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JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colo. (KDVR) — Hiking in the woods is food for the soul. For Erica Davis, it is food for the body as well. 

Davis has been teaching wild food foraging for the last 10 years. 

“There is something really magical to me about that connection that plants are our food,” said Davis. “These are called nodding onions,” she said, pulling one from the ground. “That is a native species, a native onion. They smell like garlic or onion.”

Let us get rid of that onion breath now with some gum — nature’s gum that is.

“This is tree resin,” Davis said, pointing to the gum on a tree trunk. “That’s sap the tree put out in response to injury. It’s solid. It has a glassy break surface so that hard resin is what you would chew. It’s like the original chewing gum.”

Davis warns of the hazards of just going out into the hills and eating whatever looks tasty. Certain mushrooms and berries, which look very similar to the edible kind, can be poisonous. Davis highly recommends taking a course in wild food foraging, doing the research, getting books, and going with someone who knows more than you before you put anything from the forest into your body.

Nature never tasted so good.