10 Tips for Foraging Wild Edible Plants with Children

10 Tips for Foraging Wild Edible Plants with Children – Guest Video by Kenton and Rebecca Whitman and their two daughters. Make sure to subscribe to their channel and follow them on social media at the links below!
ReWild University: rewildu.com, YouTube, Facebook

Transcript: The following is a transcription of 10 Tips for Foraging Wild Edible Plants with Children.

Introduction to Foraging Walk

[Robin:] A lot of people today are afraid of nature and they teach their children to be afraid of nature and they tell them never eat anything from the land. Today I am really excited to have Kenton and his family on the channel who are a foraging family and they are going to share 10 tips for foraging with children. Here they are.

[Kenton:] Hello I’m Kenton
[Rebecca:] I’m Rebecca.
[Kenton:] We are the founders of ReWild University and we are parents.
[Rebecca:] Yes definitely (laughter)
[Kenton:] One of our favorite things to do with kids is to go out foraging. To find free, delicious, amazingly nutritious food right in your back yard.
[Rebecca:] It gives us a lot of time together as a family, time outside in nature, and we get to cook some incredible meals together.
[Kenton:] Here at 10 tips on how to get started foraging with your family.

Make the whole experience child-led

[Rebecca:] Number 1, make the whole experience child-led. This is because it is great to get kids excited and involved. We want to motivate them to want to do it.
[Kenton:] Kids have a natural curiosity about the world and if we can cultivate that in them then it just grows and grows. A lot of times we can knock that curiosity down by just being a little bit too grown-up about things. If we go out and we say, ‘Alright. Here is a plant. I do not want you to come back inside until you have memorized the latin name and the chemical constituents…’
[Rebecca:] Boring! I think it is far better to ask the kids, What do you think this plant is? Do you know the name of it? What can you tell me about it? What does it feel like? What does it smell like? If they know it is edible, what does it taste like?
[Kenton:] Help them get into their senses to really experience that plant first hand. Then when you add a name onto it you are already intimate with it. If you do this well, kids are going to have such a love of foraging they may be dragging you outside to go foraging with them instead of the other way around.

Start with yummy plants

Number 2, When you first start foraging start with some plants that are yummy. There is a lot of plants out there that are marginally edible. Not toxic but they don’t really taste very good. Start with some that are delicious and you’ll have kids hooked.
[Rebecca:] A great example would be wood sorrel. That is tart, easy to identify. Another one that is excellent to start with are edible flowers.
[Kenton:] If you want an easy starter flower, dandelion steps right into that role. You take some dandelion and separate it from any of the green, it is going to have a sweet flavor and if put 2 or 3 of those bunches in your mouth it becomes a sort of dandelion chewing gum that a lot of kids really enjoy.

Forage as a family

[Rebecca:] Tip number 3 is forage as a family. Get as many of your family Forage as a family members together as possible and all go out at the same time. Be conscious about this that it is a time of togetherness and exploration out in the woods. So make it something that is special and fun.

Taking plants home and cooking with them

Part of foraging is taking plants home and cooking with them. Taking plants home and cooking with them If you make children part of that cooking process then they get even more involved with the whole foraging to table experience.
[Rebecca:] Make sure to cook things that taste really yummy. With wild foods a lot of times lemon and a little olive oil or some sea salt is fun but each thing has its own special flavor and it is fun to taste that after you have gathered it. And then of course be sure to say thank you to your kids for helping make the whole meal possible.
[Kenton:] That empowers them with a sense of having brought food to the table which is ancestrally, and today, a really powerful motivator.

Pay close attention

[Rebecca:] Number 5, One of the biggest things that people worry about is safety, which makes complete sense.
[Kenton:] Is your kid going to go out and eat something and die?
[Rebecca:] So with really young kids or certain children that just have a tendency to really explore their world. You might want to pay close attention but I have not ever seen older kids go and randomly grab and eat things. They are usually coming and asking questions. That’s part of that child-led experience where they want to know something before they just ingest something. And it is important that you share with your kids what the toxic plants are and learn how to ID them but not to be fearful of them. Be respectful and learn about those plants as well.
[Kenton:] Each of those toxic plants is actually an important part of its environment so as you learn about the different toxic plants in your fields and forests, learn what pollinators rely on them, how they contribute to soil health or the general ecology of the area and share that with your children.
[Rebecca:] A lot of medicines these days too come from some of these plants so it is interesting to know that they are helpful, just not necessarily edible. I want to know how do I make sure my child isn’t going to eat something that he or she shouldn’t be. What we have done in our family is just ever since the girls were little we have gone on foraging adventures together. We have pointed out the things that they shouldn’t eat and we have pointed out things that they can eat and we have always asked them to start by bringing us a leaf or a flower and showing us and remembering what plant it came from. For example, if they bring a leaf we often might say, ‘This is only part of a leaf, which plant is it from?’ And then they point and we see, ‘Oh that is actually a dandelion. Yes, you can eat that’. Over time they become comfortable with that and over time we, as parents, see oh my child really does know what a dandelion plant is and what a dandelion plant is not. And at that point we start to feel more comfortable. Yes, you may eat a dandelion. We have made it something that we are intimate with.
[Kenton:] Intimacy is what it is all about. You probably feel confident that your child can identify a carrot. A carrot comes from one of the most toxic families of plants that there is and for foragers, if something is in the carrot family we are often saying ‘argh!’. You want to be really familiar with it and yet, again, it is something that your child is familiar with and can positively ID. We can become that intimate with any plant. We just do it through repetition and making the plant part of our diet and really just getting to know it by taste, by texture, by smell.
[Rebecca:] Make all plants friends and then you know which are used for which things.

Foraging as a gateway into the natural world

[Kenton:] Number 6 is use foraging as a gateway into the natural world. Foraging as a gateway into the natural world Our youngest daughter Liliana, when we go into the woods with her foraging, she often will get quite distracted by, say, a toad or chasing a snake…
[Rebecca:] Or a butterfly or a dragonfly. Kenton: Yeah, running after a baby rabbit. Who knows what. This is part of number 1, which was making things child-led, is to remember that as we take children out foraging it is not just about getting a certain amount of greens and bringing them back to the table, it is about togetherness, it is about developing a connection with nature.

Become regulars

[Rebecca:] Tip number 7 is become regulars. Make this something you do every day and it doesn’t have to be a huge long expedition, although it could be. It could be something as simple as going to gather some wild mint to make a cup of tea in the morning. One wild food a day gets you learning your plants, gets you that intimacy, and makes it a regular part of your life.
[Kenton:] The amount of nutrition packed into these wild plants is incredible because most of them are growing in soil that is really, really healthy. So even just adding a couple of leaves to a salad or to a stew or a few wild berries it is going to add this huge boost of nutrition to your family’s diet.

Identification guide

[Kenton:] Number 8 is to have 1 or 2 or 3 really good ID guides and teach the Identification guide children how to use those ID guides.

Learn about other foragers

[Rebecca:] In addition to that it is great to encourage kids to learn about people out there who are using wild foods as part of their job and their everyday life. You have forager chefs like Alan Bergot and people like Robin Greenfield who are using wild food all the time and you can really learn a lot from them because they are completely immersed in it.

Let your kids become teachers

Tip number 9 is once your kids are comfortable with some of the plants they know and you are comfortable with their ability, let them become teachers. Have them show grandparents how to add a few dandelion leaves to a stew or pick a violet flower and notice its flavor. It is a great way for them to be able to continue to learn more about plants.
[Kenton:] As you probably know when we step into the role of a teacher we often become better students. So when a child is showing somebody how to identify wood sorrel, they are going to have to really pay attention to the details in order to communicate those details to someone else and that sets the knowledge in even deeper.

Realise that plants have other uses

Number 10 is realize that these plants have many other uses besides just being foods.
[Rebecca:] So do some other things with them. Make some cordage, go look for those bugs that thrive on the plants. Milkweed, look for monarchs at all different stages of their life.
[Kenton:] The painting you can do just using… well you have a blank sheet of paper and dandelion…
[Rebecca:] Grab some violets for blue…
[Kenton:] Going to give them yellow…
[Rebecca:] grass for green. So paint with nature. There is all sorts of different things that plants allow us to do in our lives and it is so fun, it opens up a world of possibilities for you and your family to have some really fun, free, and enjoyable time together.
[Kenton:] And here is a bonus one, just do it. Get out, do some foraging, taste some different plants, get to know them. You’re going to have fun as a family, you are going to add nutrition to your diet, and just have a great time learning together. These types of activities foster a love of nature in our children. And that translates directly into the ethics that a lot of us would like them to see. For instance, we can teach them about, when they go out and forage, to do so sustainably. But as they develop that love of nature and that awareness, they will start to think of that themselves and develop those nature ethics as an extension of all this nature fun that you are having together as a family.

Closing

[Robin:] Kenton and his family are truly wonderful people and it is so great to see their connection to the earth. It is so genuine. I have had the chance to go foraging with them myself and the kids were just so in love with being connected to their food and eating the food that they foraged themselves. I hope you got a lot out of this video. If you did, make sure to subscribe to their channel where they have a lot more inspiration and education. And make sure to subscribe to this channel if you have not already. Where I will have many more videos to come to help you live more happily, healthfully, and full of sustainability. I love you all very much and I will see you again real soon.

Foraging Resources for Children

Foraging Board Games: WildCraft, Botany Board Game, WonderWoods

Foraging Books For Kids: Herb Fairies, Foraging with Kids: 52 Wild and Free Edibles to Enjoy With Your Children by Adele Nozedar, Family Foraging: A Fun Guide to Gathering and Eating Wild Plants by David Hamilton, Peterson Field Guides for Young Naturalist

Resources for Families, Parenting and Alternative Living with Children