For one month I foraged 100% of my food. No grocery stores, no restaurants and not even a garden!
Every. Single. Bite.
Over the month I foraged around 100 different plants as food and medicine. In this video I introduce you to 40+ of my plant friends to help you begin your foraging journey and reconnect to Earth. Food is growing freely and abundantly all around us!
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Learn more about my month of eating foraged food:
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.
Rob 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:
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Rob Greenfield is an activist and humanitarian dedicated to leading the way to a more sustainable and just world. He embarks on extreme projects to bring attention to important global issues and inspire positive change. 100% of his media income is donated to grassroots nonprofits.
His YouTube channel is a source to educate, inspire and help others to live more sustainable, equal and just lives. Videos frequently cover sustainable living, simple living, growing your own food, gardening, self-sufficiency, minimalism, off the grid living, zero waste, living in a tiny house and permaculture.
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For the last month I have foraged 100 of My food from the land every single bite Now in order to create a complete diet And really reconnect with the Earth and My plant friends I foraged about a Hundred different plants as food and Medicine today I'm going to introduce You to about 40 of the plants that I Connected with over the last month Pile of manure growing next to it Wintercrest land Crest Christy greens Goes by many names but by all names Scrumptious Kusa dogwood Delicious Wild rice manomen the food that grows on Water I give so much gratitude to the Anishinaabe people who have been the Stewards of this wonderful food for Hundreds or thousands of years without Their knowledge and their stewardship This is a plant friend that I would not Have this is my absolute staple both to My soul and to my body as it is the main Source of calories for my month of Eating 100 from the land this is ginkgo And I'm harvesting the fruits and the Nuts Goldenrod in the golden hour this Is a wonderful all-around medicinal Plant to make medicinal teas from a Bounty of black walnuts in the parking Lot Ready for the picky Cleavers and one of the ways you can
Identify this is if you throw it at your Chest It often sticks just like that and All right Cleavers are edible Creeping Charlie People consider this to be a noxious Pest of a plant but it's a wonderful Medicinal and edible Crab apples much to many people's Disbelief they are not poisonous Some crab apples taste amazing others Kind of crabby All of them worth a try Chickweed you know it's chickweed Because on the alternating sides there's This little row of hairs and It tastes like sweet corn chicken of the Woods one of the most popular and Exciting mushrooms to find chestnuts I Consider them sort of like a potato in The sense that they're calorically dense And take very little processing work Hey look I found some false strawberry Now it's not a false strawberry it's a Thing of its own and it looks like a Strawberry But it doesn't have the delicious Taste Of a strawberry still worth eating Though Echinacea I use the flowers and leaves To make an immune boosting tea Ground cherries which are a wonderful Treat to find they grow in these husks Just like tomatillos do they are quite
The tree Ho ho Here we have Hawthorne which looks a lot Like rose hips But I really prefer them to rose hips And Hawthorne can vary a lot from tree To trees some are incredible And this one It's all right Hen of the Woods or maitaki a great Edible mushroom and a great medicinal Hackberry's a sweet fruit on the outside And a Crunchy seed on the inside Jewelweed watch the seeds explode Autumn berries these are considered Highly invasive so eating them is good For our ecosystems Smartweed is another really Edible weed and it's also called Ladyfinger because it has these smudges On the leaf that looks kind of like a Fingerprint Lamb's quarter one of my favorite Greens In a weed in every city mustard seeds With this I can make my own mustard or Just add some real nice spice to my Meals mint my spirit plant it makes a Refreshing Minty water This is one food that is growing Everywhere it is Mulberry growing out of The cracks here in urban New York City And most people know that the wonderful
Berries are delicious but the young and Tender Greens also incredibly nutritious This is mugwort and I use this as part Of my sleepy time tea blend that I make A plant that looks like it is ragweed And this has a silvery under leaf and Also Ah a really nice smell Mullen T and soft toilet paper If it smells like onion and it tastes Like onion it's onion and this is all Onion this is plantago and there's two Species plantago major and plantago Minor this is the broadleaf plantain and The other is narrow Leaf plantain so These leaves are very nutritious they Are an edible and they're a medicinal Something I like to make from this is a Poultice So if I'm stung by a bee a honeybee Because I'm a beekeeper I will chew up some of these leaves And stick that where I've been stung and That actually helps When you have skin irritation from Insects that have stung you And that's called a poultice this is Poke or pokeweed and it's one of my Favorite greens this is a toxic one that You have to cook and you only eat this When it's in its meristematic growth Stage not when the leaves are flat but When it's when the leaves are still Pointed upwards and they're young and
Tender it's not a banana it's not a Mango it's a papa and it's a true treat Of the woods you can tell When papa is ripe by poking it with your Finger and if it pushes in just like an Avocado when an avocado is ripe that's How you know Poor Man's pepper but my Friend Eric Joseph Lewis taught me to Call it rich man's pepper and it makes a Great pepper substitute Sochan if you want to eat a lot of Greens this is the green for you Stinging nettle the stings are medicinal And the food is wonderful shag bark Hickory For making hickory nut milk Violet which is very mild and makes a Great base for a salad Wild Water Bubbling up from the earth wild pears I Don't find a lot of these trees compared To Apples but when I do they are Abundant acorns how you eat them is you Have to remove the tannins you can do That through a hot water bath or cold Water bath leeching out the tannins and Then you get an acorn Mash you can dry That into an acorn flower the acorn Also produces the acorn grub a tasty Little treat that's a pretty typical Size for acorn grubs Rich acorny nuttiness that's good grub The everyday very usual and quite Abundant wild chives to be picked from
Front yards parks and Wild Spaces all Across the land here the dandelion Stands it's an incredibly resilient Plant the leaves are edible the flowers Are edible the stem is also edible The Malkin side of that edible And then the roots are edible as well Young and tender amaranth a nutritious And tasty green here we have Doc and the Leaves of dot can be delicious or they Can be downright terrible you'll learn The different docs this is the seed head Here and often people will use these Making crackers and the root of dot can Also be roasted just like you would with Dandelion to make a root tea after Having apples straight from the land a Grocery store Apple just feels like a Vessel full of water apples were one of My absolute Staples harvesting dozens And dozens of them sometimes shaking Them down from the trees and harvesting The Bounty and other times just picking Them my favorite thing to make from Apples is of course applesauce eating Applesauce every day growing up I ate Blackberries and raspberries and I Didn't even consider it foraging it was Just picking berries it's one of the Most common things that people forage Right here I'm with blackberry and this Is one of the Bramble berries which Includes blackberry and raspberry and Black raspberry and thimbleberry and
Salmon Berry and there's more but not Only are the berries edible on these Plants but you can make tea from the Leaf raspberry leaf tea is the most Popular of all of them and the time that You want to do it is when the leaves are Young and tender that's going to make The best tea aronia or sometimes called Choke Berry not choke cherry choke Berry The best way to work with it is to make A very nutritious Rich juice this is a Very commonly found Landscaping plant so It's perfect for urban foragers Butternut a lot like Walnut but it's a Butternut Different flavor different shape but Very similar Black Nightshade few edible plants Create so much fear this is a plant that Millions believe is deadly yet millions And millions of people have eaten both The leaves and the fruits as staple food For the last hundreds or thousands of Years Black nightshade berries are incredibly Delicious and I enjoy them thoroughly And yet for me to explore is eating the Young and Tender Greens but again Something that millions of people around The world enjoy food and medicine is Growing freely and abundantly all around Us and these plant relatives they are Just waiting for us to create Relationships with them that will help
Us break free from the global industrial Food system and live in a more Harmonious way with the Earth with Humanity and with all of our plant and Animal relatives it starts by learning Just one plant at a time and who knows Maybe one day you'll never have to take A trip to the grocery store again Foreign Oh my gosh that tree's loaded