Activist, author, and forager Robin Greenfield is visiting Georgia this week, five months into his campaign of living by foraging alone. Greenfield said he isn’t just surviving by foraging but thriving. He pulled over on the side of the road to speak with me and found a treasure trove of supplies.
“And I just stopped here to do this interview and I’m finding underneath my feet chickweed that I’ll certainly nibble on after this call,” Greenfield said. “There’s some citrus leaves that I’m going to harvest and use like a little herb. There’s blackberry leaves, there’s elderberry flowers over there that I can make teas from and this is all stuff that I discovered right here in a matter of minutes.”
He said finding protein in addition to plants and herbs is not particularly challenging either.
“Well, actually protein has been one of the easiest parts," said Greenfield, "What I do is I go fishing. Just yesterday I fished for some bass and some bluegill in a pond here in Georgia. And then I actually harvest deer that are hit by cars.”
Greenfield stopped in Athens about a decade ago and extolled the benefits of urban foraging, also known as dumpster diving.
He said, “For people that are looking for alternative ways of living outside of the monetary system, and having less of an environmental impact, and really standing up against the broken system, I absolutely am a substantial proponent of harvesting our food from grocery story dumpsters. I’ve been raising awareness about that for 12 years and there is just as much food to be harvested in the dumpsters today as there was 12 years ago.”
Visit RobinGreenfield.org, or his social media for more information.
