Wildcrafting Your Own Food

In the near future, we will be experiencing a food shortage world wide, to a much greater extent than we are currently seeing. I will save the details of this for another blog, as it is not the main focus of this article. It is however the foundation of why I have been learning wild food foraging off and on, for about the last sixteen years.

Recently, I have been going through a kind of ‘economic crisis’, which I found to be an actual blessing in part. Due to the current political and economic situations going on, and that which is about to make it’s self known, I thought what an opportunity to be prepared!

For about the last month and a half, my daughter and I, have been living off of wild foragables, and about $20 a week in store bought groceries. No, we do not live out in the country, or somewhere considered to be ‘nature’ like, but right in the middle of the city of Denver, Colorado. Actually the best foraging I often find, is in the city.

The best places to look for wild food is in your backyard, in sidewalk cracks, along roadsides, fields, and in the unkempt yards of your neighbors. Unkempt is a very important clue here, as this limits the possibility of herbicides having been sprayed on your precious food.

Many people suggest that one should not pick along busy roadsides, but I personally find the plants in these areas to be healthier and stronger, and I pick along them quite often. If there is food to be found in someone’s yard, I merely ask the residents if it is okay that I pick their weeds. Who is going to say no?

Another good source of food you can find in people’s yards, is fruit, nuts, etc.. If you see these items rotting in piles at the base of trees, the owners obviously have no desire to pick all of their food, and it certainly shouldn’t go to waste. I often ask if I can make a trade, and pick the fruit, in exchange for cleaning up the mess at the base of their trees. They usually tell me not to bother, and take whatever I desire.

I also find putting an ad out on Craig’s List is a great opportunity for free food in the fall season, just merely ask for people’s excess crops. Though these are not ‘wild’ foods exactly, they are most often grown in a more natural environ than that which you will find produced for the grocery stores. Bugs in the fruit, and smaller sizes are a good sign, that it has not been pesticided, and has been left in nature’s hands for a more nutritional product.

There are 4 main reasons wild food is better for your health:

1. Wild food, unlike conventional grown food, must fight for it’s survival against a wide variety of threats. This gives the plants immunity, which is passed onto you when you eat it. The less opposition the plant encounters in it’s environ, the less nutritional value it contains.
2. Wild food contains high levels of beneficial micro-organisms, which our body is dependent upon to be a healthy ‘living’ system. Eating ‘dead’ food, that has been stripped of micro-organisms, makes it difficult for the body to process, heal, and regrow damaged tissues. What people do not realize, is that we as people/animals, etc., are literally a composite of micro-organisms, that feed off of other micro-organisms to flourish and exist. Lack of micro-organisms in the diet leads to decay, and disease. Grocery store foods contain almost no micro-organisms, as they have been destroyed with pesticides, lack of predatory dangers, and processing.
3. The nutritional values of wild foods are through the roof…you will not find these kind of numbers in the grocery store. Take dandelion greens for example, which contains 14,000 mg. of potassium in every 3.13 ounces. Here is a handy chart for a few wild foods, that shows how much average nutritional content they contain. Here is a listing of grocery store foods, and their potassium values. This will give you a good idea of the differences. This is only one example.
4. Wild foods have a LOT more flavor. After eating wild foods, conventional foods will seem extremely boring. Many wild foods are used by gourmet chefs, in some of your higher end restaurants.

One other reason to eat wild foods are they are free and fun to gather! A few hours of wild food foraging can give you enough produce for a few days. Wild foods do take a bit more to process than grocery store foods, but I find the time doing so is a good opportunity to chat with others.

Wild crafting can be an excellent benefit to heal immune deficiencies, disease, increase general overall health and life span, and aid in feeling more ‘whole’ as a person. It can also bring you closer together with others, if you decide to share your foraging experience.

If you decide to learn wild crafting, be sure to be ethical in your endeavors. Look for only healthy looking plants, be sure of your identification, and most important, ‘when in doubt, throw it out’.

I hope I have inspired some of you to explore the world of weeds and wild plants, and I will leave you with a few pictures from our most recent foraging excursions.

Prickly Lettuce, best stir fried with a bit of water to soften toward the end. Nutty flavor.

Showy Milkweed, these are unopened and opened flower heads soaking to remove bugs. These are excellent, as well as the young pods that will appear later after the flowers. Excellent cooked in a myriad of ways.

Lamb’s Quarter’s leaves, excellent as potherb, fried, etc. Eat in moderation, as they contain oxalic acid, which inhibits calcium absorption. The same warning applies for spinach, sorrel etc.

For an excellent Milk Weed recipe, check out my daughter’s blog….