You can’t just go round grabbing any old flower and eating it willy-nilly. No. Just because something looks pretty doesn’t mean its good for you… and that’s a valuable life lesson right there.
The first rule of eating flowers is….
Know what the heck it is you’re eating. Make 100% sure and then a little bit more that the petals you’re about to pop in your bouche are edible. If you don’t know, don’t eat them. Lots of flowers are poisonous and will make you very sick indeed.
The other rules of eating flowers are….
Make sure the flowers are chemical free. Don’t eat flowers bought from a regular shop or garden centre as they are likely to have been treated with pesticides, fungicides, and chemical fertilisers that will make you ill.
Edible flowers need to be clean, just like any other veg or salad you would eat. Picked from the wild or the garden they may have animal wee, dirt, pests or diseases on them and you really don’t want to eat that.
Only eat the petals (most of the time) and never eat pollen as this can cause allergies, even if you don’t usually have hayfever. In some cases you can eat whole flowers or buds but double and triple check first which flowers they are.
And them’s the rules!