Hello everyone. I'm a new tortoise owner and live in northern Maine. It is currently fiddlehead season but I can't find any info on if red foot tortoises can safely eat them. It's a regional fern that tastes like spinach or collard greens. I was wondering if anyone has any idea on the safety of these plants.
Fiddleheads?
- Thread starter anihawk72
- Start date
I think they have to be cooked, otherwise they're toxic.
I had to look this one up. We have fiddle neck here which is safe to eat until it forms seed heads. But yours is a different plant entirely.
Here is what I found on this forum Iochroma
Iochroma
Well-Known Member
All true ferns should be considered dangerous; most contain a group of compounds called glycosides that are toxic, especially when eaten regularly. These compounds are the reason that when cooking fiddleheads one changes the boiling water twice to leach out the toxins.
Asparagus "ferns", are not true ferns, but a relative of the edible asparagus, however, they have high levels of another slow poison and should not be a regular part of the diet of any animal.
Nov 10, 2014
This was quote of post from 2014 by one of our plant specialist I tend to often call upon @lochroma. Actually today I made a trip to our Central Market (really cool gourmet supermarket) and they had very young fern sprouts in produce section. I got some just to see how I can use it for us humans. Was going to look up some recipes for it. The also had prickly pear fruit, dragon fruit and all kinds of tropical and southern hemisphere fruit that we don't see here year round. They also start stocking more and more different species of wild forest mushrooms which I always get for mine on every trip there. They absolutely love them (chantarelles, little "chicks of the forest", oyster and morel mushrooms and others. I always stock up on all kinds of weird greens there, mushrooms and very different looking southern fruit for my babies.
Iochroma
Well-Known Member
All true ferns should be considered dangerous; most contain a group of compounds called glycosides that are toxic, especially when eaten regularly. These compounds are the reason that when cooking fiddleheads one changes the boiling water twice to leach out the toxins.
Asparagus "ferns", are not true ferns, but a relative of the edible asparagus, however, they have high levels of another slow poison and should not be a regular part of the diet of any animal.
Nov 10, 2014
This was quote of post from 2014 by one of our plant specialist I tend to often call upon @lochroma. Actually today I made a trip to our Central Market (really cool gourmet supermarket) and they had very young fern sprouts in produce section. I got some just to see how I can use it for us humans. Was going to look up some recipes for it. The also had prickly pear fruit, dragon fruit and all kinds of tropical and southern hemisphere fruit that we don't see here year round. They also start stocking more and more different species of wild forest mushrooms which I always get for mine on every trip there. They absolutely love them (chantarelles, little "chicks of the forest", oyster and morel mushrooms and others. I always stock up on all kinds of weird greens there, mushrooms and very different looking southern fruit for my babies.
@Redstrike may know.
