Wild garlic is one of the culinary herbs that is usually collected in the wild. This means that there is a certain risk of infection with fox tapeworm pathogens in affected areas if safety rules are not followed.
How do you protect yourself from fox tapeworm when eating wild garlic?
To avoid a fox tapeworm infection when eating wild garlic, you should wash the wild garlic thoroughly under hot running water and rub the leaves individually. Using wild garlic in cooked form or from your own fenced garden also minimizes the risk.
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The use of wild garlic collected in the forest
The fox tapeworm is a dangerous disease that can also be transmitted to humans through the excrement of foxes when they eat wild herbs. This is problematic with wild garlic because it is often eaten raw as an ingredient in herb salads or as a topping on butter and curd bread. However, the risk of ingesting the invisible small eggs of the fox tapeworm is minimized if you wash the wild garlic thoroughly and rub the individual leaves with your hands under hot running water. Incidentally, you should also do this if you have purchased wild garlic in potted or already harvested form, as wild garlic sold commercially does not necessarily come from cultivation on fenced properties.
Ways for using wild garlic in cooked form
If you want to be on the safe side, you should simply use the wild garlic in cooked form, despite a certain loss of aroma. You can do this, for example, with the following types of use:
- Wild garlic gnocchi
- Wild garlic rösti
- Puff pastry rolls with wild garlic
- Pickled wild garlic buds
Boiling and pickling the wild garlic flower buds that have not yet bloomed also has the advantage that the preserved buds can be stored much longer than fresh wild garlic.
Grow wild garlic safely in your own garden
If your garden is not on the edge of a forest and is surrounded by a garden fence, you can plant wild garlic in your garden by sowing or transplanting entire plants and thus harvest its leaves without being contaminated with the fox tapeworm pathogen.
Tips & Tricks
Planting wild garlic in your own garden has the advantage that it not only practically eliminates the risk of fox tapeworm on fenced properties far from forests. Controlled cultivation in an open area under deciduous trees also minimizes the risk of confusion with poisonous counterparts such as autumn crocus, lily of the valley and Aaron's rod.