FORAGING AND WILD FOOD

     "Our own (wild fruits), whatever they may be, are far more important to us than any other can be. They educate us and fit us to live here." (Henry David Thoreau, Gone Foraging.)

     What could make you feel more a part of nature, than, well ... being a part of nature? That is the essence of foraging. Foraging immediately inserts us as positive participants in our local ecosystem. There is a rhythm to which foraging connects us - that of the seasonal nature of food availability. In the summer months, one fruit comes in as another goes out and so on. Our biorhythms and rituals are tied to this ebb and flow of abundance. Foraging is definitely a huge part of raw foodism even if it does not make up a significant part of our diet. Foraging is the origin of "eating as entertainment" and serves as a re-initiation ceremony into the community of all beings. The interlude below illustrates the experience.
     Imagine you discover a heretofore-unnoticed fig tree in your neighborhood that is heavy with fruit. You climb through the canopy of branches into the tree, the sweet aroma of ripe fruit heavy in the air. You start picking - eating some, putting a few into a basket you have brought. As you go, you lose track of time, visually dazzled by the shades of purple and crimson surrounding you.
     For a moment you almost feel guilty: "How many dollars worth of figs have you already eaten?" and you're just getting started!" The thought vanishes as quickly as it arises, though. There is no place for market values here. The tree reassures you, "Partake, my child." You continue eating, hands and arms sticky with fruit sugar. You instinctively reach for the ripest figs, delicately feeling the soft give of the flesh with your fingertips. Each fig has different nuances of flavor and texture in your mouth. The experience is so vivid on all levels, pure sensuality!
     Another flash of guilt, "Is anyone watching? Have I eaten too many?" There seem to be more than ever all around you. You step out onto a limb that bends, but will not break. The tree is embracing you. You stretch for a particularly fat cluster over there. Stuffing yourself, you think, "just one or two more," as you eat four in the space of three seconds. You have become one with the tree, as thought disappears and pure experience takes over. Finally satiated, you stumble away in a blissful daze.
     By going straight to the source, you have just participated in the most direct form of food activism: non-participation in the dysfunctional global food system. Instead, you have plugged into the feeding web, and taken a huge step toward being a responsible participant in the community of all beings. You have plugged into the true character of natural eating - the unabashed ecstasy of receiving the perfect sustenance in its pristine, un-manipulated form. It is divine and sacred communion as part of nature. "If I was to become a human being as the Earth had meant me to be, I thought, I would have to become a gatherer." (says Eco-psychologist, Chellis Glendinning.)
     My introduction to raw foodism was through foraging. This occurred several years ago while I went through what I term "a decompression from civilization." I lived as close to nature as I could: predominantly naked, sleeping in caves or on the beach, relieving myself in nature, freed from what society's restrictive routines and conventions. I starting picking wild and "re-wilded" - cultivated and long abandoned - fruit, nuts and vegetables as I wandered from place to place on the Mediterranean island upon which I lived. While I had no formal knowledge of "raw foodism" or of the nutritional or ecological benefits of foraging per se, my instincts were awakened of their own accord. Without conscious effort, I naturally sought out what the land willingly offered.
     Foraging became a daily adventure: a well-rewarded expenditure of time and energy. Fortunately, I had dropped out of the frenetic schedules of "the real world" and was free to pursue this daily ritual "at my leisure." My health and vitality rapidly increased and I developed a keen awareness, or sixth sense, about where I might find seasonal sustenance. I naturally developed an aversion to anything in a package of less than optimally fresh. With other "liberated" friends, I organized expeditions to liberate almond trees of their bounty. Such collective harvestings yielded valuable food stores for the cold not-so-abundant winter months. Gradually, I arrived at a point of existence where I needed virtually no money - I had "re-wilded" myself!

Wild Food Walk

     Wild plants advocate Katarina Blair has described the eating of wild plants as a form of communication between plants and people. Our taste buds translate information into a sensory language. Our brains then interpret the nutritional characteristics of the plant. Flavor conveys nutritional information. For instance, the tangy flavor of sorrel indicates the presence of Vitamin C. Furthermore, according to studies researching Instinctive, or Anopsological, Nutrition, "we possess an alliesthetic mechanism that makes food relatively attractive when we need it and unattractive when we don't." Wild plants are our partners in co-evolution. Our tongues know what we need; the plants make themselves available - and tasty - when they are ready.
     Walking with a group of ten other people on a couple acres of grassy knolls in Marin County California, we easily harvested sorrel, chickweed, miner's lettuce, plantain, various species of mustard and many other local varieties - enough to feed all of us in a couple of hours. The greens were "melt-in-your-mouth" delicious; many of the foraging party commented that they felt "connected" to the land by the walk. I felt extremely energized from the light salad of wild greens and roots, which made up our sustainable supper.
     Katarina has done dream work where she asks the spirits of plants to communicate with her. She says that they have communicated two crucial pieces of information. First, is that unless we continue to harvest wild foods in their native areas, they will disappear. (Plants do not lie!) Pomo elder Mabel McKay reinforces this morsel of wisdom: "When people don't use the plants they get scarce." This is evidence of the crucial niche that humans must fill for living ecosystems to continue in abundance. In Coming Home to Eat, which details veteran food activist Gary Nabhan's attempt to eat eighty percent of his food locally for a year in the Sonoran desert, he came to the same conclusion. These conclusions represent a clear mandate, expressed by the plants themselves, backed by indigenous wisdom and conscious participation in a local feeding web, for a food ethic that includes the consumption of foraged wild foods.
     The second bit of information communicated by the plant spirits is that we should consume wild foods in their wild state, i.e. living - raw and unprocessed. In accordance the plants' advice, Katarina has shared raw meals of foraged wild food with countless groups of people, both large and small, around the country. Had those meals been cooked, she feels that the amount of food would have had to be substantially increased in order for the partakers of the meals to have been nourished and feel full. That is because cooking removes the water from and reduces the mass of the given quantity of food, and diminishes the available nutrition in a given amount of food. The burden of harvesting more to provide less nourishment, she believes, would have then put pressure on the local population of these plants. Therefore, not cooking wild foods is a sensible mandate to preserve abundance of wild foods when engaging in the sustainable practice of foraging. Thus, as any part of an attempt to provide enduring sustenance we must re-integrate with our immediate eco-systems through foraging to ensure the continued abundance of wild, edible plants.
     The above discussion of foraging for wild food illustrates a pathway to participating in the "conversation" between humans and other beings. Inherently local and seasonal, foraging does "educate and fit us" to participate in our feeding webs and foodsheds. It should also be noted that the significance of wild foods as a food source and source of cultural re-connection is often neglected in the visioning of sustainable food systems, even the seemingly most alternative visions. In fact, foraging for wild food reminds us that eating is a form of interaction as part of a feeding web, rather than a hierarchical food chain, or anthropocentric food system. Raw Foodism, thus, reminds us to gather, and by doing so helps us to undo the effects of thousands of years of domestication and hundreds of years of disconnection. (Of course, the ethics of gathering must also be re-learned). Only through engaging our senses and seeking out what is our birthright, can we start to discover our appropriate ecological niche. Foraging makes re-connection a delicious, satisfying, blissful, politically powerful experience.

By Spruce, Rainbow raw foods chef

The above is from Spruce's master's thesis on raw foods and ecology, entitled The Raw Revolution.

Thoreau, Henry David. Wild Fruits: Thoreau's RE-discovered Last Manuscript, p.5. (Island Press, 2001)
Chellis Glendinning. My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization, p.177. (Shambhala Publications, 1994)
Severen L. Schaeffer. Instinctive Nutrition, p.23. (Celestial Arts, 1997)
Starhawk. Webs of Power, p.162. (New Society Press, 2002)