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I Foraged 100% of My Food for a Month!

I Foraged 100% of My Food for a Month!



For one month I foraged 100% of my food. No grocery stores, no restaurants and not even a garden!
Every. Single. Bite.
Nature was my garden, my pantry and my pharmacy.
Now I'm here to share the story with you and help YOU reconnect with Earth and gain food freedom!

The 9 days of preparation began August 29th, 2022. The month of eating 100% foraged food was September 9th - October 9th (late summer and early fall).

Get my upcoming book, Food Freedom: https://robingreenfield.org/foodfreedombook

Find a forager near you: https://robingreenfield.org/findaforager

Visit my beginner's guide to foraging: https://robingreenfield.org/foraging

Learn more about my month of eating foraged food: https://robingreenfield.org/reconnect

It’s the dream of millions. To “live off the land” and never have to take a trip to the grocery store. And through the pandemic more and more Americans have experienced the instability of our food system and desire to break free.
But is it possible to break free? I am here to show that it is.

Filmed and Edited by Daniel Troia
Special thanks to Daniel Troia, Ethan Harris, Carly Fulton, Belle Brown and Sebastiano Pestoni for your support.

Robin Greenfield is an activist and humanitarian dedicated to leading the way to a more sustainable, equitable and just world. His activism and life choices create critical thought on global social and environmental issues and inspire positive change in humanity. Through a decade of activism and service he has become an internationally recognized leader. His lifework has been covered by media worldwide including National Geographic and he’s been named “The Robin Hood of modern times” by France 2 TV.

Robin's life is an embodiment of Gandhi’s philosophy, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” He donates 100% of his media earnings to grassroots nonprofits. He has committed to living simply and responsibly for life.

This YouTube channel is a source to educate, inspire and support others to live more sustainable, equitable and just lives. Videos frequently cover sustainable living, simple living, growing your own food, gardening, minimalism, off the grid living, zero waste, living in a tiny house, food sovereignty and community resilience and self-sufficiency.
http://www.robingreenfield.org

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YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/RobGreenfield
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Robin Greenfield’s work is Creative Commons and this content is free to be republished and redistributed, following the terms of the creative commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 license. Learn about Creative Commons and see the guidelines here: http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
All right Rob, what do you want to share with the world? Well, for the last decade I have been on a mission to break free from Big AG, to never have to go to the grocery store or a restaurant again. That is where this next big journey began.

For 1 month, I decided that I was going to forage 100 percent of my food. Food that I harvested from the fruits of the Earth in a way where I was able to reconnect with the plants while living in harmony with the Earth. This is the story of the last month.

I am elated for you to be here to share it with you. Rob Greenfield's Month of Foraging [Acoustic music] A lot of people have said to me "Rob, all the food we need is already in the grocery store. Why would you even go to these extreme measures to do this?"

My answer is very simple. The global industrial food system that we depend on for our food, it is a destructive food system. It is one where every single bite that we take, we are taking a bite out of the planet. I have a desire to live deeply connected with this Earth.

For me, I find that connection through foraging. But this is not just about me. I want to help others reconnect with the Earth. By embarking on this, honestly, sort of extreme project, the idea is to take you along on this adventure and ask these questions, go deeper into our food.

When I say food I am also talking about my medicine. Our food is our medicine. So that means no pharmaceuticals, no pharmacies. Breaking free from that as well, and finding all of my medicine growing on the Earth as well. Believe it or not, the preparation for this journey

Only began 9 days before the month. I arrived in my homeland of the state of Wisconsin. I started there with no food. As much as I was excited about the fun, I had a lot of work to do. I had to harvest my calories, my fat, my protein, my nutrients, salt, herbs, spices.

I had just 9 days before I was about to have to eat a hundred percent from the land. My work was cut out for me. Over those first 9 days and over the entire month, I harvested about a hundred different foods from the land so my diet was diverse.

Diversity is absolutely, in my opinion, the key to meeting our basic needs to having a truly healthy and vibrant diet. My focus was to choose the plants that are abundantly growing that are growing in large quantities and that can meet my basic needs. Number 1 for me was wild rice.

This was my absolute go-to. It is called monomen, the food that grows on water, the good berry. In 1 day, I was able to harvest 30 pounds of it. Manomen is an important traditional food of the Anishinabe people, who are the original stewards of the Great Lakes region where I am from.

It is one of the most calorically dense foods that exists. It is also one of the most special foods that exists. I harvested apples, pears, and plums. With them, I made really filling and nourishing applesauce and fruit sauces. I harvested a lot of high vitamin fruits like aronia berry, cherries,

Autumn berries, and grapes. I turned a lot of them into fruit juices. At the heart of my diet was greens packed full of nutrients, like watercress from the springs where I got my water; weeds like dandelion, plantago, and lamb's quarter from parks and front yards; and stinging nettle from farm fields,

Just to name a few. I harvested medicinal herbs for teas like bee balm, catnip, mint, goldenrod, mugwort, and so much more. I harvested plants that would add a lot of flavor to my meal like wild onion, wild leeks, and mustard. I harvested both edible and medicinal mushrooms like puffballs and maitaki

And chicken of the woods; and medicinals like turkey tail and reishi. I harvested deer that were hit by cars this was one of my main sources of protein in a way that I could harvest meat that I felt truly good about. I harvested nuts like hickory nuts for making nut milk,

And black walnuts and butternut for eating straight from the shell. I harvested new things and some things you have probably never heard of eating like stinky ginkgo fruits and roasting up their nuts. I pressure canned the fish that I caught which actually softened up the cartilage

And the bones to be able to eat the entire body. I even harvested all of my own water. No tap water, no chlorine, or fluoride, or other chemicals. All of my water came from beautiful springs. I found most of these using a website. findaspring.com There was a very common misperception

Of me just being out every day, nibbling off the trees, eating off the ground, and having to forage everything that I would need for that day, but that is not how it works. If you want to be able to live off the land, the key is storing your food.

So my main means of storage were dehydration. This was done both by dehydrating with the sun, the free energy of the earth, I am talking about. I also carried an electric dehydrator with me. Things like wild rice, nuts, and seeds, a lot of these can be stored just at room temperature.

And then of course, there is your cold storage your freezer, or your refrigerator. I carried a cooler with me. As I traveled to different places I often use the fridge or the freezer of where I was staying. Next, equally important was pressure canning.

This is how I stored my venison and my fish so that I had this readily available for me everyday. If I had to summarize the whole experience in just one sentence, it is "Food is growing everywhere." The most challenging part was not finding the food. The most challenging part was just

Having the time to harvest all of the food. Even more so, to process it. People often ask me, how many hours per week does it take to forage all of your food? I do not have a clear answer to that. Because again, the key is storing that bounty.

Some days it was zero. Some days I was just able to sit back and eat what I had harvested. Some days it was morning until night foraging, processing, preserving. And at the end of the day I was completely exhausted. Now when I say food is growing everywhere, I really mean it.

It is growing in what we consider to be the wild or nature. It is growing in our front yards. It is growing in our backyards. It is growing in our city parks. It is growing along the sidewalks. It is growing out of the sidewalks. It is growing in very large populated cities.

It is growing in the rural areas, the small towns. It really is growing everywhere. I harvested it from all of these places, except the interstate. I do not harvest my food from the interstate. Except maybe an occasional deer. When I set out on this journey I did not set out to prove

That this is a diet that is best for the world, or even best for me. So that is a reasonable question. Was I able to meet all of my needs? The answer is "yes..." but maybe not "Yes!" So calories, no problem. I was absolutely able to get enough calories.

The vitamins and the minerals; I absolutely feel like that was there. The protein absolutely was there. But where I lacked was fat. I was not able to get enough fat. This fat it creates the caloric density to have really filling meals. So, because.... I had enough food.

It was just hard to eat enough. I did lose some weight. Over the month, I lost about 5 pounds. If you think about it that is about what you would expect. No ice cream, no junk food, no alcoholic beverages. I myself am a fan of eating relatively the same meals

Day after day after day. I will say that I struggled with flavor. That really changed on day 19 when I harvested my salt. All of a sudden I tasted all these flavors inside of the pot that were there the whole time, but I just could not taste them.

The salt just absolutely brought it out. Then, day 27 is when I made some hickory nut oil. You add that oil and that salt, the herbs, and the spices to the wild rice, and the venison, and the fish broth, and then it was hard not to say,

"Oh my gosh!" with every single bite. By day 27 I really had that truly complete meal. I have to say, that is exciting! Because with just 9 days of preparation, and then just a few weeks into it, I was able to meet all of my needs in a truly nourishing, delicious, joyous way.

I know some people see me and they say, "Oh look at this white guy running around forging all of his food. Not very important." I completely understand that in the world that we live in today and all of the challenges that we are dealing with. I really want to share again

That I do have a lot of privilege and that includes the amount of time, resources, energy that I have to be able to do something like this. The reality is that I would not be doing this unless there was a much bigger picture behind this whole immersion. What it is really about

Is it is about reconnecting with Earth. As I was traveling across the country immersing in this project, I was also leading plant walks and helping others to learn the foods that are growing freely and abundantly all around them. People from all walks of life coming out to learn the basics

Whether it was Central Park, or the capital in DC, or in Chicago, Philadelphia. Across this region, I brought people out to help them reconnect, reconnect with the Earth, because if we can find our food growing around us, and we can reconnect with our community, we do not need capitalism and consumerism.

I believe this is part of overcoming colonialism. Colonialism is all about removing us from the land, removing us from our community, removing us from sovereignty over our bodies and our health. Part of foraging is about reconnecting to this. It is about taking the power back. In these plant walks

I introduced people to a dozen or so different easy-to-identify foods and medicines that are growing all around us in our cities and in the countryside. I shared with them basics of foraging; how to identify plants, how to know which ones are safe to eat, how to forage in a way that is

Ethical and sustainable, and also how to reconnect with the people that have been stewards of this land for thousands of years where this knowledge that we have today exists from them. Today we are foraging on stolen land, land that is here.... It is what it is today because of genocide that happened,

But still continues to happen here in what we call the United States also called Turtle Island. I think it is a really important thing to acknowledge that and acknowledge the land that we are on. Because if we are out foraging and we are connecting to these plants, but we are not connecting

To the history of this land.... That is a pretty big important part of equality, and justice, and regeneration of our Earth and community. Now, with that being said, one of the most common things that I hear is, "Well Rob, if everybody wanted to forage their food, nature would be destroyed overnight."

The truth is, that is not what would happen. Because, think about it if the whole world decided that they wanted to start connecting with the land, and harvesting their food, and creating relationship with these plants, what we would have is a revolution of the mind, a revolution of the way society

Wants to interact with this Earth. That to me, is what a forager does. When I look back at this chapter this month of foraging all of my food, I feel the power and the connection to the Earth that we can all experience. To know that I can go out

And I can meet all of my basic needs as a human without money, without corporations, and to be able to do it in a way where I am giving back to the Earth that is the power that I want to experience. Not power OVER anything

But power WITH these plant and animal relatives. When I look back at the last decade of breaking free from Big AG, from this global, industrial food system, I feel excitement, because although I just finished this month of foraging all my food, I think it is more or less still the beginning stages.

It was just a month. I am ready for a year. I am ready to see if I can meet all of my needs harvesting the food that is growing freely and abundantly from the land, and doing it for an entire year. I think that is what is next.

Thank you for still being here with me dear friends. It means a lot to be sharing this journey with you. Sharing this thing that I am so incredibly inspired and excited about. If you want to break free from the global, industrial food system, and you want to create food sovereignty in your communities,

And you want to live a life of deep joy, health, and happiness, then I really encourage you to keep coming back here. Also, my website is a great resource of information. So subscribe to this channel if you have not already and you would like to. If you want to see this video

Get out into the world, comment, that helps the algorithm. Like it, and of course, share it with the friends, the family, the people in your life who you want to help break free from the global industrial food system and find freedom in connecting to the plants that are growing

Freely and abundantly all around us.

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Written by Robin Greenfield

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29 Comments

  1. Dear Friends!
    Are you inspired and encouraged to begin foraging and reconnect with Earth? Or to start foraging more than you are now?
    I have spent countless hours creating resources to be of service to you. Here are my top resources (all of which are free):

    Find a forager near you: https://robgreenfield.org/findaforager (use this website to find in person opportunities near you and local resources)

    My Beginner's Guide to Foraging: https://robgreenfield.org/foraging

    Learn more about my month of eating foraged food: https://robgreenfield.org/reconnect

    My Foraging YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHrhas5pE0W6XEE-ffAas9l5V2W491WHu
    This includes full-length plant walks that I led in person and filmed for YOU!

    Lastly, you can get my book, Food Freedom: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/food-freedom-book

    Love,
    Rob

  2. interesting, until "our food is our medicine…no pharmacies" then immediately one realizes with whom they are dealing with. You're great foraging, quite knowledgeable really, but utter shit at critical thought, and no one should think you are a good example of how one should live.

  3. First few minutes of the video and all I could think is, forage or grow, no matter what, you are taking a bite out of the ecosystem. Foraging is an impossible way to feed our population. As a matter of fact, if every single human foraged, we would decimate the local plant and animal populations. With that said, there are way better ways to farm now, and in the future it will be come so much better. I don't remember which country, but they now have a tractor that goes over the crops and only burns weeds with lasers, thus negating the need for weed killer and the ashes fertilize the ground.

  4. I agree with alot of the stuff you said until I heard the word equality. I relate that with government propaganda, life isn't equal, certain people are better at certain things and that's what makes individual people beautiful. Unfortunately certain people just suck, and that's an unfortunate part of life that needs to be acknowledged. No different than acknowledging that good and evil exist. Yin & yang. Life is a balance and has opposites in every aspect.

  5. It really does piss me off that it always takes some white person to sway opinion. Ive been pointing out edible “weeds” to my family and friends for over 20 years and they laughed at me, called me crazy etc. Just had it with the misplaced credibility we give to white people. What this guy is talking about is what the Europeans called uncivilized and killed off. But now we follow him and applaud him. It’s not his fault but it’s still f* up

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