Why I am Foraging 100% of My Food and Medicine for a Year

For one year, I am foraging 100% of my food and medicine.

I know some of you are thinking “Robin, haven’t you already done this before?” That was a year of growing and foraging 100% of my food..
This time I have no garden. Nature is my garden, my pantry and my pharmacy. For the entire year, every bite and every drink of my food and medicine will be harvested from what Earth freely and abundantly provides, down to the calories, protein and fat. All the vitamins and minerals I’ll need. The oil, salt and spices, too!

A 100% foraged diet! (Curious what I mean when I say “foraged”? Read the guidelines to the year here.)

In this article, I’d like to share with you in-depth why I’ve embarked on this endeavor. Why would I go to this extreme? Why give up the convenience and comfort of what the grocery store provides?

For a decade-and-a-half, I have made it my life mission to break free from destructive societal ways that I was indoctrinated into and to live more harmoniously with Earth, humanity and the plants and animals we share our home with. I simply do not want to destroy Earth, the only home we have. And I want to improve quality of life for my fellow Earth citizens. Its been a deep journey of unlearning and learning, disconnection and re-connection, letting go and embracing new ways of being.

With 15 years of analyzing and questioning my own mind and actions and that of our society, I have come to see some big patterns. One pattern that has become so clear to me is that it is our belief that we are separate that allows us to exploit, oppress and destroy. Our illusion that we are separate from Earth, from the plants and animals and from our fellow humans is the great wound that disconnects us from the reality that everything is interconnected. We live in a very precarious time in human history with many threats to our continuation as a species, but I believe this illusion of separateness may be our single greatest possible cause of our demise and source of current suffering for life on Earth.

I am overcoming this illusion of separateness that was so deeply ingrained in me and foraging is a powerful act of embracing my interconnectedness with it all. I believe that Earth can provide us with everything we need in a sustainable way. Theoretically I know this to be true. But I want to feel this in every cell of my body. I want to embody a cellular knowing that Earth provides. Foraging 100% of my food and medicine is a deep test and I hope for substantial mental gains from this effort.

This challenge will force me to be outside: learning, building my skills, creating relationships and reconnecting. It is a formula that guarantees a connection to the land I live and travel upon. Through needing to meet all my needs by foraging, I am pushed to create relationships with the plants and animals: to see them as my friends, relatives and a source of my well being. This is a practical remedy to separateness.

I believe that to live in harmony with Earth, or as Robin Wall Kimmerer will say, reciprocity requires a wide range of skills. This is me continuing to develop those skills. Yes, through my previous immersions I have developed many of these skills, but this endeavor — embarking on what I’ve been unsure is even possible — is taking my exploration to another level, and thus deepening these skills for living in reciprocity. Through living this love, I hope to be a better servant to life on Earth.

Perhaps the antithesis of feeling separate is to feel truly at home. This is my way of finding a deep home on Earth, and in my home there is no room for destruction. When we love, we care for and we will go to great lengths to protect. With each harvest, each bite, each new relationship, I am falling more deeply in love with the Earth.

I want to embody this so strongly that it can be felt in my presence everywhere I go. I want to share my life through my message with joyous vigor. And not just felt but transmitted to others. The humans who changed me at my core are those who live their missions, and this is my means of being of service to humanity.

I so badly want you to know that food and medicine is growing freely and abundantly all around you. Yes, even on this Earth that has been so badly damaged. This is why I’m giving talks, leading foraging walks and hosting foraging schools all around the country, while fully living what I’m teaching.

Food is the gateway. It was for me. It has been for millions of others. It will be for millions more. It is the gateway to questioning our way of being on and relating to the Earth and the life we share this home with. When we question our food, we unravel the web of destruction of our globalized, industrialized food system, and with this truth, many of us transform our way of living.

What millions have found is that growing food and foraging is work, yes, but it is meaningful work that creates a life with more health, happiness, satisfaction, purpose and a sense of belonging and connection.

Foraging is a practice of critical thinking: one of the most important skills for living harmoniously and peacefully.

Foraging is a practice of breaking free from restrictive societal norms and becoming a free human.

Foraging is a practice of healing our relationship with Earth. We need more foragers. Foragers fall in love and become stewards of the natural spaces where their food and medicine comes from. They become protectors and defenders of Earth. Foraging makes us better relatives to all.

Foraging is a joyful act of resistance to the dominator structures that want us to blindly consume. It is an active resistance to the current food system that is contributing to the sixth mass extinction.

Foraging is decentralization. It is localization. It is closed-loop and low waste. It is one of the most sustainable ways to harvest our food. Foraging is power in the hands of the people!

Foraging is about reconnection and reconnection is the remedy for disconnection, the great wound of humanity. With this wound we see the symptoms of:
An epidemic of loneliness, anxiety, depression and overwhelm.
An epidemic of Western disease — obesity, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and cancer.
An epidemic of dependence on pharmaceuticals and abuse of drugs.

Foraging is part of the solution to all of these epidemics.

We also live in a time when millions more have realized it is not safe to rely on big government for their food, their source of life. With cuts to SNAP, foraging is part of the solution to food security. (Remember a lot of this food is growing right outside our doors.)

Yes, I am foraging all of my food and medicine for a year because I want to bring attention to all of this and to be a part of the healing for many. But I am not an altruist. I’m foraging because it gives me access to some of the most nutritious food on Earth, and I care about my health. It also provides me with the most delicious foods I know, and I do love food. I could not afford this food if I were to buy it. I’m foraging because it is so much fun and brings me so much joy. I wake up excited for what I might find and I often go to bed thinking about the many plants I’m creating a life with. My body, my mind and my spirit come together so holistically through foraging. In short, there really is nothing more on Earth that I’d rather be doing than this extreme endeavor. But let’s remember: this is closer to what humans have always done. It is only perceived of as extreme because it’s being compared to an extremely disconnected society.

Going to the level of 100% is a test of my skills, a test of my philosophy and a way of exploring what is still possible on the Earth we inhabit today, but it is also a crafted message. This is my form of activism. I embark on “extreme endeavors” that catch peoples’ attention and brings them into my story with all the education, empowerment, hope and inspiration that I have placed there to be found among the entertaining optics. This is my recipe for reaching millions through social media and the media.

For those of you who stuck with me until the end, there’s a bit more.

I am still driven by success. And this is my form of success, living in alignment with my beliefs and being well respected and revered for it by society. Reaching millions of people, contributing in a meaningful way to society and Earth. Enriching the lives of others and being loved for it. This is at the core of living a very meaningful and purposeful life — and that is a large part of my definition of success.

I am operating from the basic human needs to be loved, to belong, to matter. I believe every one of us is operating from these needs at any given moment. And in the circles I’m in, the guy who forages 100% of his food gets a lot of love.

Lastly, I’m able to do this because the knowledge is all there. There are thousands of dedicated foragers who have tirelessly shared their knowledge. I want to especially thank Sam Thayer who has dedicated his life to making this possible for us all. I’d also like to share my deep gratitude to the many Indigenous cultures who have been stewards to these plants and this knowledge for thousands of years.

With a critical and dedicated mind:
Foraging is safe.
Foraging is sustainable.
Foraging is freedom.
(And yes, it is legal, too. For all places it is not, there is Earth Code.)