While working on this book, I received the following email from one of my readers: “Sergei, with all of the information you put out about wild edibles, are you trying to create a new fad diet?”
This was not the first time I had been approached with this kind of inquiry. Foraging is not a new practice that I—or anyone else in the last two hundred years—have invented. If wild food is gaining popularity in today’s world, it is out of necessity, not gimmick. People have been eating wild foods since the dawn of existence. Before stores and farmers’ markets, there were fields and meadows full of edible, wild vegetation. Even America’s Founding Fathers promoted foraging. In June of 1777, George Washington issued this general order to his soldiers:
As there is a plenty of common and French sorrel, lamb’s quarters, and watercress, growing about camp, and as these vegetables are very conducive to health, and tend to prevent scurvy and all putrid disorders.… The General recommends to the soldiers the constant use of them, as they make an agreeable salad, and have the most salutary effect. The regimental officer of the day is to send to gather them every morning, and have them distributed among the men.
While Washington was not a doctor or trained in medicine, he observed that his soldiers would suffer from health problems due to lack of nutrients and a repetitive diet. Through observation, Washington deduced that adding fresh, wild greens into his soldiers’ diets improved their health, reduced infection, and prevented scurvy (Grivetti et al. 2007).
Since I began promoting wild edibles in the early 2000s, I have witnessed a huge increase in the public’s awareness of them. Today, it is not uncommon to walk into a grocery store and find bunches of dandelions and watercress neatly stacked in the produce section. My local food co-op regularly sells purslane, nettles, and lamb’s quarters. Years ago, when I approached a local farmer at the Ashland, Oregon, farmers’ market and asked him to sell me some weeds, he looked at me as though I were totally insane. Now, in 2013, that same farmer does sell weeds—and he sells out of his weeds within the first two hours of vending.
Many worldwide have already noticed the colossal advantages associated with eating wild foods. Weeds are incredible, healthy, and edible. That is why they have been eaten for thousands of years and why people will likely continue eating them for thousands more. I predict that as we continue manipulating what we eat and suffering from health problems, the demand for pure food will increase. Therefore, the wild edible movement will not die out as a fad, but will continue to grow indefinitely. I hope that the popularity of foraging continues snowballing until, one day, it is considered just as normal to throw chickweed and mallow into your salad as it is to eat potato chips from a bag.
For additional information about foraging, check out my videos on YouTube and subscribe to my channel, “BoutenkoFilms.” If you would like to help popularize wild food, share my videos with your friends. You can also like my wild edible page on Facebook (Wild Edibles with Sergei Boutenko).