If you don't let your kid eat blackberries...

[OuchIsLife]

Before they have been washed what do you think will happen? Or what has happened?

Just curious as I've always let my kids eat them as soon as they've picked them and I'm not sure what harm would come to them.

I don’t allow mine, as they are wild everywhere here and grow between weeds that are frequently sprayed with weed killer by the council.
I’m generally reluctant to encourage eating of wild stuff, as mine are frequently outside with friends and i’m cautious of mixed messages so just a blanket policy of don’t eat the stuff you find growing is safer.
A few times in life I’ve seen horrible things happen where something that seems safe isn’t quite, for instance people picking wild garlic but accidentally ingesting a poisonous doppelgänger plant that commonly grows up in between the leaves. Or a child of a friend who ended up in intensive care after ingesting a poisonous berry.

@AllProperTeaIsTheft is correct, @gardenmusic. Bramble is just a colloquial term for a thorny bush/thicket that is used in some parts of the UK and US for blackberries. The European wild blackberry is Rubus fruticosus, the same species as the blackberries in your garden. The one in your garden is probably a cultivar that has no thorns ie it has been selectively bred to have no thorns. If you grew a seed from your garden blackberry, it may well have thorns.

And don’t get me started on “weeds” no such thing in scientific terms. 😂

We live on a farm and my children’s diet is about 50% blackberries in late august 😂 seriously, we eat them as we pick and I will stick them straight into a crumble or we portion them into bags and pop them in the freezer too. No washing of berries happens here, and none of us have ever been sick from eating them.

ColdWaterDipper

People probably won't get ill, but who would willingly eat maggots that may be drizzled with pee? That's a whole new cuisine.
(I don't know what sort of farm you have, or how other animals pee. Do goats and cows cock their legs?)

When I was a kid we had loads of blackberry bushes at the back of our house. My mum would let us pick them but we were never to eat them until they'd been cleaned. She used to soak them overnight in salted water. When we looked at them in the morning there were little worms floating on the top of the water. So I never eat them straight from the bush.

Oh dear. I ate blackberries from a few bushes today when I was out on a hike. Delicious but above waist height ( more concerned about rats in the hedges rather than random fox wee) and always check that the underside is green. If it's darker, it's potentially wormy. If I were picking for a crumble, I'd give a good soak although I'm sure cooked worms add extra protein.

As a child I picked and ate them at all heights and sites including from down the alley I walked through on the way back from school and along the road side (all against my mum's advice, particularly my route home from school). I'm still here and don't recall being unwell as a child .

With my own child we would have picked and eaten from waist high only and on parkland .

I am pretty certain that I've eaten blackberries that have been pissed on by a dog and probably shit on by a bird. We used to eat loads when I was a kid in the 70s and never considered what might be on them. So probably nothing will happen. I have no idea how toxic animal urine is, but I reckon our immune systems are usually pretty good at dealing with it. I once drunk a cup of my own wee as a dare and... nothing happened. My son probably ate a fair amount of his own faeces and was fine. Try not to worry

I made a blackberry and apple crumble today, from freshly picked blackberries. It tastes gorgeous!

This. When I was a child we went blackberrying in the lanes near home. Berries were collected into a plastic freezer bag and for some reason the top was knotted. We got home and then went straight out and the bag was left in the kitchen. When we got back there were lots and lots of little maggoty worms inching their way up the side of the bag. I've never been blackberrying since.

Haven't eaten them since I was a kid, my mum used to send us out to pick them and would soak them in salt water to kill the worms and bugs. In those days we had to eat what we were given, but never had them since!

Must be that special ingredient- dog pee!

Picking and eating wild blackberries is such a wonderful and natural thing to do with children. I’d rather a few bugs on sweet wild berries than the sanitised tasteless overpriced berries sold in the supermarket. I will be picking loads and freezing them. They get a quick rinse and all the bugs crawl out. Any that don’t make it are just extra protein as my dad would say.

Haha this! It takes me back to my childhood where every half term my family would make me pick blackberries and mum would make them into apple & bb crumbles and jam. She always put them in water and the maggots floated out 😟

Dog wee?

The problem where I live (city) is the council spray a shit ton of highly toxic weed killer everywhere. So even those spilling over from gardens and through allotment fences could be contaminated.

in the countryside, above waist level is fair game. Nobody wants to ingest piss if it can be avoided easily by picking from a bit higher up 😂

The spicy bits are just an extra treat

I grew up eating them off the bushes by the handful (countryside) and was never sick. However- with better hygiene as an adult, blackberries should be washed and left out to dry, because, as pp have mentioned, they can have lots of tiny wormy things in their crevices. Also roadside blackberries are an always-wash scenario rather than merely inspect owing to car fumes.

Think of all the extra free protein your missing out on though😂

No, they could eat worms.

Not all worms can survive being chewed and digested by enzymes and stomach acid.

Gut parasites are different.

That happened to me. Totally gross I only buy them now

Cat, fox, dog piss on the low ones. Just eat the high ones

Of I was a small spider I might run up your leg op !! 🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️🕷️

They often have maggots in them. Try soaking them in water and you’ll see how many drowned maggots float to the surface.