Cautions

Within the Companion there are occasional specific warnings, for example about the overriding need to have reliable expert identification of fungi before eating them and about measures of legal protection from interference which apply to certain species of plant or animal. But the Companion would have made tedious reading if warnings of this sort had been included wherever and whenever they might conceivably be appropriate. Hence the need for the following two general cautions which apply to the entire content of the Companion.

1. The fact that something is mentioned in the Companion as being eaten or having been eaten by humans does not in itself imply that to eat it now or in the future would be appropriate, legally permissible, or safe.

2. The same applies to the methods of preserving or cooking foods or dealing with them in any other way. Mentions of such methods do not in themselves imply that they accord with current international or national regulations or may safely be adopted.