Is All Mint Safe To Eat
Unfortunately not all mint varieties will be edible. But you should be able to pretty easily decide among them which ones you can eat and which ones you can’t. Generally speaking the ones that are grown like a tree or a shrub will not be edible.
But the ones that are growing like a small culinary herb like both peppermint and spearmint. These will have the signature aromas and flavors of wintergreen. Something that can be found throughout all the edible mint varieties to choose from.
In this article we will dive a bit deeper on the mint varieties that are edible and the ones that are not. Follow along and hopefully you might be able to pick up some new useful information.
Is All Mint Safe To Eat
Just like we said in the beginning of this article here, not all mint varieties will be edible. There are a lot that are but knowing which ones are not is very important.
Trees and ornamental shrubs that smell like mint will not be edible. These are just there for decoration and won’t provide any use in the kitchen. They aren’t really poisonous to a great extent but should be avoided nonetheless.
Instead you will want to use the mint varieties that are growing smaller and have that classic and signature mit flavor that can be compared to wintergreen. Smelling the plant is one of the best ways of identifying an edible mint plant.
Some of our favorite mint plants that are edible are peppermint, spearmint and cinnamon mint. You might now think how you could ever try and identify these with smell. But the spearmint aromas will be found in all of them.
If you want to learn even more about wintergreen and mint then we have the perfect article for you. Find it right here, Is Wintergreen A Mint?
How Can You Tell If Mint Is Edible
The best way to tell if a mint variety is by smelling it. Just like we talked about in the paragraph above here the smell of a mint plant will be of spearmint and that classic wintergreen aroma too.
To practise this you can smell the most common peppermint. These will usually be found in the grocery store and knowing how this one smells will serve as a base for other varieties. You can always compare new varieties with this one to learn if the mint you have is edible or not.
Some of the mint varieties that are not edible will be ones grown as ornamental plants. They are grown large like trees and shrubs.
Is your mint plant starting to wilt and you need to fix it and save it. Then we have the perfect article for you. You can find it right here, How To Save My Mint Plant.
Does Mint Have Any Poisonous Look Alikes
Unfortunately there is a plant that is very similar to mint and will be poisonous. This one is called pennyroyal. It shares a very similar look to the peppermint, both with the leaves but also the flowers of the plant and the shape of them.
The bad thing about this variety is that it can be hybridized with regular mint varieties that are edible. This makes it a bad idea to try and eat any mint plant that you haven’t encountered before without being completely certain about what it is.
We don’t want to alarm you too much with all this information. The likelihood that you will ever encountered this poisonous mint is very slim. But knowing that there is one out there can be very useful.
