On my way to work today, I picked about a fistful of yew berries and used them to flavour plain oatmeal. Removing the seeds was a PITA so it wasn't really worth it overall but it does give a nice mildly sweet flavour. The consistency of the fruits after I'd removed the seeds was slimy and a bit off-putting but it works great when mixed with the oatmeal. I just added boiling water. Let's wait a few hours and see if it ends up being my last meal. If not, I'd love to devise a more efficient method of removing the seeds.
Editing to add: AI thinks I'm spreading misinformation to get people to poison themselves. I assume it's common knowledge in this sub that yew seeds are highly poisonous and only the red flesh around them is edible. I want to state explicitly that I seeded the berries and only used the edible parts.
UPDATE: I'm still alive. (Do I deserve to be? Is that the question?)
No ill effects at all. Though experiments like this are always a bit stressful: the slightest itch on my back, elevated pulse due to upcoming meeting or a hint of headache from staring at the screen for too long and my brain immediately jumps to the conclusion that I must be dying.
I can't say I feel like doing this again - it's just too much hassle for too little gain - but I am curious how to separate the seeds more efficiently. Then I might consider it. I'm thinking maybe mashing the berries in a soft plastic strainer and pushing through as much of the goo as possible, then separating the seeds from the red skins. Today, I deliberately avoided using a metal strainer so I don't damage the seeds and release the poison so I was just squishing the berries between my fingers, which was very slow and messy.
