glass mug I like using a clear mug when drinking wild teas because it allows me to view the color you may notice that the pine tea is almost completely clear it is hard to see on camera but the tea only had a very slight green tint to it otherwise it could be easily mistaken for plain water this is normal for pine tea for one reason or another the green colour of the needles doesn't leech very well into the water but the flavour will still be there it is time for a taste test white pine needle tea is definitely one of the mildest teas that I've tasted it does have a slight pine taste but it wasn't as strong as I thought it would be I also wondered if the tea would taste bitter but I was surprised that it didn't when winter came I decided to make another batch of white pine tea I decided to use less water and more needles to see if there would be much of a difference in the color and flavor this time I heated the water with the pine needles however I renewed my mug from the fire once the water came to a boil the tea was obviously a little murkier in color when I tasted the tea the only difference in flavor that I could detect was a slight bitterness that wasn't there before otherwise it was still quite mild so here's what I think of white pine tea overall it's a healthy drink to boost the immune system and to fight off colds but I don't really like how it tastes now don't get me wrong it doesn't taste bad but it doesn't really taste all that good either but don't take my word for it white pine needle tea is still definitely worth a try cattails are one of the most common wild edibles that can be found if you can find water whether it be a river lake pond Marsh or even a patch of really moist soil you will probably be able to find cattails there if you live in the northern hemisphere chances are cattails grow in your area the unique features of the cattail plant make it easy to identify blade-like leaves that stand five to eight feet tall at maturity and of course its trademark cattail flower head situated on top of a central stem which can stand just as tall a small handful of plants might have similar leaves for example some people might confuse young cattail leaves with those of the i-r-s plant which is toxic to ingest but the cattail flower head is completely unique to the plant so when you come across a patch of cattails the best way to confirm them as such is to look for the cigar like flower heads first different parts of the plant can be used for many different reasons but today I'm going to focus on the tender stalk at the base of the cattail but before I begin I want to caution you although the cattail is edible make sure that the water source you harvest it from isn't stagnant or polluted the cattail is a wonderful plant that naturally cleans whatever water source it grows in it does this by absorbing contaminants out of the water although this is a great feature it is also the reason why it isn't good to eat cattails from a polluted area for this reason ditches and roadsides are never good places to harvest cattail from actually that goes for any wild edible but especially cattail okay let's get to harvesting the stalks although this group of cattails doesn't have any visible flower heads I have worked with cattails enough to make a confident idea of them without needing to see the flower head before picking your cattails there are two observations you must make number one you should only pick cattails in an area where there is an abundance of them in many places across North America cattails are being crowded out by an invasive species of wild grass known as Phragmites therefore if you are only able to locate a small cluster of cattails it would be best to give them a fighting chance by leaving them alone to grow and repopulate secondly check with your local laws before harvesting for example in some states of the US it is illegal to pick hat tails this is because they are listed as endangered in certain parts of the world due to the previously mentioned Phragmites issue however if everything checks out there is no reason why you can't enjoy this delicacy of nature for yourself pat tails can be harvested from spring to fall the roots however can be harvested all year round including winter but considering that I live in an area that receives copious amounts of snow in the winter time I imagine the roots would be pretty hard to reach while under a heavy layer of snow and ice I start by cutting the roots from the base of the stock later in a different episode that is I will extract the starch from them now if I didn't intend to use the roots I would have used a knife to cut the stalks away from the root system while they were in the water in order to leave the roots intact rather than pull the whole plant up like I did with these cattails I then separate the leaves from around the stalk as you can see there is a clear slime that can be found underneath the leaves although it looks gross this slime can be used as medicine it is a natural antiseptic and analgesic this means it can be used to keep wounds clean well at the same time relieving pain and inflammation for centuries cattail jelly has been popular for treating and relieving sunburn bug bites tooth aches cuts bruises and more anyway back to the task at hand most field guides suggest cutting the stalk at four inches but you don't have to be strict with that number as long as the stalk is tender that's all that matters the white part is obviously the most tender so judging by that I figured I could get away with cutting them at around 6 inches here's what the end of the stalk looks like as you can see it is made up of several different layers I'd like to draw your attention to the core which is sticking out slightly from the end of the stock this is what I'll be eating the outer layers are too fibrous to eat but the core is tender enough to eat raw although I have eaten cattail shoots raw before I like them best when they're cooked after stripping away the outer layers I'm ready to cook the tender cores I figure that for a single serving you'll need to gather between 30 to 40 cat tails for this video however I gathered only ten or so it only took me a couple minutes to pick them and about five minutes to process them after washing the cores I blanched them for a couple minutes in boiling water before plunging them into cold water I then fried them up in butter with a little bit of salt and pepper to taste [Music] the major nutrients of cattail shoots are manganese vitamin K magnesium and iron after frying them for two or three minutes they were ready to eat I have to say this is my favorite way to eat cattail shoots the cores are very easy to eat their texture is similar to that of an udon noodle with a little crunch thrown in I think this is the closest to pasta that a wild edible can get what part of the cattail is your favorite to use let me know in the comments below thanks for watching in this episode I make tea from four common species of evergreen trees which one is best stay tuned to find out there are literally dozens of evergreen species that are good to make tea from the four main groups in my area at least are pine spruce fir and cedar within these four main groups of evergreen trees are many more subspecies although most types of evergreens are good to make tea from there is a small number that are not good for human consumption therefore it's important to familiarize yourself with the different types of evergreens that are in your area so that you'll be able to make a positive ID if you're not sure then it's best to leave it alone in addition pregnant women should not drink any type of evergreen tea as a precaution now that we've gotten all that out of the way it's time to dive in evergreen tea is an extremely rich source of vitamins minerals antioxidants starches and sugars and unlike most other wild edibles the nutrients that evergreen trees provide are readily available all year round although I've made individual episodes before on white cedar and white pine tea my goal in this episode is to compare the flavors between the four main species of evergreen more specifically white cedar white spruce balsam fir and white pine I will also examine the general characteristics of each tree to help identify them from each other for starters let's take a look at their bark you next let's look at the needles which is what I'll be making the tea from as you can see white cedar needles can't really be considered needles at all they're really a hybrid not quite needles but not quite leaves either however for the sake of this episode I'll refer to them as needles notice how the cedar needles are made up of many scale like sections that branch out from each other next on a list are white spruce needles of the four different species they are the sharpest and most rigid short compared to a pine needle here are the needles of a balsam fir at a quick glance they look like spruce needles but look closer and you'll easily be able to tell them apart although they are similar in length the shape is different the end of a firm needle is rounded whereas a spruce needle comes to a sharp point as well a fir needle has only two sides making it flat whereas a spruce needle has four size a quick test that some people use to distinguish fur needles from spruce needles is to roll the needle between their fingers a spruce needle will roll fairly easily but a fur needle won't after turning the fir needles over to view their undersides you'll see that each needle has two distinct white stripes along its length and finally these are white pine needles which are easily distinguished from all the rest as you can see they are much longer than spruce and fir needles another unique feature of pine needles is that they grow in clusters I can tell this is a white pine specifically because it has five needles within one cluster now all the characteristics I just shared with you can be used to generally identify what main group an evergreen might belong to however there are other ways to further identify which subspecies each tree belongs to and to avoid mistaking it for a toxic species for example although their bark patterns are quite distinct from each other fir tree needles can sometimes be mistaken for you needles which are poisonous you being spelled ye w so we're searching the telltale differences between these two trees is a must the good news is that with a little bit of Education the differences can be easily spotted anyway after gathering some needles from each tree I brought them home to conduct a flavour test I placed the needles in their own jar after boiling some water I immediately filled each jar and allowed them to steep in the water for 15 minutes then I strained the needles out right away I could see a difference between the teas the cedar and fir teas had a green tinge to them while the pine and spruce teas barely had any colouring to them at all although the coloring of the tea's was subtle their flavors weren't each tea was full of flavor and had their own distinct taste so here are my notes for each one I liked the pine tea the least it had a sharp acidic flavor that I didn't really like neither did mrs. outsider I would also describe it as being slightly bitter the cedar tea was our favorite by far it was smooth with a slight sweetness that none of the other teas had the only way I can describe its flavor is to compare it to a white tea but there really is nothing like it the spruce tea had a slightly fruity flavor to it this might sound strange but its flavor was similar to that of wine gum candies if you know what those are finally we tried the fir tea this was my wife's second favorite it tasted slightly flowery that's honestly the best way I can describe it like an earthy flower so there you go overall I love the cedar tea I liked the spruce and fir and I disliked the pine but that's just my opinion what do you think please share in the comments below hello fellow outsiders just walking in the bush really quietly today to see what I can see I don't think you guys can hear it but I can hear a turkey calling deeper into the bush that way so I'm just being really quiet to see if I can get in without being detected and this is turkey season right now so I'm probably gonna see a few turkeys and if I'm lucky I might even see some coyotes trying to hunt them so I'd be a real treat but now is the time of year when the yellow birch sap is starting to flow and the L birch sap flows right after the maple sap is done flowing maple sap flows ideally when the day is about five degrees above zero and during the day and then during night minus five but yellow birch trees the sap flows best when the temperature is around fifty degrees Fahrenheit during the day and I think that equals to 16 degrees Celsius but anyways I'm just gonna check some yellow birch trees here and see how the sap is flowing and if I can I'd like to collect some yellow birch sap so here goes nothing so this is a yellow birch tree and it looks pretty scraggly that's how you can tell it's yellow birch is because the bark peels and kind of tatters like this a white birch the bark is a lot whiter and it feels more in sheets and with a yellow birch when the Sun hits it just right there's kind of this golden sheen that comes off of the bark I don't know if you can see it on the camera here but it's got a bit of a yellowish goldish tinge to it that's how you know you've got a yellow birch so I'm just gonna take the tip of my knife here and I'm gonna tap it into the tree just a little bit and see if there's any SAP flowing and as you can see it's flowing pretty good so I'm going to see if I can start collecting some now so what I've gotten here is a hard wood branch that I'm going to carve into a bit of a Spile that I'm going to use to collect the yellow birch sap into a container I don't know if you can see it but um I've whittled this stick flat with my knife and in the very center you can see there's kind of a softer part of the wood here and so I'm gonna make this into a Spile that I can use to tap the yellow SAP and so I'm just gonna take the tip of my knife and just push out the softer wood from the center and that'll be a channel for the yellow SAP to flowing into the bottle that I have set up for it okay so I've got my Spile made up here and I'm just gonna make the initial entry into the BARC with my knife and then I'm gonna tap the Spile into the hole there and let it start dripping okay the street has a good drip so this will be a good one to put my smile into the intrusion that my knife makes into the birch is so minimal that it doesn't injure the tree not any more than a light scratch would hurt a person nowadays birch sap is being hailed as the new super drink that's because it's packed with vitamins minerals antioxidants electrolytes and natural sugars birch sap is said to boost the immune system lower cholesterol to toxify the body and it is even thought to have anti-aging properties the SAP also contains the chemical xylitol a naturally occurring sugar alcohol which the American Dental Association says helps fight tooth decay birch sap is marketed not only as a health drink but also as a beauty product in some parts of the world birch sap is so popular that I've heard it can sell for up to twenty dollars a liter but nature has Vaughn tap for free now this is the second drip that I've set up so between the two smiles that I have here I should have something to drink fairly quickly which I'm looking very much forward to yellow birch sap and well they're also sweet birch or black birch has oil of wintergreen right in the SAP so if you chew on the twigs or or boil the twigs to make some tea which I've done before in previous episodes it'll have a slight hint of wintergreen flavor to it which is really Pleasant but anyways now that the second one is ready to go then I can leave both of them to drip for a while and I'll return soon it's been about two hours now and yeah so let's take a look okay so this one's still dripping a little bit but I've only collected a little bit of SAP in there so I'm just going to take this off the tree now and go on to the next one and see how much I've collected there so again I've only had these dripping for two hours and I have almost half a water bottle here and this tree was dripping a little slower obviously so less but still a little bit notice that this one here is a little more cloudy than the one off the tree that was dripping faster so I don't know if this sap is starting to the sugars are starting to break down already but I'll try them separately and see if there's a difference in flavor something that I forgot to mention earlier was that yellow birch sap flows for only two to three weeks so it's much shorter than the maple sap season because on the maple trees the SAP flows for I think it's around four to six weeks so much faster period so you have to get the the yellow birch trees when the time is right and I just so happened to get them in the right time definitely refreshing it has a slight yellow tinge to it but not much and it's actually quite cold too which is nice a lot of people assume that maple sap and yellow birch sap will have a really sweet and sticky kind of flavor to it but actually both saps are it tastes a lot like water because they haven't they haven't been boiled down yet to where the sugar content is higher so in with yellow birch sap you get maybe a hint of wintergreen flavor but not much the same thing with maple sap is you've got just a hint of the maple flavor but it's hard to distinguish it does taste a lot like water but the fact of the matter is that this stuff is the stuff is really really refreshing and of course you can't deny all the health benefits that come with drinking this stuff so all in all really refreshing really healthy and this my friend is the taste of spring

Channel: The Outsider

Views: 686,223

Rating: 4.9260187 out of 5

Keywords: wild edibles, foraging, wild foods, common edibles, forage, milkweed, cambium, tree bark, fiddlehead, fern, cattail, evergreen tea, pine tea, outsidefun1, The Outsider, birch sap, tree sap, les stroud, survivorman, ray mears, baer grylls, man vs wild

Id: Wt7e5YlfL1U

Length: 55min 4sec (3304 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 21 2018