What Will I Eat Now? After a Year of Foraging…

“What is the first food you are going to eat when you finish the year of foraging?”

That’s the most frequent question I’ve received over the last months. Today I’m answering that question for you very thoroughly, not just what is the first food I’ll eat but what I’ll eat for the year ahead.

I’m not going back to the grocery store, nor a restaurant and to start, not even a cultivated garden or farm. On day one whatever I eat will still be foraged, but by my community, not just by myself. For one month I will continue to eat solely forged foods, but now food that anyone forages. I plan to buy, trade and receive gifts of food. This will allow me to more easily and time efficiently meet all of my needs. It will be a true joy and relief to take part in the abundance of community. I imagine my diet the first month will be mostly the same – few foods that I’m not already eating – but hopefully now with no need to ration my stocks and to have everything I need in ample quantity. I will seek out from community foragers: maple syrup, hickory oil, bear fat, apple cider vinegar, ferments, and spices as a priority. Yet this will be an experiment. What foraged foods will I be able to source? Will I be able to afford it?
I certainly would love forage vegetables including parsnips, wapato, lotus and milkweed pods but those are foods that only a small number of foragers would have a supply of. Fruits, berries, herbal teas and dried mushrooms on the other hand will be likely easy to source from the community.

So what exactly is the first food I’ll eat? Fat is the answer. In what form, I don’t know but I will be eating a lot of fat at most meals.

Although I will not return to the grocery store, there is one wild food that I will go straight to a business for – smoked whitefish and lake trout. We have a thriving commercial fishery here and this is one of my favorite foods on Earth. The ingredients are just fish, salt and smoke from the wood. Which brings up the one exception of food that I will make – salt. It would be far too limiting to the community food prospects to eat only forage salt, so any salt will be acceptable, yet the salt all purchase will be Pacific Ocean salt harvested and made commercially in California.
After 1 month I will then eat both foraged and homegrown foods. This will greatly open up my options. The network of local growers far exceeds the network of local foragers. Garden food will be much more accessible. People will have surplus and it likely be less expensive to purchase. The downside is it will be November in Wisconsin and most gardening will be done for the season. My choices will be limited for some fresh produce but I’m confident I’ll be able to meet all of my needs through community. What I’m most eager to Source from the garden:

– Hearty garden vegetables including squash, potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, carrots, heirloom corn, beans, radishes, turnips and more. In these foods I’m seeking my source of calories along with satiation and fullness and of course also many nutrients.
– Onion and garlic.
– Greens and all their glorious variety and abundance.
– Spices including rosemary, basil, dill, time, oregano, cilantro, coriander and more.
– Sauerkraut and other ferments.
– Vinegar, specifically apple cider vinegar.
– Honey.

Many people raise chickens, cows, pigs and other animals which I’d very much like to include in my diet along with eggs, cheese, yogurt, butter and ghee. However most people feed these animals store-bought grain – generally from the global, industrial food system. I am not sure how I’ll navigate that yet but I will apply some standard. That goes for feeding sugar to honey bees as well, which is basically just the conversion of cheap, destructive sugar to honey.

Though sourcing from foragers and home growers will certainly provide me with everything I need, it may not provide me with everything that I want. Yet, I will be very content with the options, ease and time efficiency that will have opened up to me along with the abundance of foraged food I have stored and what I will continue to fish, hunt and gather. As I’m nearing the completion of the year my freezer is full and my pantry is still quite abundant.

What is the first garden food I will eat? Certainly vegetables from my mom’s garden.
In December I will head to Florida for the winter and I will again have access to abundant and thriving gardens, many of which are producing food from perennial plants that I gifted to community over the years.

After three months I will add in locally farmed foods to my foraged and homegrown diet. Here, more diligence will need to be done to be certain this food is produced in alignment with Earth. I’m imagining small scale, local farms that have high Earth ethics and exclusively or primarily distribute their food locally/directly to the people. I don’t see a lot changing in my diet at this point but I see accessibility increasing and ease. Local farmers markets will be a joyous return into my life.
Note: In months two and three there will be some crossover between gardens and small farms as many small farms are the equivalent of large gardeners. Some gardeners sell at farmers markets too, so I imagine I’ll be making purchases from these small businesses .
The major change that is likely to come with small farms is grain including wheat, oats and buckwheat which I will embrace as there are numerous small farms that produce this in a fairly harmonious relationship with the land, although I’d ideally prefer perennial tree crops, wild rice and other wild and perennial calorie foods in regards to the impact on Earth. I will warmly embrace bread back into my life, especially sourdough and hardy whole wheat breads. Local farms would also make sourcing butter, ghee, cheese and meat more accessible – although the feed will still be a challenge there.

I have made a full year commitment to eating foraged, homegrown and locally grown/small farmed foods. This means no food from corporations. No food from the global industrial food system. Food in the hands of the people. Power in the hands of the people. Having a direct connection to the plants, animals and fungi most of the time and almost always to the humans who harvested or grew the food, or just one degree of separation.

Will I eat at restaurants? Very few would make this meal for me, but there are some I’m sure that would be up to the challenge but perhaps already do this?

Will I eat meals prepared by my friends, hosts and community? Absolutely – yet not just any meal. I’m hopeful that community will utilize our sharing of a meal to deepen their knowledge of their local food system, to deepen their foraging skill set, to grow more food at home… My hope is that by embodying my message of eating in relationship with Earth, that all who I interact with will begin to embody this more as well.

Will I make some exceptions? Time will tell but they will be few and far between I hope and the exceptions will not be so grand as a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, but rather a few ingredients in a meal, a practice of respect for my hosts, or if it means going without food for beyond a couple needed meals. This will unfold as the experiment of walking through a society that is disconnected from their food continues. I will likely be eating with many people in my travels ahead.

And what does 2028 bring, beyond this year? My hope is to never go back to the global, industrial food system. To eat only foods that have never touched a conveyor belt or a factory. As I’ve heard it called. “the non-barcode diet”. I hope to have eaten my last Pint of Ben & Jerry’s for good (I still love you brother Ben and cousin Jerry)! In short, I aim to spend all of my years on Earth sourcing my food – plants, animals and fungi – in relationship with and connection with all life involved.

A note on eating local: As a traveler, I will focus on eating local to the bioregion I am in, but I will also source foods throughout my travels and carry them with me and in some instances stock up. I will also receive food from community in far off lands – food they foraged or grew – in relationship with the land.

Eating with others: The most challenging aspect of eating meals made by others may be the oil, salt and spices. First, meals can be made simply without these items. A stew of garden vegetables and local meat is a complete and satisfying meal for example. Second, I can help with sourcing food for our meals together and will generally have with me the oil/fat and spices as these may be more challenging for many to source. Salt is my exception.
It is a difficult path to navigate – turning down the offering of a host, but it must be done in order to live in alignment with the life that hosts us all – Earth. For some cultures it is taken as a great disrespect to not take food that is offered. I will aim to navigate this with compassion, understanding, patience and grace – giving my highest priority of respect to Earth and all life involved with the food to be – or not to be – eaten. Where some exceptions may be made I intend to stay in powerful alignment drawing a clear line between my body and all GMO, highly processed, industrialized foods and “food-like substances”.