can you eat an acorn straight from a tree?

Question

We have many acorns outside on our tree and I am wondering if they are edible.

Answer 1

Usually you have to soak them first to remove the tannins:

PREPARATION OF GROUND ACORN MEAL

Pick up several cupfuls of acorns. All kinds of oaks have edible acorns. Some have more tannin than others, but leaching will remove the tannin from all of them.
Shell the acorns with a nutcracker, a hammer, or a rock.
Grind them. If you are in the woods, smash them, a few at a time on a hard boulder with a smaller stone, Indian style. Do this until all the acorns are ground into a crumbly paste. If you are at home, it's faster and easier to use your mom's blender. Put the shelled acorns in the blender, fill it up with water, and grind at high speed for a minute or two. You will get a thick, cream-colored goo. It looks yummy, but tastes terrible.
Leach (wash) them. Line a big sieve with a dish towel and pour in the ground acorns. Hold the sieve under a faucet and slowly pour water through, stirring with one hand, for about five minutes. A lot of creamy stuff will come out. This is the tannin. When the water runs clear, stop and taste a little. When the meal is not bitter, you have washed it enough.
Or, in camp, tie the meal up in a towel and swish it in several bucketfuls of clean drinking water, until it passes the taste test.

Squeeze out as much water as you can, with your hands.
Use the ground acorn mash right away, because it turns dark when it is left around. Or store in plastic for freezing if you want to make the pancakes later.

Answer 2

I guess you're in the UK and if the tree is large it probably has a TPO ( tree preservation order) on it like the ones where my horses are. So cutting it down is not going to be an option and you are very limited as to what pruning you can do. Make sure you confer with the owners on this as TPOs are taken very seriously. Generally the horses will leave the leaves alone unless they are desparate and there is no grass. The real risk is picking up the acorns as they graze. If the tree is the only shelter in the paddock the chances are that there is very little grass under it anyway so it should be fairly easy to go round with a bag and just pick up any acorns you see. Where I am there have been horses on the land for about 100 years and none have ever died of acorn poisoning.

Answer 3

Yes if you want to try it. Most acorns aren't going to taste very good because of the tanic acid. The best tasting, if there is such a thing, are white oak acorn (Quercus alba), that's why the deer prefer them.

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Answer 4

some indians made bread out of them once they pounded them and then leached out the tannic acid.

Answer 5

I was always told that acorns are not for human consumption as they are poisonous