Your average urban city dweller would find foraging to be a lost lifestyle. Urban foraging refers to gathering food directly from the weeds, bushes, and trees located in the city. Globalization has led to nation-wide supermarkets including Whole Foods, Walmart, Safeway, and made it less common for foraging to exist. As food comes readily available from supermarkets, people deem it a wasted effort to forage food their-selves.
But it's not actually that complicated. David Craft, a city dweller in the Boston area, eats a 50% foraged diet. It only takes him fifteen minutes before each meal to forage through the urban areas of the city! David first started with foraging 5 years ago when he eagerly devoured a book his friends gave him called The Forager's Harvest He suddenly adapted this newly found inspiration and dug through the dirt in search of a new way of life. David Craft doesn't forage for a means of survival, instead he does it for a rewarding lifestyle and to take his vegetarianism to the next level. "It's kind of fun knowing that no human being has ever touched that plant," he said as foraging a scrumptious flower, part of his lunch from the Charles River.
And the following analogous situation depicts his newly found lifestyle...Walking up a winding forest path, the dust kicks up after every step. Rigid green vines slowly and treacherously wind their way into the root systems of innocent daffodils. These so-called "gardener's monsters" are just misunderstood. Just as philosopher Ralph Emerson said, weeds are just "a plant whose virtues have not been discovered." Continuing up the path of weeds and intertwining trees, rounding a corner one may find a lonely man. The plants in his hands may seem as meaningless weeds at first but when looking past their label, the unknown ambiguity of a dreadful poison awaits. As cool as foraging may seem, foraging has risks. New England is home to the top ten poisonous plants including the stinging nettle, rhubarb, as well as many others which can be observed here. This lack of education on ingesting toxic plants is one reason why foraging is not as widely practiced as it could be. I have yet to come across a school that studies detrimental, as well as beneficial plants alike. Many voices aided in expressing their concern about this so-called"diet." "You don't know where your food is coming from, or how long it's been there," a horrified dining manager exclaimed. Another innocent little brunette cringed at the idea with concern flashing in her eyes. "What it it could kill you?!?" The fearless threshold of death is not enough to stop Craft's diet. Pollution is constantly hovering over cities in clouds of smoke and suffocating the plants within it. As the plants struggle for air, a man named David Craft pulls them out and eats them.
However, one may also argue the dangers in eating store bought food. Conventional fruits contain many more pesticides known to cause carcinogens, neurotoxins, and disrupt hormones and growth. An apple, for example, contains forty-two detrimental pesticides that go widely unnoticed because of the lack of education of living a conventional lifestyle as well. People aren't aware of what they are eating and thats why many of these movies come in handy and other organizations work to educate the public on the dangers of this conventional, non organic food.
So eating a foraged lifestyle includes and exceeds the benefits of eating organic as well as vegetarian. Living a vegetarian lifestyle, you lose weight, your cholesterol level reduces, and your body does not have to work as hard to process food. When I asked a nutritionist John Grey from G.N.C. about his thoughts on foraging, he replied, "Why not it's probably good for you and it's right from the source." Additionally, there is a certain connection a being shares with the food they eat knowing that they plucked it directly from Mother Earth. "I have this beautiful sense of fulfillment in my heart when I stir up a lunch directly from the ground," said a nature dweller who frequently camps in the great outdoors.
After examining the pros and cons of foraging, one rushed New York City businessman over-booked in meetings from 8:00am to 8:00pm responded, "Why would I want to forage my dinner after working a twelve-hour day? That's why we have fast-food restaurants for food on the go." A foraging lifestyle is not found in many people of the world. In our society, working on computers and paperwork is the extent of our businessmen. However, if people just look past the work and enjoy themselves, then maybe Craft's lifestyle isn't so bad after all. Not only is this life style healthy for both the body and soul but it also helps protect the earth by using its resources rather than man-made factories. However, too much of anything is not good at all. Harvard professor of Environmental Management George Buckley said, "there are some areas where the growth and reproductive rates of some of the natural plants may be good for a few people but not many because of the destroyed commons. So we do have to be careful."
