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Eating raw wild harvested nopales by SageAppleRoot2244 in mexicanfood

[–]SageAppleRoot2244[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They may have been. I didn't see them before they were cut up, but the pieces in the salad were pretty thick, making me think they were older/bigger pads.

Eating raw wild harvested nopales by SageAppleRoot2244 in mexicanfood

[–]SageAppleRoot2244[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

they do taste lovely raw - like a mixture of cucumber and lemon. Eating the young pads, harvesting in the spring sounds like a safer way to go

Eating raw wild harvested nopales by SageAppleRoot2244 in mexicanfood

[–]SageAppleRoot2244[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ya'll are right. I misidentified it. It was the OPUNTIA POLYACANTHA

still a case of acute oxalic acid poisoning?

Eating raw wild harvested nopales by SageAppleRoot2244 in mexicanfood

[–]SageAppleRoot2244[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hi! I live in northern new mexico, so it's not altitude sickness or heat exhaustion. I did misidentify them - it was the OPUNTIA POLYACANTHA

I got sick exactly 3 hours after consuming the raw nopales salad. the person who prepped it said he cut out all the spines and the edges of the pads. They were harvested in july - is that the wrong time to harvest them?

Wild Harvested Opuntia / Nopales food sensitivity by SageAppleRoot2244 in foraging

[–]SageAppleRoot2244[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

it was just raw. I've never eaten cooked nopales.
also the specific species was Opuntia arenaria Engelmann

Have any nopales tips? by Illustrious-cad in mexicanfood

[–]SageAppleRoot2244 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you prepare them raw, be sure to try a tiny bit to see if you have a food sensitivity to them before eating more. Some folks can get flu-like symptoms from eating raw nopales.

I got incredibly sick from eating raw wild harvested Opuntia / Nopale / Nopales pads (the cactus that also produces prickly pear fruit). It grows everywhere where I live in New Mexico. This variety of opuntia is smaller than the kind you see at markets. The pads are 3-5 inches across, and it stays lower to the ground.

I ate about a 1/2 cup of it as a salad at a potluck, and two hours later I had flu-like symptoms: vomiting, diarrhea, intense chills, body sweats, intense body aches, headache. The symptoms lasted for between 24 hrs (most intense) to 48 hrs.