When we met, Robin Greenfield was 61 days into his year-long quest to live only on food he forages.
He not only wants to prove it can be done, but he also hopes to inspire others to think about how day-to-day decisions impact the world we share.
Growing up, he loved nature but wasn’t thinking about saving it.
“I wanted [to be a] marine biologist, a professional fisherman or a banker,” Greenfield says.
In college, he studied biology with a concentration on aquatic science. “I love our waters,” Greenfield says.
But, he also liked making money.
“I started to sell books door-to-door. And I learned I could make a lot of money and be very successful. So I set aside the desire to work in the outdoors and be a biologist,” Greenfield says.
His turning point came in 2011.
“I was in San Diego running a marketing company and I learned that the way I was living was causing real destruction — the food I was eating, the car I was driving, the stuff I was buying, the trash I was creating,” Greenfield says.
He decided to make a change — one step at a time.
Early on, foraging was only a concept — not something Greenfield seriously considered — until he spent a year in Florida in 2018. Greenfield set out to live on food he grew or foraged.
“I went to local foraging classes, I bought books, went to different websites. And I quickly learned — I don’t have to figure anything out. All the knowledge that we need is already there from really, really great resources,” he says.
Now he’s returned to the place he grew up: Ashland, Wisconsin.
It’s December, so Greenfield is not foraging much at the moment.
“I keep a deep journal of what I need to harvest, how much," he says. "For example, a day in the life of wild rice season is harvesting from morning until sunset and then there’s processing. So some days I’m out foraging all day, some days I’m processing and storing the food, and then other days I just get to enjoy the food and eat it."
He’s learned lessons along the way. Take ginkgo.
“A lot of people know...it’s smelly fruit. That’s not a problem, I can deal with the smell. But I [have to process] a whole lot of it to get the nuts out. They’re great nuts. They eat them in Japan,” Greenfield says.
He had the fruit all over his arms before he decided to look up its possible side effects.
“Sure enough, it has the same component as poison ivy that causes that rash. And I ended up really itchy for a week,” Greenfield says.
Now two months into his foraging experiment, Greenfield says he'd lost five pounds.
“Well, that’d happen to anyone if they stopped eating Ben & Jerry’s,” he adds, “But I already feel deep inside, in my cellular being, that the earth can provide me with all I need."
Greenfield wants to sustain himself and inspire others.
“For me it’s very clear that life matters," he says. "I value life very greatly and I’m sure everybody listening to this does. So the question is what can we do to enrich the life around us while taking responsibility for our actions to make sure we are not destroying the ability for others — including plants and animals — to have enriched lives?"
