Watch: Foraging for food in B.C.

Elizabeth Burdock is passionate about foraging for food from the woodlands and beaches near Nanaimo, B.C. 

Burdock loves to forage for oyster mushrooms, which she says are not only delicious but contain polysaccharides, beneficial to the immune system. 

Although she wants to encourage others to take up foraging, she warns novices to be careful of lookalike plants, which can be poisonous and even deadly.

Puffballs, for example, are an edible mushroom; however, to the untrained eye, they can easily be confused with amanita phalloides. Amanita phallodies are also known as "death caps" and are the deadliest mushroom species in the world.

Burdock wants to promote safe and sustainable foraging and help others foster a closer relationship with the natural world. She told Vancouver Is Awesome that when people learn more about the plants which grow around them "they feel a little more connected to nature, and then they want to protect it". 

To follow Burdock's foraging adventures, follow her on Instagram and TikTok.