Chapter 6: The Wild Kitchen

Chapter 6 — The Wild Kitchen

Recipe 6: Foraged Green Minestrone

"We don't have to eat like we're in captivity."

The Disconnect We Don't See

Most of us have no idea what it took to get the food on our plates. We don't know the plant's name, where it grew, what conditions it needed to thrive, or what it had to overcome to reach our kitchens. We've become so disconnected from the plant world that we don't know enough to know, or care, or love.

Walk through any modern grocery store and you'll see the evidence: row upon row of identical vegetables, bred for size and shelf life rather than nutrition, grown in depleted soil and shipped thousands of miles. The tomatoes are perfectly round and uniformly red, but they taste like water. The spinach leaves are pristine and uniform, but contain a fraction of the nutrients their wild ancestors possessed.

We've lost our connection to the plants that grow freely around us—the dandelions that support liver detoxification, the plantain that heals wounds, the wild garlic that fights infection. These "weeds" that we spray and mow and curse often contain 40 times more nutrients than their domesticated cousins, yet we treat one as a pest and the other as food.

But here's what excites me most: this isn't about restriction. This is about expansion. Discovering that what you thought was "all the food available" was actually just a tiny, processed fraction of the incredible diversity the natural world offers.

Why Each Plant Is Medicine (For Itself, and For Us)

To understand that each plant is full of beneficial compounds because that is its own medicine—its own defense system, its own survival strategy—makes us appreciate it as a living thing, not just a resource to be used to depletion.

When a plant faces stress—drought, insect attacks, competition for nutrients, temperature extremes—it doesn't run away. It can't. So it adapts by producing phytochemicals: compounds that protect it from damage, fight off predators, and help it survive.

These same compounds become medicine for us. When we eat that bitter dandelion or peppery wild garlic, those protective compounds trigger our own cellular defenses—supporting detoxification pathways, modulating inflammation, strengthening resilience. It's called hormesis: beneficial stress that makes us stronger, like lifting weights for our cells.

Think about it: Why does exercise make muscles stronger? Because you're stressing the muscle, actually creating tiny tears in the fibers. In response, your body repairs and builds back stronger. Do this consistently, and your body upregulates blood vessels for more oxygen, produces more mitochondria for energy, builds stronger tissue.

The same principle applies to phytochemicals. That slight bitterness, that peppery bite, that astringent quality—these aren't flaws. They're the plant's strength, and they become ours when we eat them.

The Peasants Had Wisdom (And We Called It Unimportant)

I love the colloquial names for plants—lamb's ears for its softness, self-heal for what it does, Johnny-jump-up for how it grows. These aren't scientific, but they're full of observation and relationship. The peasants had wonderful things to tell us, but we dismissed their knowledge as primitive.

Juliette of the Herbs was trained as a royal veterinarian for English nobility, but she chose to live among the Jews and Gypsies to learn their medicine. She recognized that the real wisdom wasn't in the palaces—it was with the people who actually worked with plants daily, who passed down generations of careful observation.

The midwives knew genius tactics—like walking within hours after birth to help the body heal properly. The herbalists understood which plants worked for which conditions, not through randomized trials but through millennia of careful attention.

And when colonizers encountered Indigenous peoples with sophisticated agricultural systems, intricate basket-weaving traditions, and deep plant knowledge, they dismissed it all as "primitive." They missed the sheer genius of techniques like grooming trees to grow long, smooth roots perfect for basket weaving—helping both the plant thrive and meeting human needs.

In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer (a botanist with a PhD who teaches at universities) writes about rediscovering her family's Native American plant wisdom and finding it flowed seamlessly with her scientific training. The two ways of knowing—scientific and traditional—weren't in conflict. They were complementary.

She writes about the honorable harvest: never taking the first plant you see, or the last. Leave enough for the plant to thrive, for the animals who depend on it, for the future. Take only what you need, use all of what you take, and give thanks.

This isn't sentimentality—it's sustainability. The Indigenous peoples of North America managed vast, abundant landscapes for thousands of years without depleting them. We've managed to degrade our soils and contaminate our waterways in just a few generations.

The Wisdom We Systematically Suppressed

The more I studied herbalism, the more I understood that this knowledge wasn't just lost—it was systematically suppressed.

The burning of the "witches" in Europe was partly a money and knowledge grab from women who lived independently, who understood plant medicine, who served as healers and midwives in their communities. When male physicians wanted to professionalize medicine and charge for their services, these women were competition. So they were branded as dangerous, their knowledge demonized.

Indigenous peoples were forced into schools that forbade their languages and healing practices. Children were beaten for speaking their native tongues, for practicing traditional ceremonies, for maintaining connection to plant knowledge. Ancient wisdom was rebranded as "primitive" to justify its replacement with systems that could be controlled and monetized.

Hemp—used to write the Declaration of Independence, grown by George Washington, one of the most useful plants in human history—was put on the chopping block because the politically powerful Hearst family wanted paper (made from trees they owned) to be profitable. So hemp was associated with marijuana and banned. An essential plant disappeared from daily life not because it didn't work, but because it couldn't be monopolized.

But there was always a group of people who never gave in, who preserved this knowledge underground, waiting for a time when the world would be ready to remember.

Rosemary Gladstar kept herbalism alive and made it accessible again with her work on the Science and Art of Herbalism.

In the 1970s, researchers brought psychedelic plant medicine back into the realm of science instead of just fear and prohibition. The knowledge keepers waited, and now we're remembering.

My Journey Into Plant Wisdom

I got into the herb game from the nutrition standpoint. I was obsessing over food podcasts and kept hearing guest speakers talk about the power of plants. Eventually I started watching some of them in their own shows—The Sacred Science was one of my favorites.

I started studying herbs like the medicine they are. I took local herb classes and earned my community herbalist certification from a school in Sebastopol. What struck me most wasn't just the freedom these people had—it was the scientific sophistication I discovered in what we'd dismissed as "peasant knowledge."

I learned that women in America used to use moss as diapers and period pads—a plant 10 times more absorbent than paper, naturally antimicrobial, free and renewable. I learned about the wisdom in natural cycles, the way traditional cultures understood seasonal eating, lunar cycles, the energetic properties of plants.

I learned about controlled burning—dismissed as primitive, then recognized decades later as essential for forest health. I learned about companion planting, about reading the land, about sustainable harvest practices that we're now scrambling to rediscover.

This wasn't just lost knowledge—it was knowledge we arrogantly discarded, then spent billions trying to recreate in laboratories.

The point is: we must follow our passions, and this was a step in a direction that led to lifelong interests I never could have imagined—and a deep respect for wisdom that had been hidden in plain sight.

If this section speaks to you, you must read Braiding Sweetgrass. For those who get it, you'll understand why someone would spend hours, years, a whole lifetime understanding the details of plants—because there's something beautiful to look at, something alive to know, something that invites relationship rather than extraction.

Teaching Our Children (Plant Names, Not Pokemon)

I want my children to learn more plant names than Pokemon. I want them to spend time with elders on plant walks, learning bird calls, understanding the forest as a living community rather than a resource to exploit.

Because that's the kind of knowledge that's really, really hard to learn from books alone. We have to make it personal. We have to touch the lamb's ear's fuzzy leaves, crush the mint between our fingers and smell it, taste the sour bite of sorrel, watch how jewelweed explodes its seeds.

There are amazing books on hands-on forest activities—ways to engage all your senses, games to play that make you notice what's around you. I would suggest anyone remotely interested to look up local plant identification hikes in your area. Many nature centers, botanical gardens, and herbalism schools offer them. When we attend these, I am often the youngest by 40 years. What will happen when these people can no longer walk, who is listening to their stories before they are forgotten? How are we supposed to learn the whistle of a bird from a book? Often it is the smell that triggers a memory before our concious brain can. People we see as primitive in other cultures, laugh at us when we know nothing about the forest. “You avoid all mushrooms?” They ask! Why, when only a few varietals in thouasands are poisonous? Our answer is to avoid them all, theirs is to learn them intimately so nobody makes a mistake, and everyone gets their benefit.

When we go for hikes, we can engage our animalistic bodies—those parts of ourselves that were animal way longer than human. Instead of getting locked in our typical heads, we can focus on one thing: gathering fallen leaves of various colors or patterns, taking photos of textures, listening for bird calls, looking for animal tracks.

I love to take a camera with me because it allows me to get lost in the task at hand—fully present, fully engaged, the way a predator watches or a child explores.

The Disappearing Words (And Why Books Matter)

Even our dictionaries are primed to forget plant names. Each year, the official dictionaries push out botanical words—acorn, bluebell, catkin, conker, fern, hazel, heather, kingfisher, newt, otter, pasture, willow—bringing in technology terms (often acronyms) instead.

Words like "chatroom," "broadband," "cut-and-paste," "voicemail" replace the language of the living world. We're literally losing the vocabulary to name what grows around us.

I want to remember. I want my children to have words for the world that exists outside screens.

Read old books—the ones our parents and grandparents grew up on that are still on the top 100 lists of all time. The Secret Garden. My Side of the Mountain. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Charlotte's Web. The Wind in the Willows. They fill pages with imagery of natural settings—not as backdrop, but as character, as teacher, as home.

We don't have the patience anymore. We're not encouraged, as writers, to spend any more time than a soundbite on any one topic. Modern writing advice says "cut, tighten, move faster." But that urgency comes at a cost.

Part of the beauty of books over television—even a Kindle over an iPad—is there are no distractions. No alerts. No hyperlinks pulling you elsewhere. No autoplay counting down to the next episode.

We get to sit in a slow meditation on a topic for 20 hours rather than one. We imagine all the details ourselves—what the forest smells like, how the light falls through leaves, the exact texture of moss under our fingers.

When we are told-a-vision (television), we don't get this. Someone else imagines it for us. The directors choose what we see, how long we see it, what details matter. We become passive receivers rather than active co-creators of the world.

We understand we like books more than film adaptations, but we don't always understand why. At least series allow us to get more into the weeds of a story, to spend time with characters and settings. But those older books on nature—Wind in the Willows, Watership Down, Julie of the Wolves—do something for our kids that brightly colored flashing screens diminish.

They teach sustained attention. The ability to stay with one thought, one scene, one moment long enough to really see it. To notice the small things—the way light changes through a day, the sounds of a forest at different times, the patterns of animal behavior.

This is the same skill we need to learn plants. To forage safely. To understand ecosystems. To see the world as relationship rather than resource.

Books preserve the slow world. They hold space for observation, for detail, for the kind of noticing that makes you actually see a dandelion instead of just registering "yellow weed to mow."

So yes—read the old books. Read them to your children. Read them slowly, without rushing to the next chapter. Let the language of forests and fields and wild things settle into your vocabulary, into your imagination, into the way you see the world when you finally look up from the page.

Because the words we have shape what we notice. And what we notice, we can learn to love. And what we love, we protect.

Forest Bathing (The Science of Wild Air)

There's a beautiful series of books on forest bathing (shinrin-yoku in Japanese)—the practice of simply being present in the forest, breathing the air, engaging your senses.

The science behind this is remarkable:

People heal better in hospitals if they just have a view of nature from their window. Surgical patients with tree views require less pain medication, have fewer complications, and are discharged sooner than patients facing brick walls.

The terpenes (volatile oils in plants and trees) accumulate at their most concentrated doses right around 4-5 feet from the ground—the exact height of our noses. It's as if the forest evolved to be breathed by walking mammals.

The benefit of one walk in the forest stays with us for a full month—measurable in our blood. White blood cells, especially the natural killer cells that fight cancer, are measured to be more active and more numerous after a forest walk. And those benefits stick around for 30 days.

One author suggests this invites us to see our modern lives as a deprivation of nature. If one dose has such powerful effects that last so long, how depleted are we living in our concrete boxes, breathing recirculated air, seeing the world through screens?

The Victorians started to notice the benefits of nature and created tightly groomed public gardens. But there's also beauty in the wild—in the way things grow naturally, with checks and balances in a sustainable environment, without our constant intervention.

The Art of Simple Food (Lessons from Chef's Table)

There's a wonderful series on Netflix called Chef's Table—profiles of various people from different parts of the world who've mastered the art of food.

My favorites include:

A Thai woman who makes foods from real ingredients rather than the canned products that dominate the industry. She brings back traditional techniques, honors the plants, creates extraordinary flavor from simple, honest ingredients. She even uses real can sugar, something much better than high fructose corn syrup that dominates the market. I even took a thai cooking class once, and everything was opened from a box or can. It was a sad excuse for learning how to cook. It was the thai version of Betty Crocker and home ec, invented to get us used to the processed foods of the 1900’s.

A Buddhist monk who creates the most wonderful dishes from simple tools and techniques. Avoiding meat and anything with too strong a flavor (like garlic and onion), she practices temple food—food as meditation. Her father never understood her choice until he joined her for a meal one day and nodded approvingly, finally tasting what she'd been trying to share.

There is such an art and meditation to cooking. This is what we strive for—so the act itself becomes the medicine. We learn to love and rely on the things we have to do daily. There's something to the repetition, something we can learn to love or hate.

Until we all have personal chefs, we should try our best to love it.

Another episode followed a butcher and his family. Daily, the son would ask for the best cuts of meat that fetched the best prices, but the dad said no—we need the money. They lived on the scraps, the offal, the fatty parts overlooked by paying customers.

Then finally, on the son's 16th birthday, the father made him a prime cut of steak. But the son just shrugged—he loved the stuff his family made regularly better.

There is wisdom in this! There is so much to be gained from the fatty, meaty, bony, "ugly" parts—more nutrition, more flavor, more soul—than those trimmed into what we've been trained to see as perfect.

I love how the best for us is often the simplest. The most expensive restaurants today are those that forage foods fresh, straight from the garden, or sea. Farm to table. Ingredients so good they barely need transformation.

We just have to learn to do it without the pesticides.

Why Wild Plants Are Nutritional Powerhouses

Wild plants face challenges that domesticated ones never encounter. They must compete for resources, defend against pests and diseases, survive weather extremes—all without human intervention.

These stresses create nutrient density that pampered crops can't match:

Wild dandelion produces higher concentrations of bitter compounds (sesquiterpene lactones) that support liver function, because it has to survive in challenging conditions without anyone watering or fertilizing it.

Wild garlic contains more allicin and sulfur compounds than cultivated garlic because it must defend against soil pathogens and competing plants.

Plantain develops stronger anti-inflammatory compounds because it grows where it's constantly stepped on and must heal itself.

Lamb's quarters (a common "weed") produces more protein, calcium, and vitamin A than spinach because it has to compete aggressively for resources.

These aren't defects—they're features. The very compounds that make wild plants taste stronger and more bitter are often the ones providing the most therapeutic benefit.

Plants grow stronger in the wind. Their struggles create our medicine.

The Color Code (Why Variety Matters More Than Volume)

People often ask about the latest superfood—kale, broccoli, turmeric. But here's the thing: you can get massive amounts of diverse phytonutrients every single day, three times a day, if you just think about the variety of plants you're eating.

Kale, broccoli, and spinach are all green, but they have completely different phytonutrient profiles:

Kale provides glucosinolates that support detoxification
Broccoli offers sulforaphane for cellular protection
Spinach delivers lutein and zeaxanthin for eye health

The diversity is crucial. You can't just eat one "superfood" and expect to get all the benefits. Your body needs the full spectrum of plant compounds, which means eating the rainbow—and beyond the rainbow, into the wild greens that don't fit neat color categories.

Different colors signal different medicine:

Reds (lycopene, betalains) → cardiovascular protection, cellular repair
Oranges (carotenoids) → vision, skin, immune function
Yellows (lutein, zeaxanthin) → eye health, sun protection
Greens (chlorophyll, glucosinolates) → detoxification, DNA repair
Blues/Purples (anthocyanins) → brain health, vascular protection
Whites (allicin, quercetin) → immune support, anti-inflammatory

Recipe 6: Foraged Green Minestrone

This soup is an invitation to expand your definition of food, to see abundance where you once saw weeds, to reconnect with wild wisdom that grows all around us.

Safety note: If you're new to foraging, start with easily identifiable plants from reputable sources, farmers markets, or your own garden. Never eat anything you can't identify with 100% certainty. When in doubt, skip it.

The Foundation:

• 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

• 1 large onion, diced

• 3 cloves garlic, minced (chop and rest 10 minutes)

• 2 carrots, diced

• 2 celery stalks, diced

• 6 cups vegetable or bone broth

• 1 can diced tomatoes (no sugar added)

• 1 cup cooked white beans

• ½ cup small pasta (optional)

The Wild Greens (use any combination available—about 4 cups total chopped):

• Dandelion greens

• Lamb's quarters (wild spinach)

• Plantain leaves

• Violet leaves

• Wild garlic or garlic scapes

• Fresh herbs (wild or cultivated): thyme, oregano, sage, parsley

Not a forager? Substitute: arugula, mustard greens, beet greens, turnip greens, chard, or any bitter greens from your farmers market.

The Finishing Touches:

• Sea salt and black pepper to taste

• ¼ cup grated Parmesan cheese

• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

• Extra-virgin olive oil for drizzling

The Transformation:

1) Building the base
Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add onion and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic (that's been resting for 10 minutes), carrots, and celery. Cook until they begin to soften and release aromatic compounds—about 5 more minutes.

This foundation of familiar aromatics creates a comforting backdrop for the more intense wild flavors to come.

2) Creating the broth
Add the broth, tomatoes, and white beans. Bring to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes, allowing flavors to meld and vegetables to become tender.

If using pasta, add it now and cook according to package directions until al dente.

3) Introducing the wild
Start with the heartier wild greens—dandelion and lamb's quarters—adding them to the simmering soup and cooking for 5 minutes until wilted and tender.

The bitterness might surprise you at first, but embrace it as your body's cue that it's receiving powerful medicine. Bitter stimulates digestion, moves bile, supports liver detoxification.

4) The delicate finish
Add the more delicate wild greens—plantain, violet leaves, wild garlic—in the last 2-3 minutes of cooking. These tender leaves need only brief heat to become edible while retaining their nutritional potency.

Season with salt and pepper. Wild greens often have more complex, intense flavors than domesticated cousins, so you may need less seasoning than usual.

5) The final grace
Remove from heat and stir in fresh lemon juice and grated Parmesan. The acid brightens earthy, sometimes bitter flavors. The cheese adds richness and helps make nutrients more bioavailable.

Serve immediately, drizzled with good olive oil and perhaps a sprinkle of fresh herbs.

The Taste of Freedom

Your first spoonful might challenge your palate. Wild greens taste... wild. More intense. More complex. Sometimes more bitter than the mild, sweet vegetables we've grown accustomed to.

This intensity isn't a flaw—it's a feature. Learning to appreciate these flavors is like developing a taste for fine wine or dark chocolate. It requires shifting from seeking immediate gratification to appreciating complexity and depth.

New to wild/bitter flavors? Bitter is a feature, not a bug. Lemon and Parmesan balance it beautifully. Start with smaller amounts of wild greens mixed with familiar ones, then gradually increase as your palate adjusts.

The Urban Forager (You Don't Need Wilderness)

You don't need to live in a forest to connect with wild foods:

Your own yard probably contains dandelion, plantain, clover, and violets
Vacant lots often harbor lamb's quarters, purslane, chickweed
Farmers markets increasingly feature vendors selling foraged foods
Community gardens often welcome "volunteer" plants that grow without cultivation
Specialty stores carry cultivated versions of wild plants

Start small. Learn to identify one wild edible plant in your area. Taste it. Understand its flavor and benefits. Then gradually expand your vocabulary.

Even a pot of herbs on a windowsill creates a powerful shift in your relationship with food. Suddenly you're connected to seasons, to soil, to the simple miracle of a seed becoming nourishment.

The Honorable Harvest (Seven Generations Forward)

Native American wisdom teaches us to think seven generations ahead. Will this choice leave abundance for my great-great-great-great-grandchildren?

The principles of honorable harvest:

Never take the first plant you see, or the last. Leave enough for the species to thrive, for animals who depend on it, for other humans who might come after you.

Take only what you need. Use all of what you take. Give thanks for the sacrifice.

Know the plants. Learn their names, their growing patterns, their relationships with other species. Relationship, not extraction.

Tend as you harvest. Remove competing weeds. Spread seeds. Leave the area healthier than you found it.

This isn't sentimentality—it's how you maintain abundance forever instead of depleting resources in a single generation.

We don't own this world. We're holding it in trust for our children. Let's not eff it up for them. Let's set them up for prosperity.

The Victory Garden Reminder (We've Done This Before)

During World War II, ordinary Americans grew an astonishing share of their own produce. By 1943, there were roughly 20 million Victory Gardens producing more than 40% of all fresh vegetables consumed in the United States.

Forty percent! Nearly half of all fresh produce came from backyard gardens, community plots, window boxes in apartment buildings.

If Americans could feed themselves this effectively in the 1940s with far less technology and resources than we have today, we can absolutely do this now.

We can create food security. Community resilience. Biological foundations for health that will serve generations. We can remember what it means to live in partnership with the earth rather than dominance over it.

Starting Your Wild Practice

Observe: Notice the plants growing around you. How many can you identify? Which ones have you been calling "weeds"?

Research: Learn about edible and medicinal plants native to your region. Start with the most common and easily identified.

Taste: Try one new wild or bitter green from a farmers market each month. Notice how it tastes different from domesticated vegetables.

Grow: Plant some heritage varieties in pots—wild lettuce, medicinal herbs, edible flowers.

Connect: Find local foraging groups, herbalists, or plant knowledge keepers who can teach you about your local flora.

Read: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. The Herbal Medicine-Maker's Handbook by James Green. Anything by Rosemary Gladstar.

The Liberation Practice

As you expand your definition of food to include wild and bitter plants, something profound shifts. You begin to see abundance where you once saw emptiness. You recognize that the earth is constantly offering nourishment, that food doesn't require industrial agriculture or global shipping.

You're not giving up foods—you're adding foods. You're not restricting choices—you're expanding them beyond what any supermarket aisle could contain.

The goal isn't to feel deprived but to feel abundant—to discover that real variety comes not from 47 flavors of processed snacks, but from learning to work with the incredible diversity that grows from soil, that changes with seasons, that connects you to the earth and to your own vitality.

Every colorful bite is medicine. Every bitter green is a conversation with your liver. Every meal is a chance to remember that we're part of this living world, not separate from it.

Bottom line: The wild kitchen isn't about becoming a forager (though you can if you want). It's about remembering that plants are alive, that they have their own intelligence and medicine, that our relationship with them matters.

It's about teaching our children plant names. Taking walks that wake up our senses. Cooking with reverence instead of rushing. Seeing the grocery store's produce section with new eyes.

It's about expansion, not restriction. Abundance, not deprivation. Partnership, not extraction.

The earth is offering. Are you paying attention to the gift being handed to you?

Chapter 6: Eating the Rainbow, The Wild Kitchen

Recipe 6: Foraged Green Minestrone

We don't have to eat like we're in captivity. Somewhere between the grocery store aisles of identical, engineered produce and our ancestors' intimate knowledge of wild foods, we lost our connection to the plants that grow freely around us—the dandelions that support liver detoxification, the plantain that heals wounds, the clover blossoms that balance hormones. These "weeds" often contain higher concentrations of vitamins and minerals than their domesticated cousins, having evolved complex root systems and survival mechanisms that create deep nutrition. Learning to see food in the wild—even if it's just the herbs on your windowsill or the farmers market stalls overflowing with unfamiliar greens—awakens something primal and joyful in your relationship with nourishment. It reminds you that real food grows from soil, not factories.

One day, I would love to live like Juliet of the herbs, in a small home, surrounded by the plants I love, picking an herb here, an edible flower there, adding food and medicine to trained hands into perfected dishes. Maybe I am not so far from making that dream a reality.

Chapter 5: The Wild Kitchen

Recipe 5: Foraged Green Minestrone

We Don't Have to Eat Like We're in Captivity

Here's something that blew my mind when I started paying attention: we don't have to eat like we're in captivity.

Walk through any modern grocery store and you'll see the evidence of our domestication. Row upon row of identical vegetables, bred for size and shelf life rather than nutrition, grown in depleted soil and shipped thousands of miles from their origin. The tomatoes are perfectly round and uniformly red, but they taste like water. The spinach leaves are pristine and uniform, but they contain a fraction of the nutrients their wild ancestors possessed.

Somewhere between these sterile aisles of engineered produce and our ancestors' intimate knowledge of wild foods, we lost our connection to the plants that grow freely around us. The dandelions that support liver detoxification. The plantain that heals wounds. The clover blossoms that balance hormones. The wild garlic that fights infection.

These "weeds" that we spray and mow and curse often contain higher concentrations of vitamins and minerals than their domesticated cousins. A wild dandelion green can contain 40 times more nutrients than iceberg lettuce, yet we treat one as a pest and the other as food.

But here's what excites me most: this isn't about restriction. This is about expansion. This is about discovering that what you thought was "all the food available" was actually just a tiny, processed fraction of the incredible diversity the natural world offers.

The Science of Plant Stress: Why "Weeds" Are Superfoods

Here's where the science gets fascinating and validates what our ancestors knew intuitively: plants that face stress produce more phytochemicals—the compounds that make them medicine for us.

The Phytochemical Defense System

Phytochemicals are compounds that plants develop to protect themselves. When a plant has to withstand insect attacks, weather extremes, or competition for resources, it upregulates its internal defense mechanisms. These protective compounds—polyphenols, flavonoids, carotenoids, sulfur compounds—become concentrated in the plant tissue.

When we consume these stressed plants, something remarkable happens: these compounds have a mild level of "toxicity" to us, but not enough to cause harm. Instead, they trigger our own protective mechanisms without damaging us. It's called hormesis—beneficial stress that makes us stronger.

Think about it: why does lifting weights make muscles stronger? Because you're stressing the muscle, actually tearing down some fibers. In response to that stress, your body repairs and builds back a little bit more. Do this consistently, and your body thinks, "Well, if we're going to do this every day, I better compensate." It upregulates blood vessels for more oxygen, tells DNA to produce more mitochondria for energy production, builds stronger muscle fibers.

The same principle applies to phytochemicals. When you eat that bitter dandelion or peppery wild garlic, those compounds are essentially giving your cells a beneficial workout, triggering antioxidant production, supporting detoxification pathways, and strengthening your body's natural defense systems.

The Organic Advantage: It's Not Just About Vitamins

Here's what surprised me when I dove into the research: organically grown plants haven't shown dramatically higher vitamin levels compared to conventionally grown ones. But they do have significantly higher levels of phytochemicals.

Why? Because organic plants have to withstand some environmental pressures that conventionally grown plants are shielded from. They have to produce their own pest-defense compounds instead of relying on chemical pesticides. They have to compete for nutrients instead of being force-fed synthetic fertilizers. This beneficial stress creates phenolic compounds in higher concentrations.

If a plant is grown in a stress-free environment with pesticides and chemicals doing all the protective work, it's not going to produce the amount of these important phytochemicals. It's like having a bodyguard do all your fighting for you—you never develop your own strength.

The Wild Advantage: Maximum Beneficial Stress

This is why wild plants are nutritional powerhouses compared to their domesticated cousins:

• Wild dandelion produces higher concentrations of sesquiterpene lactones (the bitter compounds that support liver function) because it has to survive in challenging conditions

• Wild garlic contains more allicin and sulfur compounds because it must defend against soil pathogens and competing plants

• Plantain develops stronger anti-inflammatory compounds because it grows in areas where it's constantly being stepped on and must heal itself

• Lamb's quarters produces more oxalic acid and saponins because it has to compete aggressively for resources

These aren't defects—they're features. The very compounds that make wild plants taste stronger and more bitter are often the ones providing the most therapeutic benefit.

The Color Code: Different Plants, Different Medicine

People often ask me about the latest superfood trends—kale, broccoli, turmeric. But here's the thing: you can get massive amounts of diverse phytonutrients every single day, three times a day, if you just think about the variety of plants you're putting in your mouth.

Kale, broccoli, and spinach are all green, but they have completely different phytonutrient profiles:

• Kale provides glucosinolates that support detoxification

• Broccoli offers sulforaphane for cellular protection

• Spinach delivers lutein and zeaxanthin for eye health

The diversity is really important. You can't just eat one "superfood" and expect to get all the benefits. Your body needs the full spectrum of plant compounds, which means eating the rainbow—and beyond the rainbow, into the wild greens that don't fit neat color categories.

My Biggest Point: Start With Greens

Let me be straight with you: my biggest point to drive home is to get you to eat more veggies first and foremost. Even if there is ONE thing you pick up out of any of my words, if it's to get a handful of greens onto your plate EVERY day, that is a wild success.

Major success #2 is eating a bright color veggie on top of the greens every day.

And honestly? If you do all three of these things together, you're going to see results so fast it'll make your head spin:

1. Daily greens (non-negotiable)

2. Rainbow vegetables for different phytochemicals

3. Oil revolution - throw out the canola oil and replace with avocado oil, olive oil, coconut oil, or grass-fed butter

I don't have the patience to wait six months to see if something works. I need to feel results quickly, or I lose motivation. So here's my philosophy: hit it hard, break off the band-aid, and clear out everything at once. You can swap one thing out at a time, but you'll be pulled by the triggers of everyday life.

The Hungry Caterpillar Wisdom

I like to tell my son the story of the hungry caterpillar. After the little guy eats up all the bad foods, he needs a leaf to feel better. Just a green smoothie every day is a great way to hide some greens behind some chocolate protein powder and good fruits and nut milks.

Your body becomes your teacher when you start paying attention. When I eat sugar now, I immediately get a headache. I think this is a blessing. I cannot over-consume something, even if I want a bite of it. You can have bites, mess-ups, but see what it feels like, so you have the motivation to keep this up for good.

Recipe 5: Foraged Green Minestrone

This soup is an invitation to expand your definition of food, to see abundance where you once saw weeds, to reconnect with the wild wisdom that grows all around us.

Note: If you're new to foraging, start with easily identifiable plants from reputable sources, farmers markets, or your own garden. Never eat anything you can't identify with 100% certainty.

The Foundation

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

• 1 large onion, diced

• 3 cloves garlic, minced (chop it first and let it sit 10 minutes to activate!)

• 2 carrots, diced

• 2 celery stalks, diced

• 6 cups vegetable or bone broth

• 1 can diced tomatoes (no sugar added)

• 1 cup cooked white beans

• 1/2 cup small pasta (optional)

The Wild Greens (use any combination available)

• 2 cups dandelion greens, chopped

• 1 cup wild spinach or lamb's quarters

• 1/2 cup plantain leaves, chopped

• 1/4 cup violet leaves

• 2 tablespoons wild garlic or garlic scapes

• 1/4 cup fresh herbs (wild or cultivated): thyme, oregano, sage

The Finishing Touches

• Sea salt and black pepper to taste

• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

• Extra virgin olive oil for drizzling

The Transformation

Building the Base: Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, carrots, and celery, cooking until they begin to soften and release their aromatic compounds.

Creating the Broth: Add the vegetable or bone broth, diced tomatoes, and white beans. Bring to a simmer and let cook for 15 minutes, allowing the flavors to meld. If using pasta, add it now and cook according to package directions.

Introducing the Wild: Start with the heartier wild greens—dandelion and lamb's quarters—adding them to the simmering soup and cooking for 5 minutes until wilted. The bitterness of dandelion might surprise you at first, but embrace it as your body's cue that it's receiving powerful medicine.

The Delicate Finish: Add the more delicate wild greens—plantain, violet leaves, wild garlic—in the last 2-3 minutes of cooking. Don't burn it! Season with salt and pepper.

The Final Grace: Remove from heat and stir in fresh lemon juice and grated Parmesan. The acid brightens the earthy flavors of wild greens, while the cheese adds richness. Serve immediately, drizzled with good olive oil.

The Zoo Effect: What Captivity Does to All Living Things

Here's a study that stopped me in my tracks: researchers compared the microbiomes of animals in the wild versus those in zoos. The results were shocking. Zoo animals had abominable, terrible microbiomes and lived much shorter lives than their wild counterparts. Much of it had to do with the microbiomes being completely destroyed by their captive environment.

But here's the kicker—one study on poisonous tree frogs found that in the zoo, they lose their potency. They literally become less poisonous. The researchers realized it was because the frogs were no longer eating the specific fungus they consumed in the wild. There's so much we cannot recreate because we're just noticing these connections way down the line.

We are essentially putting ourselves in the zoo, paying to do so, and living less long and less vitally. We strip down grains and fortify them, assuming we can inject dead nutrients back in. We take a healthy thing like broccoli, isolate and process it down to a powder, and expect to get the same benefit. We eat like crap and hope a vitamin makes up the difference.

Studies on animals in captivity show major health issues when taken from the wild and given stripped-down diets. The same is happening to us humans—we are putting ourselves into captivity and isolating our microbiome to whatever it can pull from our McDonald's nuggets and rum-and-coke habits.

Looking deeper at our microbiomes as living creatures, our gut bugs flourish in the wild and suffer in isolation. It may not happen overnight, but it definitely begins to show over years, and especially over generations. We can start to see what our captivity is doing to us, and how easy it would be to fix. All it takes is choosing a different grocery store, picking up different items on the shelves to go from a suffering gut to a flourishing one.

Instead of thinking about what your confused taste buds want for lunch, think about what your gut is asking for.

The Liberation Practice

As you expand your definition of food to include the wild plants around you, something profound shifts. You begin to see abundance where you once saw emptiness. You recognize that the earth is constantly offering nourishment, that food doesn't require industrial agriculture or global shipping networks.

Your kitchen transforms from a place of restriction to a laboratory of possibility. When you focus on what you can add rather than what you're removing, every meal becomes an experiment in flavor, nutrition, and satisfaction.

This minestrone soup becomes more than a meal—it becomes a practice of expansion, of saying "yes" to flavors and nutrients you didn't know were available to you. Every spoonful introduces your palate to new possibilities, connects you to plants that have been nourishing humans for millennia but somehow fell out of your personal food vocabulary.

You're not giving up foods—you're adding foods. You're not restricting choices—you're expanding them beyond what any supermarket aisle could contain. You're not limiting your diet—you're unlimiting it to include the vast pharmacy and pantry of the natural world.

The goal isn't to feel deprived but to feel abundant, to discover that real variety comes not from 47 different flavors of processed snacks, but from learning to work with the incredible diversity of actual foods that grow from soil and trees and vines.

The Urban Forager

You don't need to live in the wilderness to connect with wild foods. Even city dwellers can begin to see food growing freely around them. Start small. Learn to identify one wild edible plant in your area. Taste it. Understand its flavor profile and nutritional benefits. Then gradually expand your wild plant vocabulary.

Farmers markets increasingly feature vendors selling foraged foods and wild greens. Specialty stores often carry cultivated versions of wild plants. Your own yard probably contains more edible plants than you realize—dandelion, plantain, clover, and violets are common in most temperate regions.

We Can Remember

Here's what gives me hope: this knowledge isn't lost—it's just been waiting for us to remember. Every indigenous elder who remembers, every herbalist who preserved the plant wisdom, every gardener who saves seeds, every person who chooses to learn the names of the plants growing around them is keeping this knowledge alive.

We can create food security, community resilience, and biological foundations for health that will serve generations. We can remember what it means to live in partnership with the earth rather than dominance over it.

Learning to see food in the wild—even if it's just the herbs on your windowsill or the farmers market stalls overflowing with unfamiliar greens—awakens something primal and joyful in your relationship with nourishment. It reminds you that real food grows from soil, not factories, and that the earth is constantly offering abundance to those who know how to look.

This soup is your invitation to step outside the captivity of convenience and into the wild abundance that has been waiting for you all along. If you can pull something from your garden, anything, this adds a potent image in your minds of your freedom from control.

There's something profound that happens when you walk outside and pick your own food. Even if it's just a handful of herbs from a windowsill pot or a few leaves of kale from a backyard garden. That simple act—reaching down, selecting what looks good, harvesting what you need—breaks the spell of dependence on the industrial food system.

You're no longer a consumer waiting for someone else to decide what's available on the shelf. You're not limited to what survived shipping, what was picked before it was ripe, what was bred for appearance over nutrition. You become the one making the choices about what goes into your body.

Even something as small as growing your own mint or basil creates this powerful shift in your relationship with food. Suddenly you're connected to the seasons, to the soil, to the simple miracle of a seed becoming something that can nourish you. You start to understand that food is meant to be alive, not processed into submission.

——

### The Science of Plant Stress: Why "Weeds" Are Superfoods

Here's where the science gets fascinating and validates what our ancestors knew intuitively: plants that face stress produce more phytochemicals—the compounds that make them medicine for us.

**The Phytochemical Defense System**

Phytochemicals are compounds that plants develop to protect themselves. When a plant has to withstand insect attacks, weather extremes, or competition for resources, it upregulates its internal defense mechanisms. These protective compounds—polyphenols, flavonoids, carotenoids, sulfur compounds—become concentrated in the plant tissue.

When we consume these stressed plants, something remarkable happens: these compounds have a mild level of "toxicity" to us, but not enough to cause harm. Instead, they trigger our own protective mechanisms without damaging us. It's called hormesis—beneficial stress that makes us stronger.

Think about exercise. Why does lifting weights make muscles stronger? Because you're stressing the muscle, actually tearing down some fibers. In response to that stress, your body repairs and builds back a little bit more. Do this consistently, and your body thinks, "Well, if we're going to do this every day, I better compensate." It upregulates blood vessels for more oxygen, tells DNA to produce more mitochondria for energy production, builds stronger muscle fibers.

The same principle applies to phytochemicals. When you eat that bitter dandelion or peppery wild garlic, those compounds are essentially giving your cells a beneficial workout, triggering antioxidant production, supporting detoxification pathways, and strengthening your body's natural defense systems.

**The Organic Advantage: It's Not Just About Vitamins**

Here's what surprised me when I dove into the research: organically grown plants haven't shown dramatically higher vitamin levels compared to conventionally grown ones. But they do have significantly higher levels of phytochemicals.

Why? Because organic plants have to withstand some environmental pressures that conventionally grown plants are shielded from. They have to produce their own pest-defense compounds instead of relying on chemical pesticides. They have to compete for nutrients instead of being force-fed synthetic fertilizers. This beneficial stress creates phenolic compounds in higher concentrations.

If a plant is grown in a stress-free environment with pesticides and chemicals doing all the protective work, it's not going to produce the amount of these important phytochemicals. It's like having a bodyguard do all your fighting for you—you never develop your own strength.

**The Wild Advantage: Maximum Beneficial Stress**

This is why wild plants are nutritional powerhouses compared to their domesticated cousins:

**Wild dandelion** produces higher concentrations of sesquiterpene lactones (the bitter compounds that support liver function) because it has to survive in challenging conditions

**Wild garlic** contains more allicin and sulfur compounds because it must defend against soil pathogens and competing plants

**Plantain** develops stronger anti-inflammatory compounds because it grows in areas where it's constantly being stepped on and must heal itself

**Lamb's quarters** produces more oxalic acid and saponins because it has to compete aggressively for resources

These aren't defects—they're features. The very compounds that make wild plants taste stronger and more bitter are often the ones providing the most therapeutic benefit.

**The Color Code: Different Plants, Different Medicine**

People often ask me about the latest superfood trends—kale, broccoli, turmeric. But here's the thing: you can get massive amounts of diverse phytonutrients every single day, three times a day, if you just think about the variety of plants you're putting in your mouth.

Kale, broccoli, and spinach are all green, but they have completely different phytonutrient profiles:

**Kale** provides glucosinolates that support detoxification

**Broccoli** offers sulforaphane for cellular protection

**Spinach** delivers lutein and zeaxanthin for eye health

The diversity is really important. You can't just eat one "superfood" and expect to get all the benefits. Your body needs the full spectrum of plant compounds, which means eating the rainbow—and beyond the rainbow, into the wild greens that don't fit neat color categories.

**The Inflammation Connection**

The inflammatory response is essential as a species—we never would have survived without it. So inflammation isn't universally bad. But most of us are confronted with chronic low-level inflammation all the time, sometimes even below the threshold for us to detect or feel it.

This is where phytochemicals become crucial. They help modulate inflammation, keeping the beneficial acute responses while dampening the harmful chronic inflammation that leads to aging and disease.

When you eat a variety of wild and stressed plants, you're essentially giving your body a toolkit for managing inflammation. Different compounds work through different pathways:

**Polyphenols** from berries and dark greens neutralize free radicals

**Sulfur compounds** from wild garlic and onion family plants support detoxification

**Bitter compounds** from dandelion and other wild greens stimulate digestive function

**Carotenoids** from orange and red plants protect against cellular damage

**The Anti-Aging Medicine Chest**

What is aging, really? Would you rather live to 70 with every single day of awesome health, or live to 90 with 20 years of chronic diseases?

Understanding aging means looking at how to move into the later stages of life with optimal quality—feeling good and minimally impeded by the natural aging that occurs. Phytochemicals are one of our most powerful tools for this.

The compounds in wild plants directly address the mechanisms of aging:

**Cellular damage** from free radicals—countered by antioxidant compounds

**Inflammation** that accelerates aging—modulated by anti-inflammatory phytochemicals

**Detoxification** system overload—supported by bitter compounds and sulfur-containing plants

**Cardiovascular** decline—protected by flavonoids and polyphenols

**Cognitive** decline—slowed by compounds that cross the blood-brain barrier

**The Stress Paradox: Why Easy Isn't Always Better**

This understanding completely flips our modern approach to comfort and convenience. We've created a world where we try to eliminate all stress—from our plants, from our lives, from our bodies. But some stress is not just beneficial—it's necessary for optimal function.

Plants that have never been stressed produce weak medicine. Bodies that have never been challenged become fragile. Minds that have never grappled with difficulty become brittle.

The key is the right kind and amount of stress. Too little, and there's no growth. Too much, and there's damage. But that sweet spot of beneficial stress—hormesis—is where magic happens.

This is why:

- Wild plants are more nutritious than pampered greenhouse vegetables

- Exercise makes us stronger rather than weaker

- Intermittent fasting can improve metabolic health

- Cold exposure can boost immune function

- Mental challenges can prevent cognitive decline

**Accessing Wild Phytochemicals Today**

You don't need to forage in remote forests to access these powerful compounds. You can start incorporating beneficial plant stress into your diet right now:

Chapter 5: The Wild Kitchen

Recipe 5: Foraged Green Minestrone

"We don't have to eat like we're in captivity."

Beyond the Prison of Convenience

We don't have to eat like we're in captivity.

Walk through any modern grocery store and you'll see the evidence of our domestication: row upon row of identical vegetables, bred for size and shelf life rather than nutrition, grown in depleted soil and shipped thousands of miles from their origin. The tomatoes are perfectly round and uniformly red, but they taste like water. The spinach leaves are pristine and uniform, but they contain a fraction of the nutrients their wild ancestors possessed.

Somewhere between these sterile aisles of engineered produce and our ancestors' intimate knowledge of wild foods, we lost our connection to the plants that grow freely around us—the dandelions that support liver detoxification, the plantain that heals wounds, the clover blossoms that balance hormones, the wild garlic that fights infection.

These "weeds" that we spray and mow and curse often contain higher concentrations of vitamins and minerals than their domesticated cousins, having evolved complex root systems and survival mechanisms that create deep nutrition. A wild dandelion green can contain 40 times more nutrients than iceberg lettuce, yet we treat one as a pest and the other as food.

But here's what excites me most: this isn't about restriction. This is about expansion. This is about discovering that what you thought was "all the food available" was actually just a tiny, processed fraction of the incredible diversity the natural world offers.

The Forgotten Pharmacy

Your grandmother's grandmother didn't shop for groceries—she shopped in fields and forests, along riverbanks and in meadows. She knew which plants would soothe a cough, which leaves would heal a cut, which roots would support her through a long winter.

This wasn't primitive ignorance—it was sophisticated knowledge, passed down through generations of careful observation and experimentation. Traditional cultures identified thousands of edible and medicinal plants, understanding not just what was safe to eat but what would optimize health and vitality.

They knew that the bitter greens of early spring would help their bodies detoxify after a winter of stored foods. They understood that the rose hips of late fall would provide vitamin C to prevent scurvy through the cold months. They recognized that different plants had different energetic qualities—some cooling and calming, others warming and stimulating.

We've traded this vast pharmacopeia for a handful of domesticated crops, then wondered why we need so many supplements to maintain basic health.

My Journey Into Lost Wisdom

I got into the herb game from the nutrition standpoint. I was obsessing over podcasts about food and saw many guest speakers who spoke of the power of plants. Eventually I started watching some of them star in their own shows—The Sacred Science was one of my favorites. I started studying herbs like the medicine they are.

I took local herb classes and earned my community herbalist certification from a local herb school in Sebastopol. But what struck me most wasn't just the freedom these people had—it was the scientific wisdom I discovered in what we'd dismissed as "peasant knowledge" or "women's intuition."

I learned about people like Juliette of the Herbs, who was trained as a royal veterinarian but chose to learn from the peasants because she recognized they had the real medicine. We learn about the wisdom of natives and women who passed down knowledge seen as unimportant—like controlled burning that we now desperately need, sustainable living practices we're scrambling to rediscover.

I learned that women in America used to use moss as diapers and period pads—a plant 10 times more absorbent than paper. I learned that hemp, which was used to write the Declaration of Independence, was put on the chopping block because the politically rich Hearst family of publishers wanted paper to be profitable, so hemp was associated with marijuana and banned. Essential plants disappeared from daily life not because they didn't work, but because they couldn't be monopolized.

I learned that something as simple as braiding sweetgrass baskets required generational wisdom of training and working with trees to grow straight, long sticks for everything needed in daily life. Daily life that didn't always have to be so hard.

Benjamin Franklin wrote about Americans running off to live like natives, but never the other way around. There was this persistent misunderstanding that ancient meant primitive, followed by the systematic overtaking of knowledge once it was recognized as valuable—while discarding and dishonoring the source.

I learned how native Americans used control burning to clear out the shrubbery and prevent more catastrophic wildfires. We have much to learn about how we build our homes if they are just going to burn down if we stop paying attention to the laws of nature. Native people were not just living in the wild, they were controlling it. Some believe the rain forests were once collections of someones beloved plants that bloomed. We, as humans, do not have to only be destructive for the planet. When we care, we can help various species thrive- removing newer invasive species from locations that had a long time to develop checks and balances of a certain ecosystem. Counting endangered lizards as they cross a road in a thunderstorm to submit an official application to protect them. Learning about nature is not all about doom and gloom, but the most miraculous beauty as well.

Rachel Carson wrote about the Silent Spring, considering what it would be like one day to wake up with no bird song. She single handedly got JFK Jr. to put a research team together to investigate DDT, the pesticide that was making the bald eagle extinct. Already wealthy from being a retired biologist, she was able to afford the 4 years of dedicated research, and fight through the attempts to damn her career and make her out to be a quack- for the cost to their profits she had the potential - and reality - to decimate. And she won, against all odds. That which harms the reproductive system of birds, does the same to us. In a more modern take on the same idea, the more we investigate things like 5G, pesticides, we see they go after the reproductive system - the eggs and sperm, of our children. The 5G thing I mention quickly, for risk of getting too off topic, but look up the long list of reproductive harm from putting cell phones in our pockets next to our reproductive organs.

I learned about the wisdom in natural cycles, like the female connection to the moon and male connection to the sun, because of our differences in hormones and energy patterns. I learned that everything from the earth is medicine, a gift. That every bite is a sacrifice of life that deserves reverence.

The more I studied, the more I understood that this wasn't just lost knowledge—it was systematically suppressed knowledge. The burning of the "witches" was partly a money and knowledge grab from women who lived independently. Indigenous peoples were forced into schools that forbade their languages and healing practices. Ancient wisdom was rebranded as "primitive" to justify its replacement with systems that could be controlled and monetized.

But there was always a whole group of women and men who never gave in, who preserved this knowledge underground, waiting for a time when the world would be ready to remember.

The point is: we must follow our passions, and this was a solid step in a new direction that led to lifelong interests I never could have imagined—and a deep respect for the scientific sophistication of knowledge that had been hidden in plain sight.

The Nutrient Concentration of the Wild

Wild plants face challenges that domesticated ones never encounter. They must compete for resources, defend against pests and diseases, and survive weather extremes without human intervention. These stresses, which would kill pampered garden plants, actually make wild plants more nutritious.

Plants grow stronger in the wind—their natural compounds and defensive systems creating better medicine for us. When a plant has to send roots deep into the earth to find water and minerals, those roots bring up trace elements that surface-feeding crops never access. When a plant has to produce its own pest-defense compounds, it creates phytochemicals that also benefit human health. When a plant has to survive temperature fluctuations and seasonal changes, it develops adaptive compounds that support resilience.

The numbers are striking:

• Wild garlic contains higher concentrations of allicin and sulfur compounds than cultivated garlic

• Dandelion greens have more beta-carotene, iron, and calcium than most cultivated greens

• Wild berries typically contain higher antioxidant levels than their domesticated counterparts

• Lamb's quarters (a common "weed") contains more protein, calcium, and vitamin A than spinach

I dream of one day having a cute little cottage with wild herbs carefully tended around my house, knowing each plant intimately, picking herbs as needed for food and medicine. We can make our own medicine. We can remember what it means to live in partnership with the land rather than dominion over it.

The Liberation Practice

As you expand your definition of food to include the wild plants around you, something profound shifts. You begin to see abundance where you once saw emptiness. You recognize that the earth is constantly offering nourishment, that food doesn't require industrial agriculture or global shipping networks.

Your kitchen transforms from a place of restriction to a laboratory of possibility. When you focus on what you can add rather than what you're removing, every meal becomes an experiment in flavor, nutrition, and satisfaction.

You might discover that:

• Massaged kale tastes completely different from raw kale

• Roasted vegetables develop sweetness you never noticed

• Fresh herbs can make simple ingredients taste like gourmet meals

• There are dozens of varieties of each vegetable you thought you knew

• Many vegetables can be eaten raw when they're fresh and high-quality

• Simple cooking techniques can transform inexpensive ingredients into deeply satisfying meals

Recipe 5: Foraged Green Minestrone

This soup is an invitation to expand your definition of food, to see abundance where you once saw weeds, to reconnect with the wild wisdom that grows all around us.

Note: If you're new to foraging, start with easily identifiable plants from reputable sources, farmers markets, or your own garden. Never eat anything you can't identify with 100% certainty.

The Foundation:

• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

• 1 large onion, diced

• 3 cloves garlic, minced

• 2 carrots, diced

• 2 celery stalks, diced

• 6 cups vegetable or bone broth

• 1 can diced tomatoes (no sugar added)

• 1 cup cooked white beans

• 1/2 cup small pasta (optional)

The Wild Greens (use any combination available):

• 2 cups dandelion greens, chopped

• 1 cup wild spinach or lamb's quarters

• 1/2 cup plantain leaves, chopped

• 1/4 cup violet leaves

• 2 tablespoons wild garlic or garlic scapes

• 1/4 cup fresh herbs (wild or cultivated): thyme, oregano, sage

The Cheesy Croutons (Optional):

• Sea salt and black pepper to taste

• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

• Extra virgin olive oil for drizzling

The Transformation:

Building the Base

Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, carrots, and celery, cooking until they begin to soften and release their aromatic compounds.

This foundation of familiar aromatics creates the backdrop for the wild flavors to come—comforting tastes that will help your palate adjust to the more intense flavors of wild greens.

Creating the Broth

Add the vegetable or bone broth, diced tomatoes, and white beans. Bring to a simmer and let cook for 15 minutes, allowing the flavors to meld and the vegetables to become tender.

If using pasta, add it now and cook according to package directions until al dente.

Introducing the Wild

This is where the magic happens. Start with the heartier wild greens—dandelion and lamb's quarters—adding them to the simmering soup and cooking for 5 minutes until they're wilted and tender.

The bitterness of dandelion might surprise you at first, but it's this very bitterness that stimulates digestion and supports liver function. Don't fight it—embrace it as your body's cue that it's receiving powerful medicine.

The Delicate Finish

Add the more delicate wild greens—plantain, violet leaves, wild garlic—in the last 2-3 minutes of cooking. These tender leaves need only brief cooking to become edible while retaining their nutritional potency.

Season with salt and pepper, remembering that wild greens often have more complex, intense flavors than their domesticated cousins, so you may need less seasoning than usual.

The Final Grace

Remove from heat and stir in fresh lemon juice and grated Parmesan. The acid brightens the earthy, sometimes bitter flavors of wild greens, while the cheese adds richness and makes the nutrients more bioavailable.

Serve immediately, drizzled with good olive oil and perhaps a sprinkle of fresh herbs.

The Taste of Freedom

Your first spoonful of this soup might challenge your palate. Wild greens taste... wild. They're more intense, more complex, sometimes more bitter than the mild, sweet vegetables we've grown accustomed to.

This intensity isn't a flaw—it's a feature. The compounds that make wild plants taste strong are often the same ones that provide medicinal benefits. The bitterness in dandelion stimulates bile production and supports liver detoxification. The peppery bite of wild garlic provides antimicrobial compounds. The slight astringency of plantain offers anti-inflammatory benefits.

Learning to appreciate these flavors is like developing a taste for fine wine or dark chocolate—it requires shifting from seeking immediate gratification to appreciating complexity and depth.

The Urban Forager

You don't need to live in the wilderness to connect with wild foods. Even city dwellers can begin to see food growing freely around them:

Urban opportunities:

• Vacant lots often harbor edible "weeds" like lamb's quarters, purslane, and dandelion

• Parks and green spaces may contain edible plants (always check local regulations)

• Your own yard probably contains more edible plants than you realize—dandelion, plantain, clover, and violets are common in most temperate regions

• Community gardens often welcome plants that grow without cultivation

• Farmers markets increasingly feature vendors selling foraged foods and wild greens

• Specialty stores and co-ops often carry cultivated versions of wild plants

Start small. Learn to identify one wild edible plant in your area. Taste it. Understand its flavor profile and nutritional benefits. Then gradually expand your wild plant vocabulary.

The Sustainable Paradise We Lost

I learned that rainforests may have once been tended gardens, each plant chosen with purpose and love. Indigenous peoples didn't just live off the land—they lived with the land, understanding that true abundance comes from working in partnership with natural systems rather than fighting against them.

The natives of Hawaii had it figured out: they sliced their land into pie slices, each community with sustainable access from the fresh streams of the mountain tops down to the ocean floor. Each family had access to fresh water, fertile soil, fishing grounds, and wild foods. They were completely self-sufficient, thriving on 100-pound canoes, so happy on the waves that Captain Cook's sailors wrote in wonder about these people who seemed to live in paradise.

Then the colonizers came through and mono-cropped everything. They would not let the natives dance their sacred dances—restrictions that still exist on some islands like Maui where you cannot dance traditional dances in public. All because of the identity that comes from music and dance and celebrations and native foods. When you control people's connection to their land, their food, their cultural practices, you control their bodies and their spirits.

The same pattern played out with the Havasupai people in Arizona. For thousands of years, they migrated with the land, eating seasonally, following natural abundance through the canyon systems. They're still the only place in the US to get mail daily by mule through the canyon—that's how remote and self-sufficient they were.

For 100 years, they were confined to a square mile and made reliant on the American food system and food welfare. Now they have some of the worst rates of diabetes in the country. They now have their land back, but who listens to their grandparents' advice on how to forage through the wild if they were never taught?

This is a perfect example of how Americans thought their way was better—how everyone eating our diet would turn out, and are turning out. We took peoples who lived in perfect health and abundance and gave them diabetes, depression, and dependency. We called it civilization.

The Reverence Practice

When you incorporate wild plants into your cooking, your kitchen becomes a sacred space where food and medicine converge. Each plant brings not just therapeutic compounds, but a story of resilience, adaptation, and gifts freely given.

Dandelion supports liver function and provides potassium for healthy blood pressure—a whole pharmacy growing freely in suburban lawns

Plantain offers anti-inflammatory compounds and has been called "nature's bandaid"—healing medicine literally growing underfoot

Wild garlic provides antimicrobial compounds and supports cardiovascular health—protection growing wild in forest floors

Violet leaves are rich in vitamins A and C with anti-inflammatory properties—delicate beauty offering strength

Lamb's quarters provides more nutrition per serving than spinach—abundance disguised as a weed

This isn't about replacing medical care—it's about remembering that the line between food and medicine is artificial, a modern invention. For most of human history, they were the same thing. Every bite was understood as a sacrifice of life that deserved reverence and gratitude.

The indigenous understanding that everything from the earth is medicine, a gift, transforms how we approach even the simplest meal. When you understand that a plant gave its life to nourish yours, when you recognize the generations of wisdom that identified which plants heal and which harm, eating becomes a practice of connection rather than consumption.

The Seasonal Wisdom

Wild plants follow natural rhythms that our domesticated crops have largely lost. Learning to eat seasonally with wild plants reconnects you to these ancient cycles:

Spring brings bitter greens that help your body detoxify after winter—dandelion, wild garlic, violet leaves, early plantain

Summer offers an abundance of wild fruits and seeds—elderberries, wild raspberries, lamb's quarters in full growth

Fall provides nuts, late berries, and root vegetables that help your body prepare for winter

Winter might seem barren, but evergreen needles (like pine or spruce) provide vitamin C, and stored or preserved wild foods sustain you through the lean months

Starting Your Wild Practice

Begin with curiosity rather than consumption:

Observe: Notice the plants growing around you. How many can you identify? Which ones have you been calling "weeds"?

Research: Learn about the edible and medicinal plants native to your region. Start with the most common and easily identified ones.

Taste: Try one new wild green from a farmers market or specialty store each month. Notice how it tastes different from domesticated vegetables.

Grow: Plant some "wild" varieties in your garden—heritage tomatoes, wild lettuce, medicinal herbs.

Connect: Find local foraging groups, herbalists, or indigenous plant knowledge keepers who can teach you about your local flora.

The Expansion Revolution

This minestrone soup becomes more than a meal—it becomes a practice of expansion, of saying "yes" to flavors and nutrients you didn't know were available to you. Every spoonful introduces your palate to new possibilities, connects you to plants that have been nourishing humans for millennia but somehow fell out of your personal food vocabulary.

You're not giving up foods—you're adding foods. You're not restricting choices—you're expanding them beyond what any supermarket aisle could contain. You're not limiting your diet—you're unlimited it to include the vast pharmacy and pantry of the natural world.

The goal isn't to feel deprived but to feel abundant, to discover that real variety comes not from 47 different flavors of processed snacks, but from learning to work with the incredible diversity of actual foods that grow from soil and trees and vines, foods that change with the seasons, foods that connect you to the earth and to your own vitality.

We Can Remember

But here's what gives me hope: this work connects to something powerful in our recent history too. During World War II, victory gardens in America literally fed a significant portion of the population. In 1942, roughly 15 million families planted victory gardens; by 1944, an estimated 20 million victory gardens produced roughly 8 million tons of food—which was the equivalent of more than 40 percent of all the fresh fruits and vegetables consumed in the United States.

Forty percent! Nearly half of all fresh produce in America came from backyard gardens, community plots, and even window boxes in apartment buildings.

If Americans could feed themselves this effectively in the 1940s with far less technology and resources than we have today, we can absolutely do this now. If indigenous peoples could live in abundance for thousands of years without destroying their environment, we can learn to do the same.

The knowledge isn't lost—it's just been suppressed. Every indigenous elder who remembers, every herbalist who preserved the plant wisdom, every gardener who saves seeds, every person who chooses to learn the names of the plants growing around them is keeping this knowledge alive.

We can create food security, community resilience, and biological foundations for health that will serve generations. We can remember what it means to live in partnership with the earth rather than dominance over it.

Learning to see food in the wild—even if it's just the herbs on your windowsill or the farmers market stalls overflowing with unfamiliar greens—awakens something primal and joyful in your relationship with nourishment. It reminds you that real food grows from soil, not factories, and that the earth is constantly offering abundance to those who know how to look.

This soup is your invitation to step outside the captivity of convenience and into the wild abundance that has been waiting for you all along.

Chapter 5: The Wild Kitchen

Recipe 5: Foraged Green Minestrone

Beyond the Captivity of Convenience

We don't have to eat like we're in captivity.

Walk through any modern grocery store and you'll see the evidence of our domestication: row upon row of identical vegetables, bred for size and shelf life rather than nutrition, grown in depleted soil and shipped thousands of miles from their origin. The tomatoes are perfectly round and uniformly red, but they taste like water. The spinach leaves are pristine and uniform, but they contain a fraction of the nutrients their wild ancestors possessed.

Somewhere between these sterile aisles of engineered produce and our ancestors' intimate knowledge of wild foods, we lost our connection to the plants that grow freely around us—the dandelions that support liver detoxification, the plantain that heals wounds, the clover blossoms that balance hormones, the wild garlic that fights infection.

These "weeds" that we spray and mow and curse often contain higher concentrations of vitamins and minerals than their domesticated cousins, having evolved complex root systems and survival mechanisms that create deep nutrition. A wild dandelion green can contain 40 times more nutrients than iceberg lettuce, yet we treat one as a pest and the other as food.

The Forgotten Pharmacy

Your grandmother's grandmother didn't shop for groceries—she shopped in fields and forests, along riverbanks and in meadows. She knew which plants would soothe a cough, which leaves would heal a cut, which roots would support her through a long winter.

This wasn't primitive ignorance—it was sophisticated knowledge, passed down through generations of careful observation and experimentation. Traditional cultures identified thousands of edible and medicinal plants, understanding not just what was safe to eat but what would optimize health and vitality.

They knew that the bitter greens of early spring would help their bodies detoxify after a winter of stored foods. They understood that the rose hips of late fall would provide vitamin C to prevent scurvy through the cold months. They recognized that different plants had different energetic qualities—some cooling and calming, others warming and stimulating.

We've traded this vast pharmacopeia for a handful of domesticated crops, then wondered why we need so many supplements to maintain basic health.

The Domestication Dilemma

When we domesticate plants, we change them. We breed them for traits that suit our convenience rather than their nutritional density. We select for:

Size: Bigger fruits and vegetables that look impressive but often contain more water and fewer nutrients per pound.

Sweetness: Reduced bitterness, which also reduces many of the beneficial compounds that give plants their medicinal properties.

Uniformity: Predictable appearance and harvest timing, which requires genetic narrowing that reduces diversity and resilience.

Shelf life: Ability to survive shipping and storage, often at the expense of delicate nutrients that degrade over time.

Easy cultivation: Dependence on fertilizers and pesticides rather than the natural disease resistance that wild plants develop.

The result is food that looks like food but lacks the complex nutritional profile that our bodies evolved to expect from plants.

The Nutrient Concentration

Wild plants face challenges that domesticated ones never encounter. They must compete for resources, defend against pests and diseases, and survive weather extremes without human intervention. These stresses, which would kill pampered garden plants, actually make wild plants more nutritious.

When a plant has to send roots deep into the earth to find water and minerals, those roots bring up trace elements that surface-feeding crops never access. When a plant has to produce its own pest-defense compounds, it creates phytochemicals that also benefit human health. When a plant has to survive temperature fluctuations and seasonal changes, it develops adaptive compounds that support resilience.

Wild garlic contains higher concentrations of allicin and other sulfur compounds than cultivated garlic.

Dandelion greens have more beta-carotene, iron, and calcium than most cultivated greens.

Wild berries typically contain higher antioxidant levels than their domesticated counterparts.

Lamb's quarters (a common "weed") contains more protein, calcium, and vitamin A than spinach.

Recipe 5: Foraged Green Minestrone

This soup is an invitation to expand your definition of food, to see abundance where you once saw weeds, to reconnect with the wild wisdom that grows all around us.

Note: If you're new to foraging, start with easily identifiable plants from reputable sources, farmers markets, or your own garden. Never eat anything you can't identify with 100% certainty.

The Wild Foundation

• 2 tablespoons olive oil

• 1 large onion, diced

• 3 cloves garlic, minced

• 2 carrots, diced

• 2 celery stalks, diced

• 6 cups vegetable or bone broth

• 1 can diced tomatoes (no sugar added)

• 1 cup cooked white beans

• 1/2 cup small pasta (optional)

The Wild Greens (use any combination available)

• 2 cups dandelion greens, chopped

• 1 cup wild spinach or lamb's quarters

• 1/2 cup plantain leaves, chopped

• 1/4 cup violet leaves

• 2 tablespoons wild garlic or garlic scapes

• 1/4 cup fresh herbs (wild or cultivated): thyme, oregano, sage

The Finishing Touches

• Sea salt and black pepper to taste

• 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

• Extra virgin olive oil for drizzling

The Transformation

Building the Base Heat olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, carrots, and celery, cooking until they begin to soften and release their aromatic compounds.

This foundation of aromatics creates the backdrop for the wild flavors to come—familiar tastes that will help your palate adjust to the more intense flavors of wild greens.

Creating the Broth Add the vegetable or bone broth, diced tomatoes, and white beans. Bring to a simmer and let cook for 15 minutes, allowing the flavors to meld and the vegetables to become tender.

If using pasta, add it now and cook according to package directions until al dente.

Introducing the Wild This is where the magic happens. Start with the heartier wild greens—dandelion and lamb's quarters—adding them to the simmering soup and cooking for 5 minutes until they're wilted and tender.

The bitterness of dandelion might surprise you at first, but it's this very bitterness that stimulates digestion and supports liver function. Don't fight it—embrace it as your body's cue that it's receiving powerful medicine.

The Delicate Finish Add the more delicate wild greens—plantain, violet leaves, wild garlic—in the last 2-3 minutes of cooking. These tender leaves need only brief cooking to become edible while retaining their nutritional potency.

Season with salt and pepper, remembering that wild greens often have more complex, intense flavors than their domesticated cousins, so you may need less seasoning than usual.

The Final Grace Remove from heat and stir in fresh lemon juice and grated Parmesan. The acid brightens the earthy, sometimes bitter flavors of wild greens, while the cheese adds richness and makes the nutrients more bioavailable.

Serve immediately, drizzled with good olive oil and perhaps a sprinkle of fresh herbs.

The Taste of Freedom

Your first spoonful of this soup might challenge your palate. Wild greens taste... wild. They're more intense, more complex, sometimes more bitter than the mild, sweet vegetables we've grown accustomed to.

This intensity isn't a flaw—it's a feature. The compounds that make wild plants taste strong are often the same ones that provide medicinal benefits. The bitterness in dandelion stimulates bile production and supports liver detoxification. The peppery bite of wild garlic provides antimicrobial compounds. The slight astringency of plantain offers anti-inflammatory benefits.

Learning to appreciate these flavors is like developing a taste for fine wine or dark chocolate—it requires shifting from seeking immediate gratification to appreciating complexity and depth.

The Urban Forager

You don't need to live in the wilderness to connect with wild foods. Even city dwellers can begin to see food growing freely around them:

Vacant lots often harbor edible "weeds" like lamb's quarters, purslane, and dandelion.

Parks and green spaces may contain edible plants (though always check local regulations about harvesting).

Your own yard probably contains more edible plants than you realize—dandelion, plantain, clover, and violets are common in most temperate regions.

Community gardens often welcome plants that grow without cultivation.

Farmers markets increasingly feature vendors selling foraged foods and wild greens.

Specialty stores and co-ops often carry cultivated versions of wild plants.

Start small. Learn to identify one wild edible plant in your area. Taste it. Understand its flavor profile and nutritional benefits. Then gradually expand your wild plant vocabulary.

The Seasonal Wisdom

Wild plants follow natural rhythms that our domesticated crops have largely lost. Learning to eat seasonally with wild plants reconnects you to these ancient cycles:

Spring brings bitter greens that help your body detoxify after winter—dandelion, wild garlic, violet leaves, early plantain.

Summer offers an abundance of wild fruits and seeds—elderberries, wild raspberries, lamb's quarters in full growth.

Fall provides nuts, late berries, and root vegetables that help your body prepare for winter.

Winter might seem barren, but evergreen needles (like pine or spruce) provide vitamin C, and stored or preserved wild foods sustain you through the lean months.

The Medicinal Kitchen

When you incorporate wild plants into your cooking, your kitchen becomes a pharmacy. Each plant brings its own therapeutic compounds:

Dandelion supports liver function and provides potassium for healthy blood pressure.

Plantain offers anti-inflammatory compounds and has been called "nature's bandaid" for its wound-healing properties.

Wild garlic provides antimicrobial compounds and supports cardiovascular health.

Violet leaves are rich in vitamins A and C and have anti-inflammatory properties.

Lamb's quarters provides more nutrition per serving than spinach, with high levels of protein, calcium, and vitamin A.

This isn't about replacing medical care—it's about understanding that the line between food and medicine is artificial. For most of human history, they were the same thing.

The Awakening Practice

Learning to see food in the wild—even if it's just the herbs on your windowsill or the farmers market stalls overflowing with unfamiliar greens—awakens something primal and joyful in your relationship with nourishment.

It reminds you that real food grows from soil, not factories. That nutrition comes from plants that have learned to thrive in challenging conditions, not from laboratories that add synthetic vitamins to processed products.

It connects you to the seasons, to your local ecosystem, to the ancient human practice of knowing your environment intimately enough to nourish yourself from it.

Starting Your Wild Practice

Begin with curiosity rather than consumption:

Observe: Notice the plants growing around you. How many can you identify? Which ones have you been calling "weeds"?

Research: Learn about the edible and medicinal plants native to your region. Start with the most common and easily identified ones.

Taste: Try one new wild green from a farmers market or specialty store each month. Notice how it tastes different from domesticated vegetables.

Grow: Plant some "wild" varieties in your garden—heritage tomatoes, wild lettuce, medicinal herbs.

Connect: Find local foraging groups, herbalists, or indigenous plant knowledge keepers who can teach you about your local flora.

You're absolutely right! Let me revise that perspective throughout the chapter to emphasize expansion rather than restriction:

The Liberation

As you expand your definition of food to include the wild plants around you, something profound shifts. You begin to see abundance where you once saw scarcity. You recognize that the earth is constantly offering nourishment, that there are thousands of edible plants you never knew existed, flavors you've never experienced, nutrients you've never accessed.

Rather than feeling deprived of your old foods, consider this as an expansion into foods you simply didn't know to trust and love yet. This isn't about a list of "no's"—no gluten, no sugar, no canola oil. This is about discovering the unlimited combinations possible when you shop the edges of the grocery store, when you explore the vegetable section with new eyes, when you consider what you could grow on a windowsill or in a backyard.

You start to understand that what you thought was "all the food available" was actually just a tiny, processed fraction of the incredible diversity the natural world offers. The grocery store's produce section, which you might have walked past quickly on your way to the packaged foods, suddenly becomes a treasure trove of possibilities.

Instead of missing bread, you discover the satisfying crunch of roasted root vegetables, the way cauliflower can become pizza crust, how sweet potato can be spiralized into noodles.

Instead of craving sugar, you awaken to the complex sweetness of roasted beets, the natural candy of slow-cooked onions, the surprising sweetness hiding in red bell peppers.

Instead of reaching for processed snacks, you find yourself experimenting with herb combinations you never knew existed, discovering that food can be medicine, that eating can be an adventure rather than a routine.

The Unlimited Kitchen

Your kitchen transforms from a place of restriction to a laboratory of possibility. When you focus on what you can add rather than what you're removing, every meal becomes an experiment in flavor, nutrition, and satisfaction.

You might discover that:

• Massaged kale tastes completely different from raw kale

• Roasted vegetables develop sweetness you never noticed

• Fresh herbs can make simple ingredients taste like gourmet meals

• There are dozens of varieties of each vegetable you thought you knew

• Many vegetables can be eaten raw when they're fresh and high-quality

• Simple cooking techniques can transform inexpensive ingredients into deeply satisfying meals

The Expansion Practice

This minestrone soup becomes more than a meal—it becomes a practice of expansion, of saying "yes" to flavors and nutrients you didn't know were available to you. Every spoonful introduces your palate to new possibilities, connects you to plants that have been nourishing humans for millennia but somehow fell out of your personal food vocabulary.

You're not giving up foods—you're adding foods. You're not restricting choices—you're expanding them beyond what any supermarket aisle could contain. You're not limiting your diet—you're unlimited it to include the vast pharmacy and pantry of the natural world.

The goal isn't to feel deprived but to feel abundant, to discover that real variety comes not from 47 different flavors of processed snacks, but from learning to work with the incredible diversity of actual foods that grow from soil and trees and vines, foods that change with the seasons, foods that connect you to the earth and to your own vitality.

The Liberation

As you expand your definition of food to include the wild plants around you, something profound shifts. You begin to see abundance where you once saw emptiness. You recognize that the earth is constantly offering nourishment, that food doesn't require industrial agriculture or global shipping networks.

You start to understand that the grocery store represents just a tiny fraction of the foods available to humans, and often not the most nutritious fraction.

This minestrone soup becomes more than a meal—it becomes a practice of liberation from the limited food choices that modern life presents as normal. Every spoonful connects you to the wild wisdom that sustained our ancestors and still grows freely around us, waiting to nourish anyone willing to look beyond the aisles of engineered produce to the abundant pharmacy of the natural world.

The earth is constantly offering nourishment to those who know how to look. Wild plants, growing freely without human intervention, often contain higher concentrations of nutrients than their domesticated cousins. Learning to see food in the wild awakens something primal in your relationship with nourishment—it reminds you that real food grows from soil, not factories.

The Environmental Connection

This work is also interconnected with environmental healing. When we eat real food, we support farming practices that build soil rather than deplete it, that work with natural ecosystems rather than against them. The same food choices that heal our bodies also heal the earth.

We've proven this is possible on a massive scale. During World War II, victory gardens in America literally fed a significant portion of the population. In 1942, roughly 15 million families planted victory gardens; by 1944, an estimated 20 million victory gardens produced roughly 8 million tons of food—which was the equivalent of more than 40 percent of all the fresh fruits and vegetables consumed in the United States.

Forty percent! Nearly half of all fresh produce in America came from backyard gardens, community plots, and even window boxes in apartment buildings. Some 20 million Victory Gardens were planted (US population in 1940 was 132 million), and by 1943, these little plots produced 40 percent of all vegetables consumed in the US.

If Americans could feed themselves this effectively in the 1940s with far less technology and resources than we have today, we can absolutely do this now. We can create food security, community resilience, and biological foundations for health that will serve generations.

We Can Do This

The infrastructure for change already exists. We have the knowledge, the resources, and the growing awareness that our current food system is failing us. What we need is the collective will to prioritize the health of our families and communities over the profits of corporations that see us as expendable profit centers.

Every victory garden planted, every meal made from real ingredients, every person educated about nutrition becomes part of a quiet revolution that has the power to transform public health, environmental sustainability, and economic justice all at once.

The question isn't whether we can create change—the question is whether we'll choose to start now, with our next meal, our next grocery list, our next conversation about what it means to truly nourish ourselves and our communities.

We Can Do This

The infrastructure for change already exists. We have the knowledge, the resources, and the growing awareness that our current food system is failing us. What we need is the collective will to prioritize the health of our families and communities over the profits of corporations that see us as expendable profit centers.

Every victory garden planted, every meal made from real ingredients, every person educated about nutrition becomes part of a quiet revolution that has the power to transform public health, environmental sustainability, and economic justice all at once.

The question isn't whether we can create change—the question is whether we'll choose to start now, with our next meal, our next grocery list, our next conversation about what it means to truly nourish ourselves and our communities.

I got into the herb game from the nutrition standpoint. I was obsessing over podcasts about food, and saw many guest speakers who spoke of the power of plants. Eventually i started watching some of them star in their own shows: the Sacred Science was one of my favorites. I started studying the herbs like the medicine they are. I took local herb classes, and earned my community herbalist badge from a local herb school in sebastapol. I was struck by the freedom these people had. it made me realize people living off the grid were extremely intelligent. They did not talk badly per se about things, they just saw the good in ancient ways- celebrating native traditions, and there was always a little sadness in what was lost, and a hope and beauty in shedding light on lost ways, lost words of the names of the herbs. this led me down a path wondering why we would have ever forgotten the power of the mushroom, and i started to read more on the history of this loss. It was not all accidental. The killing of the witches, for instance, was for a money and lab grab from women who lived on their own rather than needing to hide behind a man in society. There was a whole groups of women and men who never gave in. in the 70’s they brought psychedelic research back to the realm of science and not just fear and prohibition of study. i see the importance of native stories, and started making connections beyond them to the wider loss of this infromation, which is part of a separate book, still to come. We must follow our passions, and this was a solid step in a new direction that lead to some lifelone interests.