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Based on some research, it seems the leaves contain tannins and so I imagine some number of rounds of boiling are required to extract those/reduce them to an acceptable level.

But the texture of oak leaves isn't ideal for eating based on what I remember as a kid. So I'm curious how to deal with that issue. Some type of fermentation seems necessary to break down the leaf compounds into softer/more edible compounds, and maybe even just pickling with vinegar might help?

I was curious if anyone has tried this before and had success rendering oak leaves edible.

Peter Mortensen
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Sidharth Ghoshal
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    Is there any particular reason you want to do this, or a goal you are trying to achieve? – dbmag9 Jan 28 '22 at 19:56
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    @dbmag9 I guess more concretely I was looking for alternatives to grape leaves and so exploring the space of leaves seemed interesting – Sidharth Ghoshal Jan 28 '22 at 20:02
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    Fig leaves are an excellent alternative to grape leaves, as are maple leaves. – FuzzyChef Jan 28 '22 at 20:03
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    Simple. Feed the oak leaves to tent caterpillars, then feed the caterpillars to chickadees, then eat the chickadees. – Richard Jan 29 '22 at 08:45
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    Depending on the location, [elm](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elm) leaves (or perhaps the bark) is another alternative. There are [still](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_elm_disease) a lot of them around, typically below 2-3 meters height. – Peter Mortensen Jan 29 '22 at 15:57
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    Fresh birch leaves can be boiled and eaten, as can the shoots from pine trees. – papirtiger Jan 30 '22 at 07:54
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    Mulberry leaf is another good grapeleaf alternative. – Steven Gubkin Jan 30 '22 at 15:53
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    Sounds like [XY Problem](https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy-problem), leaves are apparently toxic and unpleasant. A much better question would be "*What are good alternatives to grape leaves?*" – Duarte Farrajota Ramos Jan 30 '22 at 23:05
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    I once ate oak leaves which went through lactic acid fermentation together with bitter lactarius mushrooms. The quantity I ate was quite small (several leaves), so I cannot say whether it is safe. They were not disgusting to eat though, and just like the lactarius mushrooms, they've lost their bitterness, which makes me think that maybe the fermentation process breaks down the tannins. The texture was still rather unpleasant though (kinda like bay leaves), so I suggest you harvest different foliage instead. – JohnEye Jan 31 '22 at 21:28

3 Answers3

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I cannot find any internet source that recommends eating oak leaves, however treated. The level of tannins in oak leaves isn't just bad-tasting; it's sufficiently strong to cause kidney or liver failure. This is probably why there are extensive records of Native Americans tribes eating acorns but none of them eating oak leaves.

It's dubious that any amount of soaking of oak leaves could remove sufficient tannins to render them safe. Some recipes for Oak Leaf Wine involve soaking them for 5 days. If that actually leached the majority of the tannins, the wine would be toxic, and there's no evidence that it is.

So my overall answer is: you cannot eat them, use something else instead.

FuzzyChef
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  1. Take the oak leaves.
  2. Feed to a goat. (mix in some other feedstuffs: hay or grass).
  3. Eat the goat (or drink its milk)

Goats are browsers, and have a gut, kidneys and liver that can deal with oak leaves, in fact a moderate amount of leaves can avoid diarrhoea in goats. Using animals to process inedible vegetation, like leaves or grasses, to edible meat, milk and eggs is one of the foundations of farming.

James K
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A good indicator of whether there is a way to make something edible is whether it was recorded as a famine food. (Wikipedia) There are records of people eating dried lichen, tree bark, books, and machine oil in these horrible times. I can't see anything for oak leaves. Probably not possible to eat it.

Daniel Darabos
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