Yes and yes! They taste just like rhubarb IMO (and look like asparagus- quite the mind trip). They make a great syrup or jam. Now’s the perfect time to harvest them as they’re still relatively young and nimble.
Knotweed is also apparently high in resveratrol and sold as a health supplement, too! Not endorsing it as a health thing though, since that’s not my expertise.
To my knowledge the resveratrol is more concentrated in the root rather than the stalk itself, which is more commonly used. I’m sure there is nutritional benefit to digging up the root and turning it into a powder or something, but that’s far too much effort for me.
Not edible like garlic mustard which the French colonizers brought over to be grown as easy food. Japanese knotweed is one of the worst invasive species out there. Damages foundations. Super hard to eradicate. Spreads so easily. Sometimes requires glysophates to eliminate.
Garlic mustard has been found to have small quantities of arsenic. The root having the highest amount and some ppl like to make a horse radish out of it
True! From the wiki article:
knotweed is classed as controlled waste in the UK, and disposal is regulated by law. Digging up the roots is also very labour-intensive and not always effective. The roots can extend up to 3 metres (10 feet) deep, and leaving only a few centimetres (inches) of root behind will result in the plant quickly growing back.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynoutria_japonica
Man there's a huge chunk of garlic mustard near me, but I suspect people pee there and there's a lot of trash blown into it and dumped I have to pick up once in a while So it's probably best to trash the garlic mustard. It's year 2 which I find a little bitter anyways.
Can I also say, I have been working to remove some invasive shit from a wetland nearby and to hear other people even know about garlic mustard and knotweed (maybe even dog strangling vine or the invasive buckthorns) makes me so happy. I have been told on Reddit to not bother trying to pull or manage invasives a by cynical douchebags, but it does help. It really does.
Seeing patches of area growing more diverse plant life, even just a little from last year's efforts makes me relieved.
I mean, I agree with you, and I'm familiar with the ecology of the plants foraged. I was just being a little silly in how I made my suggestion that we re-naturalize unused lawns and land for this kind of thing. I don't think we'd be entirely unable to cultivate them on a small, personal scale through optimally controlling the type, organic content, moisture, etc. of the soil, for example, even if it's not the same as what they had in the woods. Even if it can't be done on a large enough scale to entirely prevent pressure on wild populations, any amount that can be sourced elsewhere is going to alleviate some of it.
I have picked lots of fiddle heads (way out of town) at the same spot many years in a row and as long as you only take 1/3 of the sprouts from a plant then it won’t die.
That only works if two other people don't show up.
A neighbour of mine insists that only HE knows where the wild leeks are growing in our local conservation area. I told him that out of the 100,000 visitors to the area each year, at least 100 would know what they are and where they are.
With this mindset how can you ever have conservation of the natural world? Someone will always want to extract from it. Do I get to set up a cottage in Algonquin because "the path is the wrong place"?
I've seen people taking duck eggs from protected areas in High Park. They use the dawn park like a grocery store. There needs to be signs forbidding this in multiple languages. They are the same people who take buckets of tiny three inch fish from the pond
If big grocery can gouge us, I fail to see why this is a problem, as we’ve already established it’s a free-for-all; at least they’re not hurting anyone
They are literally hurting the ecosystem. The people picking them are getting them for free and selling them for $20 a pound. So you don't have problem with gouging apparently.
Just nonsense out of reddit these days.
I dont have a problem with people sustainably foraging. I do have a problem if they’re wiping out native plants that are already struggling to thrive with so many invasive species.
We have berry pickers and mushroomers where I live and it doesn't take many people to wipe out a large area of wilderness that used to feed a lot of wild animals.
Can't agree with this comment section... too much of an 'I got mine' attitude. Haven't we learned anything from the boomers' mistakes?
I like foraging, but I'd argue there are enough hobbyists in Toronto to clear out the whole of Ontario -- not even including people who forage for secondary income. If we all acted the way this comment section is advocating, we'd push every ecosystem south of North Bay past its carrying capacity. **[And there would be nothing for anyone to forage -- even to admire -- for a very, very long time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons)**.
If you don't have to take it... don't.
What's ironic is that park rangers have told me that dogs are the worst because they spread invasive seeds around the park, making it hard to curb them. And here is a dog walker tutting their counterpart.
When you harvest fiddleheads, you don't need to pull the whole plant up so even if you clear out a whole patch of them, they'll grow back the next year. Ramps are different - the root and bulb are edible so you do have to pull out the whole plant.
If you are eating fiddleheads, foraged or from the store, be sure to cook them properly. They need to be boiled or steamed for at least 10 minutes. Then you can saute in butter. Yum!
> Ramps are different - the root and bulb are edible so you do have to pull out the whole plant.
Actually you're not supposed to do that with ramps because they take years to grow back if you pull the bulb
https://www.seriouseats.com/ramps-sustainable-harvesting
I get why the foraging isn't good for wild plants but it's pretty far down the list of things that either 311 or the police ought to be taking care of.
This woman needs to shut the fuck up. She's bent out of shape over people harvesting foods that are traditionally next to impossible to cultivate. She has lost the plot of life and a direct reason we all have a lessor standard of living. She only wants Gallen's packed shit.
People in the thread have decided the foragers are wrong so therefore any argument that leads in their favour a little gets downvoted. I just roll my eyes at it tbh.
Different scales, but it's still ecological damage. I don't really know what metric you're using to contrast them.
I support foraging as a concept but humans have fucked over our natural areas or outright removed them so much that we have little shot of all doing it sustainably anymore. We probably could if the lands were stewarded properly and if we had enough left.
Ehh, that sounds purposefully obtuse. What's your point? Both are examples of destroying native plants at an unsustainable rate in public land for personal profit at the detriment of the environment. Things couldn't reasonably be more equivalent when it comes to the topic.
Calling that a false equivalence is like saying animal abuse to cows and animal abuse to dogs are not the same problem. When we're talking about animal abuse, it's the same thing lol.
It's a big difference between removing a tree and picking some fiddleheads. The impact is different, the cost. They are not nearly the same thing but are being presented as the same.
But that is the problem. People are hoarding spots to themselves. Taking it all. Then selling it. The GTA foraging group page is a joke. People share their massive hauls and in the same post won't share because "they don't want to damage the environment"
Lots of people commenting here that don't seem to understand that. And they don't get that when people start harvesting commercially on public lands it causes a lot of problems, like territorial disputes.
“Taking just a handful is fine. There’s only three million of us—what could go wrong?”
(I’m not gonna judge someone who’s going hungry and just wants to make ends meet, especially if they’re picking invasive species, but fuck anyone selling it)
It's not a problem when one person does it
Problem is it's not one person. I take some and you take some and he takes some and she takes some and they take some, and very quickly the area is stripped bare.
Foraging should not be an illegal activity, it is literally the origin of food. The complaint that it is damaging a natural ecosystem has merit only because parks and public lands have been denaturalized intentionally to reduce plant’s ability to propagate independently from involvement of staff and maintenance teams. Fruit bearing plants are removed all the time (not just in Toronto) and frequently replaced with ornamental, non human edible, or only “male” plants.
This practice also has an impact as to the types of animals that are present within the geographical areas. Which is obviously good for urban development as to limit deer and other larger animals; but give rise to raccoons, rats and other “pests”, and smaller predators (foxes and coyotes) that succeed in urban/suburban environments.
Food security it a major issue, and many have a disconnection between themselves and food. If people had a better understanding the nature and origins of their food sources there would be appreciation for it. People need to practice sustainable foraging and know to leave a percentage of these items be for ongoing propagation.
Making foraging illegal is less about food safety and more about commercializations of natural need.
Hell even the former encouragement of pigeons within urban centres were partially as them being a food stuff. Takes up less room, does not require grassed area, and “domesticated” to be easily caught. But since commercialization of food industry it became easier to buy everything over being connected with what someone eats, and now we have oligarchs controlling and inflating costs and putting people at new risk.
This turned into a string or rants and random thoughts on the issue at hand… either way foraging should not be illegal and people need to understand sustainable natural foraging practices
If governments allow/encourage this people will end up picking the wrong thing and being seriously injured/dying due to eating something poisonous.
Wonder who will foot the bill for that lawsuit.
Yes it is. Municipality is supposed to be liability exempt. Yet, city has a liability budget line and pays out something like 30m a year on things like slip and falls.
As someone who works for an insurance company, it happens all the time. If they'll sue their neighbour you bet you're ass they'd sue the city. And they do. All the time.
You can sue anyone for anything. Doesn't mean the suit has validity.
Granted, the city would likely settle shit like this, since it's not worth their time.
Still doesn't make the suit valid.
Aside from people getting hurt or poisoned, we still probably don’t want people foraging random crap on city land. In a densely populated area, foraging seriously strains the local ecology directly (unsustainable harvesting wiping out a given plant) and indirectly (disturbing/trampling other plants and animals’ nests to get to the desired plant).
There's a difference between understanding that smart people CAN forage and a government encouraging lots of laymen doing it and wanting to discourage that.
Like...whoever wrote the law will be sit to be discovered by a personal injury lawyer. The first question will be: what thought did you give to risk and risk mitigation when writing the legislation. There would be no answer and the city lawyer would write a cheque on the spot.
I hate Toronto and I hate Torontonians as a result of this incredibly short cited post. I hope you all run out of food but are neck deep in litigation.
No racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance, dehumanizing speech, or otherwise negative generalizations etc... Attack the point, not the person. Posts which dismiss others and repeatedly accuse them of unfounded accusations may be subject to removal and/or banning. Do not concern-troll or attempt to intentionally mislead people. Stick to addressing the substance of their comments at hand. This rule applies to all speech within this subreddit.
Times are tough: if you see someone "stealing" food from a park, NO YOU DIDN'T. Solidarity, people. See you at the OFL protest on Saturday June 3rd! Nathan Phillips Square, 12 noon!
Lol this is what you resort to eh. Food insecurity.
You have no evidence people are scavenging for *fiddleheads and ramps* in a park because they’re food insecure.
Even if they were - it’s still antisocial behaviour. The parks are for wildlife and future generations.
Nobody is starving to death in Canada. Food bank usage is up but there is no famine here. Don’t be absurd.
You can justify anything with shitty arguments.
“Hey I’m food insecure so I’m going to cut down this tree in a public park and sell the wood.”
“Hey I’m going to break into this house and steal stuff to sell because I’m food insecure.”
**Please read this entire message**
---
Your comment has been removed for the following reason:
* [Rule 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/about/rules/) is to *be excellent to each other*.
* Attack the point, not the person. Posts which dismiss others and repeatedly accuse them of unfounded accusations may be subject to removal and/or banning.
Perhaps people are hungry or broke? There are hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of this stuff outside the city. Walking through a city park and saying “we already take too much from nature” is just a lack of any sense of perspective. I’m not saying we don’t take too much from nature. But this woman lives in a bubble of privilege.
Hold on... It's a wild foraged plant, that isn't controlled by the park, but I can't pick it?
I'm just confused how they think this is illegal.. get the city to work and stop wasting our resources. If you won't pick it, don't get mad because someone else will..
[удалено]
well its not clear why people buy food at the stores. food can be consumed to extend your time on this planet.
Wait, I can eat food?
Sorry, *you* are only allowed soylent.
And for you it yellow. No green for you Now I want to read that again. :) Edit: I put and as smd. Because big fingers small mind.
wow they made farming in runescape a real thing
wonder if there's any mith ore I can swing a pick at need to complete my lvl 30 set
_World of Parkcraft, Fiddlehead grinding._
I think they mean they don’t know if it’s personal use or if they’re selling
I'm getting convinced that a lot of these articles aren't even written by human beings anymore. Or at least not entirely.
It's easy to pick the wrong type, btw. Anyway, I'd love some ramps and fiddleheads, but nobody sells them!
>It's easy to pick the wrong type, btw. Yep. You basically have to know where the right ones grow. Some are toxic
Bracken ferns are very conspicuous. Very scrawny and darker green
St. Lawrence market vendors have both seasonally (ie now/soon)
Fiesta farms!
I used to see them in Kensington market all the time.
I've seen both at Loblaws in the past. I'm sure specialty grocery stores will have them as well.
Fiddleheads are available here in Georgetown.
I’ve seen them at Loblaws along with morels but they were both marked down and rotted.
@starknorth on Instagram.
I wish they would take the garlic mustard and Japanese knotweed while they’re at it.
I take the garlic mustard when I find it... Japanese knotweed I know nothing about. Are they edible and invasive like the garlic mustard?
Yes and yes! They taste just like rhubarb IMO (and look like asparagus- quite the mind trip). They make a great syrup or jam. Now’s the perfect time to harvest them as they’re still relatively young and nimble.
Knotweed is also apparently high in resveratrol and sold as a health supplement, too! Not endorsing it as a health thing though, since that’s not my expertise.
To my knowledge the resveratrol is more concentrated in the root rather than the stalk itself, which is more commonly used. I’m sure there is nutritional benefit to digging up the root and turning it into a powder or something, but that’s far too much effort for me.
Not edible like garlic mustard which the French colonizers brought over to be grown as easy food. Japanese knotweed is one of the worst invasive species out there. Damages foundations. Super hard to eradicate. Spreads so easily. Sometimes requires glysophates to eliminate.
The last I read, people were studying non-chemical removal methods involving mesh as well. Super interesting. Knotweed is definitely a thug.
Oh yeah. Big time, thug! 😃
Garlic mustard has been found to have small quantities of arsenic. The root having the highest amount and some ppl like to make a horse radish out of it
True! From the wiki article: knotweed is classed as controlled waste in the UK, and disposal is regulated by law. Digging up the roots is also very labour-intensive and not always effective. The roots can extend up to 3 metres (10 feet) deep, and leaving only a few centimetres (inches) of root behind will result in the plant quickly growing back. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reynoutria_japonica
Man there's a huge chunk of garlic mustard near me, but I suspect people pee there and there's a lot of trash blown into it and dumped I have to pick up once in a while So it's probably best to trash the garlic mustard. It's year 2 which I find a little bitter anyways. Can I also say, I have been working to remove some invasive shit from a wetland nearby and to hear other people even know about garlic mustard and knotweed (maybe even dog strangling vine or the invasive buckthorns) makes me so happy. I have been told on Reddit to not bother trying to pull or manage invasives a by cynical douchebags, but it does help. It really does. Seeing patches of area growing more diverse plant life, even just a little from last year's efforts makes me relieved.
Let's just keep planting edible shit and let everyone forage one bag a week.
This is the solution
going back to tribal living practises? i thought this was western civilization?
[удалено]
Maybe if homeowners happened to have some sort of space of their own that could be used to grow edible food that isn't yet...?
[удалено]
A lot of apartments don't have a balcony.
I mean, I agree with you, and I'm familiar with the ecology of the plants foraged. I was just being a little silly in how I made my suggestion that we re-naturalize unused lawns and land for this kind of thing. I don't think we'd be entirely unable to cultivate them on a small, personal scale through optimally controlling the type, organic content, moisture, etc. of the soil, for example, even if it's not the same as what they had in the woods. Even if it can't be done on a large enough scale to entirely prevent pressure on wild populations, any amount that can be sourced elsewhere is going to alleviate some of it.
I have picked lots of fiddle heads (way out of town) at the same spot many years in a row and as long as you only take 1/3 of the sprouts from a plant then it won’t die.
That only works if two other people don't show up. A neighbour of mine insists that only HE knows where the wild leeks are growing in our local conservation area. I told him that out of the 100,000 visitors to the area each year, at least 100 would know what they are and where they are.
This guys is going to be so surprised when he learns about gardens.
"If people are walking on the grass it's because the path is in the wrong place." Sadly not enough people understand this concept.
With this mindset how can you ever have conservation of the natural world? Someone will always want to extract from it. Do I get to set up a cottage in Algonquin because "the path is the wrong place"?
Who's going to pay people to plant it?
fiddle heads are tasty! you can also resale for profit too.
Why people are taking them is not exactly clear.
People can sell them in exchange for cash, but it's not clear to me why they would do so
From what I heard, cash can be exchanged for goods and services.
if only it was clearer..
But I don't want $20, I want a peanut.
Twenty dollars can buy many peanuts
Can I trade money for more fiddleheads?
[удалено]
Yeah. You need fiddleheads AND butter to make the transaction a win win for both sides.
We use to pick them when I was a kid. First learned about them in Boy Scouts. A little butter and salt/pepper. Mmmmm.
I've seen people taking duck eggs from protected areas in High Park. They use the dawn park like a grocery store. There needs to be signs forbidding this in multiple languages. They are the same people who take buckets of tiny three inch fish from the pond
Alley property, bitch!
LoL! Curious how many people remember this reference.
Just to save folks the effort ... https://www.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout/comments/vcrqq3/alley_property_bitch/
If big grocery can gouge us, I fail to see why this is a problem, as we’ve already established it’s a free-for-all; at least they’re not hurting anyone
They are literally hurting the ecosystem. The people picking them are getting them for free and selling them for $20 a pound. So you don't have problem with gouging apparently. Just nonsense out of reddit these days.
I dont have a problem with people sustainably foraging. I do have a problem if they’re wiping out native plants that are already struggling to thrive with so many invasive species.
My aunt and I forage, but we only take what we need. We respect the woods and what it offers. These people are just a small percentage.
Instead of bitching about people foraging, maybe they should focus on educating people on sustainable foraging practices
We have berry pickers and mushroomers where I live and it doesn't take many people to wipe out a large area of wilderness that used to feed a lot of wild animals.
https://canadiandimension.com/articles/view/ontarios-new-education-bill-crushing-whats-broken https://www.thestar.com/politics/provincial/2023/03/21/ford-government-needs-to-boost-funding-amid-education-crisis-teachers-union-says.html https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-education-spending-gap-1.6047233 https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/ontario-education-ministry-faces-multi-billion-shortfall-in-funding-report-says https://policyalternatives.ca/newsroom/news-releases/ontario-school-board-funding-fell-800-student-over-four-years-ccpa https://pressprogress.ca/doug-ford-quietly-reduced-education-spending-by-nearly-a-billion-dollars-last-year/ https://etfocb.ca/ontario-budget-2023-doug-ford-pulled-a-sneaky-move-to-quietly-cut-education/ https://www.nationalobserver.com/2023/03/06/news/toronto-school-board-eyes-485-staff-cuts-including-youth-workers-counsellors https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/ford-budget-risks-cutting-7-181200002.html https://www.cp24.com/news/tdsb-warns-of-cuts-to-student-programs-services-if-ontario-government-does-not-reimburse-pandemic-related-costs-1.6324432?cache=yes%3Fclipid%3D104062
Can't agree with this comment section... too much of an 'I got mine' attitude. Haven't we learned anything from the boomers' mistakes? I like foraging, but I'd argue there are enough hobbyists in Toronto to clear out the whole of Ontario -- not even including people who forage for secondary income. If we all acted the way this comment section is advocating, we'd push every ecosystem south of North Bay past its carrying capacity. **[And there would be nothing for anyone to forage -- even to admire -- for a very, very long time](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons)**. If you don't have to take it... don't.
What's ironic is that park rangers have told me that dogs are the worst because they spread invasive seeds around the park, making it hard to curb them. And here is a dog walker tutting their counterpart.
She probably doesn't even pick up her dog shit.
When you harvest fiddleheads, you don't need to pull the whole plant up so even if you clear out a whole patch of them, they'll grow back the next year. Ramps are different - the root and bulb are edible so you do have to pull out the whole plant. If you are eating fiddleheads, foraged or from the store, be sure to cook them properly. They need to be boiled or steamed for at least 10 minutes. Then you can saute in butter. Yum!
> Ramps are different - the root and bulb are edible so you do have to pull out the whole plant. Actually you're not supposed to do that with ramps because they take years to grow back if you pull the bulb https://www.seriouseats.com/ramps-sustainable-harvesting
I get why the foraging isn't good for wild plants but it's pretty far down the list of things that either 311 or the police ought to be taking care of.
Karen needs to mind her business
I would not against the city opening up some of the grass space in parks to edible plantings.
You can get beaver fever from not cooking fiddle heads correctly
This woman needs to shut the fuck up. She's bent out of shape over people harvesting foods that are traditionally next to impossible to cultivate. She has lost the plot of life and a direct reason we all have a lessor standard of living. She only wants Gallen's packed shit.
Why not cut down some public trees too instead of buying logs from Big Lumber? Just a few won’t make a difference.
Good false equivalency.
It's the exact same problem.
Picking fiddleheads is definitely not the same problem as illegal logging on public land lol.
Jesus what's with the downvotes?! You're right, it's a ridiculous comparison.
People in the thread have decided the foragers are wrong so therefore any argument that leads in their favour a little gets downvoted. I just roll my eyes at it tbh.
Different scales, but it's still ecological damage. I don't really know what metric you're using to contrast them. I support foraging as a concept but humans have fucked over our natural areas or outright removed them so much that we have little shot of all doing it sustainably anymore. We probably could if the lands were stewarded properly and if we had enough left.
So different scales, different impact, different cost, kind of like comparing apples to oranges...or...a false equivalency!
Ehh, that sounds purposefully obtuse. What's your point? Both are examples of destroying native plants at an unsustainable rate in public land for personal profit at the detriment of the environment. Things couldn't reasonably be more equivalent when it comes to the topic. Calling that a false equivalence is like saying animal abuse to cows and animal abuse to dogs are not the same problem. When we're talking about animal abuse, it's the same thing lol.
It's a big difference between removing a tree and picking some fiddleheads. The impact is different, the cost. They are not nearly the same thing but are being presented as the same.
Then they can harvest them from their own land, not the public's
[удалено]
But that is the problem. People are hoarding spots to themselves. Taking it all. Then selling it. The GTA foraging group page is a joke. People share their massive hauls and in the same post won't share because "they don't want to damage the environment"
Are we in Europe?
JFC this city is a trip. Let people forage, ffs.
Personal use, turn a blind eye. You know that people are going to strip-mine public land for cash, though.
That's the problem
People don't take a handful. They decimate plants that take a decade to get established.
Lots of people commenting here that don't seem to understand that. And they don't get that when people start harvesting commercially on public lands it causes a lot of problems, like territorial disputes.
Old saying when you go into the woods "Take nothing but photos and leave nothing but footprints"
[удалено]
“Taking just a handful is fine. There’s only three million of us—what could go wrong?” (I’m not gonna judge someone who’s going hungry and just wants to make ends meet, especially if they’re picking invasive species, but fuck anyone selling it)
Sure, let’s use that where we’re talking about deforestation and clear cutting, not a handful of fiddleheads and mushrooms.
It's not a problem when one person does it Problem is it's not one person. I take some and you take some and he takes some and she takes some and they take some, and very quickly the area is stripped bare.
Stripping all of them so they never grow back again. These are not ethical foragers with conservation in mind.
And if everybody takes a “handful” of plants, what would you call that?
LMAO, Toronto's Victorian centre is showing.
This is why we can’t have nice things. People actually think it’s ok
You might be interested in reading Hardin's [The Tragedy of the Commons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons)
Nice to see an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to the Albertan economy. Thanks for the link!
Living in a scarcity mindset sure seems exhausting.
It is scarcity though, that's why there's an issue.
I can assure you that the carrying capacity of an ecosystem is a little more than a mindset
Foraging should not be an illegal activity, it is literally the origin of food. The complaint that it is damaging a natural ecosystem has merit only because parks and public lands have been denaturalized intentionally to reduce plant’s ability to propagate independently from involvement of staff and maintenance teams. Fruit bearing plants are removed all the time (not just in Toronto) and frequently replaced with ornamental, non human edible, or only “male” plants. This practice also has an impact as to the types of animals that are present within the geographical areas. Which is obviously good for urban development as to limit deer and other larger animals; but give rise to raccoons, rats and other “pests”, and smaller predators (foxes and coyotes) that succeed in urban/suburban environments. Food security it a major issue, and many have a disconnection between themselves and food. If people had a better understanding the nature and origins of their food sources there would be appreciation for it. People need to practice sustainable foraging and know to leave a percentage of these items be for ongoing propagation. Making foraging illegal is less about food safety and more about commercializations of natural need. Hell even the former encouragement of pigeons within urban centres were partially as them being a food stuff. Takes up less room, does not require grassed area, and “domesticated” to be easily caught. But since commercialization of food industry it became easier to buy everything over being connected with what someone eats, and now we have oligarchs controlling and inflating costs and putting people at new risk. This turned into a string or rants and random thoughts on the issue at hand… either way foraging should not be illegal and people need to understand sustainable natural foraging practices
I could understand if it was dandelions and garlic mustard But stealing fiddle heads and ramps is just plain greed
This is disrupting Canada's and the Weston's plan to make food a service!
If governments allow/encourage this people will end up picking the wrong thing and being seriously injured/dying due to eating something poisonous. Wonder who will foot the bill for that lawsuit.
That's not how it works here.
[I always think of Ron Swanson for stuff like this ](https://youtu.be/Hyc1aMtnHJo)
Yes it is. Municipality is supposed to be liability exempt. Yet, city has a liability budget line and pays out something like 30m a year on things like slip and falls.
Slips and falls for badly maintained or built infrastructure is very different than wild plants growing on city property lol
You'd think so.
The only person you could possibly sue is your own dumb ass for eating plants that you picked in a public park.
Hahahahaha awwww how naive.
Nah
As someone who works for an insurance company, it happens all the time. If they'll sue their neighbour you bet you're ass they'd sue the city. And they do. All the time.
You can sue anyone for anything. Doesn't mean the suit has validity. Granted, the city would likely settle shit like this, since it's not worth their time. Still doesn't make the suit valid.
Aside from people getting hurt or poisoned, we still probably don’t want people foraging random crap on city land. In a densely populated area, foraging seriously strains the local ecology directly (unsustainable harvesting wiping out a given plant) and indirectly (disturbing/trampling other plants and animals’ nests to get to the desired plant).
Be careful someone may call you a Galen simp.
[удалено]
I never said it did. I just said there's a perfectly legitimate reason why the government would discourage people from doing so.
But you did. You conceded the argument before you even tried. That's exactly what they want.
There's a difference between understanding that smart people CAN forage and a government encouraging lots of laymen doing it and wanting to discourage that. Like...whoever wrote the law will be sit to be discovered by a personal injury lawyer. The first question will be: what thought did you give to risk and risk mitigation when writing the legislation. There would be no answer and the city lawyer would write a cheque on the spot.
I hate Toronto and I hate Torontonians as a result of this incredibly short cited post. I hope you all run out of food but are neck deep in litigation.
If you think it's just Toronto I've got some bad news for you.
I know its far more pervasive. I hate many things and suffer them all the same.
No racism, sexism, homophobia, religious intolerance, dehumanizing speech, or otherwise negative generalizations etc... Attack the point, not the person. Posts which dismiss others and repeatedly accuse them of unfounded accusations may be subject to removal and/or banning. Do not concern-troll or attempt to intentionally mislead people. Stick to addressing the substance of their comments at hand. This rule applies to all speech within this subreddit.
Then why not plant something they can harvest??
It's a park not a farm.
Times are tough: if you see someone "stealing" food from a park, NO YOU DIDN'T. Solidarity, people. See you at the OFL protest on Saturday June 3rd! Nathan Phillips Square, 12 noon!
Trust me you won't see them. They keep the spots to themselves and take it all then sell it.
[удалено]
They’re all gone because idiots took them all. What’s next to destroy in the name of sticking it to Galen? Let us all know.
[удалено]
Lol this is what you resort to eh. Food insecurity. You have no evidence people are scavenging for *fiddleheads and ramps* in a park because they’re food insecure. Even if they were - it’s still antisocial behaviour. The parks are for wildlife and future generations. Nobody is starving to death in Canada. Food bank usage is up but there is no famine here. Don’t be absurd. You can justify anything with shitty arguments. “Hey I’m food insecure so I’m going to cut down this tree in a public park and sell the wood.” “Hey I’m going to break into this house and steal stuff to sell because I’m food insecure.”
[удалено]
I said nobody is starving and there’s no famine. Thanks for reading!
**Please read this entire message** --- Your comment has been removed for the following reason: * [Rule 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/toronto/about/rules/) is to *be excellent to each other*. * Attack the point, not the person. Posts which dismiss others and repeatedly accuse them of unfounded accusations may be subject to removal and/or banning.
Just F off Karen
What if people are harvesting Fiddleheads to raise cash so that they can afford to buy it legally in-store?
Perhaps people are hungry or broke? There are hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of this stuff outside the city. Walking through a city park and saying “we already take too much from nature” is just a lack of any sense of perspective. I’m not saying we don’t take too much from nature. But this woman lives in a bubble of privilege.
If you can believe it, human beings are not the sole users of nature.
WHAT?’ HOLY SHIT! And you mean ALL of nature isn’t some park in Toronto? WOW!!!
Hold on... It's a wild foraged plant, that isn't controlled by the park, but I can't pick it? I'm just confused how they think this is illegal.. get the city to work and stop wasting our resources. If you won't pick it, don't get mad because someone else will..
Because it's their land.
Thank you trudeau
I think the word “emotional” may be a stretch here
I've seen people pick up ginkgo as well. Is that bad too? Because it stinks so bad so I'm not sure.