Passport
A last-resort method for genuine emergencies — not a casual foraging tool, and never for mushrooms.
This method was developed for genuine survival emergencies —
situations where someone has no food, no field guide, and no
way to positively identify what's around them, but needs to eat.
It is not a substitute for the identification skills covered
in Topic 4, and it does not guarantee safety. Some toxic plants
simply don't show warning signs through this process.
Use positive identification whenever it's available to you —
this is genuinely a last resort.
This cannot be said clearly enough: never use this test on
mushrooms. Mushroom toxins behave very differently from plant
toxins, and some have effects delayed by days — as covered with
the deadly webcap in section 6.4. By the time symptoms appear,
serious organ damage may already have occurred.
This test applies to plants only.
Make sure there's enough of the plant available to be worth
the time this takes — it's a slow process, roughly a full day
per plant part. Fast for about eight hours beforehand, drinking
only water, so any reaction you notice can be clearly attributed
to the plant rather than something else you've eaten.
Separate the plant into its parts — leaves, stems, roots, buds,
flowers — since edibility can differ significantly between them.
Test only one part at a time.
Smell the part you're testing. A strong, sour, or almond-like
odour is a reason for real caution — though a pleasant smell
doesn't guarantee safety either.
Rub a small piece on a sensitive area of skin, like the inside
of your wrist or elbow, and wait around fifteen minutes.
Any burning, itching, or unusual sensation means stop —
this part of the plant fails the test here.
If the skin test shows no reaction, touch a small piece to your
lip and wait a few minutes for burning or tingling.
If there's still no reaction, place a small amount in your mouth
and chew, holding it for about fifteen minutes without swallowing.
Any bad reaction at this stage means spit it out and stop.
If chewing produced no reaction, swallow the small amount and
wait a full eight hours, drinking only water and eating nothing
else during that time. Any nausea, cramping, or other ill effect
during this wait means the plant part has failed —
and inducing vomiting is the recommended response if this happens.
Only after a full eight hours with no reaction should you prepare
a small portion — around a quarter cup — the way you intend to
eat it, and eat it. Wait another eight hours. If there's still
no reaction, that part of the plant can reasonably be considered
safe — though remember, other parts of the same plant
still need their own separate test.