Is foraging really feasible to feed myself?

‘What’s missing for most of us isn’t access to the woods. It’s time, knowledge and community.’ Photograph: Fertnig/Getty Images View image in fullscreen ‘What’s missing for most of us isn’t access to the woods. It’s time, knowledge and community.’ Photograph: Fertnig/Getty Images Is foraging really feasible to feed myself? This labor-intensive way of eating isn’t for everyone – and I’m not sure it’s for me. It requires planning and flexibility W hen I called Robin Greenfield, an environmental activist and author, his assistant answered. “We’re stopped really quick,” Marielle said, adding “he is harvesting a ton of wild onions right now. He’ll be on in just a minute.” I waited, curious to see his haul and bemused by his willingness to delay an interview for wild vegetables. I had called Greenfield, who wrote Food Freedom about the year he grew and foraged 100% of his food, to talk about how possible, or hard, it is to do just that. Foraging is not entirely new for me. I’ve done it for about a decade, long enough to know which patches of woods near my house will give me ramps in April and to harvest delicate mulberries during the two weeks they’re around in June. This year, as I’ve been watching grocery store recalls pile up and food prices climb, I keep wondering how much longer I can rely on the system from which I feed myself. Could I actually step away from all of it? Not just supplement with a few foraged greens here and there, but really solely feed myself this way? Greenfield’s been living the answer to my question since October, with no garden, seven years of experience behind him, and traveling a route that follows the seasons: Maine in fall, Florida in winter, Georgia in early spring, foraging as he goes. He spent three months preparing. He moved back to his homeland in northern Wisconsin, set up a base he calls the Hermitage and started calculating how many pounds of each food he’d need for each season. He harvested 75 pounds of wild rice, 200 pounds of mushrooms and 42 quarts of applesauce. His preparation still had gaps: barely any fish, fewer stored vegetables than he’d planned and not a lot of berries due to a poor season. When Greenfield got on the video call, he lifted the blanket in the back seat. There it was, a row of mason jars wedged between his bags, a traveling pantry of wild rice and venison, wild yams and ocean salt, moving down a Georgia highway. “The only way to live off of a fully foraged diet,” he said, “is to harvest the abundance when you find it and then preserve that abundance”. Time is everything here. When to harvest, how long you have before it goes bad, and how many hours you can give to the work of preserving it. View image in fullscreen ‘Time is everything here. When to harvest, how long you have before it goes bad, and how many hours you can give to the work of preserving it.’ Photograph: RoxiRosita/Getty Images “I would say it’s in the realm of a full-time job to harvest all of my food and medicine,” Greenf