Cross post - eating maple keys / seeds

[CarolynRenee]

Sorry about the cross post (orig. in Garden forum), but I can't believe that I'm the only person who would think of it.....

Soooooo,

Has anyone ever eaten the seeds / keys / helicopter doo-dads from maple trees? Can they be eaten (without ill effect, that is)?

[Freeholder]

Since maple syrup is quite edible, I doubt that the seeds are poisonous, but they might not taste good. Or there might not be enough food inside the shell to be worth the bother of extracting them. We don't have maple trees here so I can't experiment (and in any case the keys won't be on the trees until later in the year). I'm sure it wouldn't hurt anything to taste one of them -- why don't you do that when they are ready, and report back? I'd like to know, too!

Kathleen

[Ohio dreamer]

Originally Posted by BlueJuniperFarm

(and in any case the keys won't be on the trees until later in the year).

Unless you are talking about something different then I'm thinking (those green "helicopters"), they are out in the spring. I have a yard full of them, thanks to my neighbors tree. Once they fall off the leaves come out. I wonder if different maple trees drop them at different time??

[TheMartianChick]

We have them on our trees right now. I don't know if they are good for humans but the squirrels in my yard eat the seed part and fling the helicopter portion at me when I am in my garden.

[fordson major]

I'm thinking I'd prefer maple fed squirrel myself! Seriously that's a really good question about Maple seeds!

[kyweaver]

I seem to remember hearing that they are edible, but I can't find the reference now. So don't eat them just cause I said so. . .
I will keep looking.

[CarolynRenee]

I've done several searches before (and today) and can't really find anything that says IF you can eat them, let alone HOW to prepare them.

The keys (seeds) have already started falling off the trees here. And the ones I've seen & remember the seeds would be about the size of 1/2 a peanut, so big enough for me to consider harvesting. You would think that the fact that these things seem to be so common, and the fact that the trees are used for syrup, that something would come up on a search about eating them.

We don't have any here, but when we lived in Illinois there were tons of them & the squirrels would eat them like crazy.

[mom in oklahoma]

[URL="http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070403063952AAdSkjk"]
Hi all,
Let me know if the link works. On the yahoo page there is a link to an edible plants database and I found Red maple Sugar maple, Silver maple and others listed. When I looked at the silver maple page it said the seeds could be used as a sweetner.
Rea

[Joshie]

Apparently, they are edible. The second link contains directions for food preparation.


http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...3063952AAdSkjk

http://www.wikihow.com/Eat-Maple-Seeds

[MELOC]

and yet...red maple leaves can be toxic to horses in some conditions. i would be sure to research this thoroughly.

[JohnL751]

Back before the government started taking care of everybody really poor people collected, hulled and eat maple seed. It takes a lot of time to just hull a hand full.

You can dry them, grind or mash them and add to flour and make bread. I didn't say it was good bread but you won't starve.