You may have noticed that hawthorn trees now have vibrant red haws decorating them. Although they’re often referred to as berries, haws are not technically berries - they contain stones.
Like apples, their seeds contain trace amounts of cyanide but the fruit is edible and can even be made into jam. Adults probably wouldn’t experience adverse effects from eating a couple of seeds by accident but children and anyone pregnant or breastfeeding should avoid hawthorn berries. Also the fruit can interact with some medications so it’s best to avoid eating hawthorn berries without first checking this.
All that said, there are a number of benefits to eating haws - there’s some evidence suggesting they can help with diabetes, heart problems and even cancer.
The leaves and flowers are also edible and, although I go by the name Hawthorn, this is something I only learned while writing this blog post.
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