not that difficult foraging, i once found a massive field with tons of potatoes, carrots, turnips, cabbage and cauli, we took as much as we could carry, then a man in the distance started shouting, he was so far away i couldn't hear what he said, i imagine he shouted well done, can he have some for his mother fuller

There's a reason most of our hunter gatherer ancestors hugged the coastline. It's much easier to subsist on the range of fleshy plants, seafood, shellfish etc at the coast.

The first person POV + names of plants displayed at the top feels like a survival video game! Like every time you discover a new plant you add it to your encyclopedia/library 🤣

Archaeologist here, I thought that people viewing this video as well as Mr. Shrimp himself (or should I say Mr. Tout) would find some comparisons to ancient (and in some cases modern) hunter gatherers interesting. Obviously, living via hunting and gathering is viable, as that's how humans have primarily lived for the majority of our past. However, it has some special conditions that the modern forager in an otherwise modern lifestyle will have difficulties fulfilling. I am writing this while watching the video, so at least a part of this may have been addressed already in the video in the later parts. Apologies for that, haha. Firstly, hunting and gathering is generally a very mobile lifestyle. You talk a lot in the video about seasonal availability, which is a major factor here. A H&G group will move with the environment, taking advantage of different environments and resources in them at different times of the year. Sometimes hunting will be a major factor, sometimes gathering, usually of a variety of different species. Not only will the main group itself move bases throughout the year, but many H&G groups would also have a variety of splintering going on from their main camp. Different sub groups would make gathering and hunting trips to different areas (as well as resource gathering trips to places like flint mining spots to craft tools, or to collect a specific plant resource like birch bark) and then bring back what they got to the main group. All of this movement around is of course generally not possible for a modern person living in a stable address for most of the year. The latter part about splinter groups brings up another important aspect, though. H&G groups were just that, groups. The size of the groups allows for a two factor capacity for resource exploitation; firstly, multiple people will be able to hunt or gather more effectively, covering greater areas, such as through the splintering I mentioned above, and will also allow for a specialization to specific resources. Different persons will gain an expertise for specific species of animals or plants. While the degree to which people specialize in the modern world is far greater than in the past, there were still things that individuals would have done better than other things. This also brings up the third aspect, the knowledge how to utilize these things. You can live off the land, but it takes a lot of skills and study. It's easy to consider past peoples dumb, or "primitive" (a word which I absolutely hate), disregarding the technologies they would have built up around these methods of gathering and hunting their food. We are smart, yes, and we know lots of things. But it's possible, and I would personally believe likely, that people in the past had more knowledge about their environment than we do now, which allowed them a far greater ability to use it for survival. Fourth and perhaps one of the major aspects that we have to contend with in the modern world, even if you were to set up a whole group that was mobile along the lines I've outlined and did the research to be able to properly exploit the resources you find, is that the environment today is quite different from back then. The modern landscape is dominated by agricultural, industrial, and urban areas; all three of these severely limit the growth of a variety of species, both plant and animal, that you would have otherwise been able to exploit. In addition private property laws, like Mr. Shrimp talks about in the video, limit the degree to which one can take advantage of anything you find. Is living in a hunting and gathering lifestyle impossible in the modern day? No, but that has a caveat; you probably can't live like that in any place in for instance western Europe, or similarly highly agricultural or industrial area. Hunting and gathering groups do persist to this day, but the areas they live in tend to be marginal areas that would otherwise be impossible to exploit via agriculture or industrial activity. I find the idea of establishing a H&G group in a place like England to be a near impossibility. However, humans are extremely smart, I would be very interested in seeing someone try something like that, with of course sufficient fallback systems in places to make sure that no one gets hurt if things don't work out. So how did past H&G groups live out? Did they eek out at the edge of death at all times? I think Shrimp talks about this a bit in the video, but in general it's misconception. Based on what we know about the capacity to exploit resources, the average person in a H&G group would not have had to feel hungry for the majority of their time; in fact, based on the skeletal evidence we have, early agriculturalists were far more likely to experience malnutrition than contemporary H&G groups (makes sense when you think about it, especially early on agriculture would have been very focused on a few species and thus the diet would have been far less varied). The major advantages of agriculture come from the capacity to create a larger amount of sheer calories from a smaller area than would be required for hunting and gathering, and the fact that a well organized agricultural community is able to be sedentary (i.e. live in the same spot for most of the time). This in the long term allows for far greater populations than hunting and gathering. Agriculture is also, again when well organized, far more resilient strategy for food procurement than hunting and gathering. As said, the average hunter gatherer would have been not very likely to go hungry on most days, but they were far more susceptible to unanticipated changed in the environment. If a staple resource is for some reason inaccesible, the community would have to scramble to shift resource focuses and sometimes the entire community in order to ensure survival. The mobility inherent in the lifestyle of most hunter gatherers would mean that long term food storage, the method used by agriculturalists to protect against these issues, would have been difficult; if you're not in the same spot for the whole year, it becomes very difficult to make sure that competing species or groups of humans won't just eat up your stores. There are, of course, caveats and further thigns to consider with almost everything I've mentioned above, haha. For instance H&G groups that were sedentary have existed, such as the Jomon people of Japan. Human groups are incredibly varied and as such have come up with a ton of ways to survive and live, and oftentimes thrive. What I'm trying to say here is that H&G groups were probably a lot more "human" and a lot less "primitive" than what you might automatically think; and any group in the past would have had lots of time for the development of culture through stories and games of various kinds.

I ran away in 1981 when I was 15 and stayed out in the woods for 2 weeks. Made a lean-to, fished, ate lentils and berries and a few eggs I found. I took a hatchet, a Zippo lighter, and an AM radio. Of course I was a Boy Scout for 4 years and grew up on a farm so I kinda had that going for me.

About sloes, when I was a child I learned an old German proverb "Frost muss erst die Schlehen beißen dass sie endlich, endlich reifen". It roughly translates to "frost has to bite the sloes before they finally ripen". Once sloes become a bit wrinkly and suffered through the first frost of the year, the fruits become actually decently sweet and they stay on the brush for ages.

Great vid. One thought that comes to mind, wild plants as a whole have low caloric values, and foraging takes physical effort just to find and collect said plants... So the old "calories used / calories gained" ratio becomes really difficult. Sure, you can make nettle soups and dandelion-green soups a staple daily food, but it won't be enough for survival alone.

I really appreciate your respect for everything, you don’t needlessly pick everything you touch. I don’t like watching other foragers and they pick the plant they’re talking about, show it to the camera and throw it back to the floor. Whereas you lower your camera to the plant without disturbing it unless you plan on eating it 💜

i remember reading how native american tribes semi-cultivated forests they foraged in by helping along plants they depended on for food, so i imagine that foraging in a certain place for a while and managing your territory would certainly help with the harvests

Living near the sea and knowing what's edible, I have no doubt I could find enough calories to easily survive if necessary. The giant problem with this however is what do you do when a couple million other people are also looking for anything edible? In that case the land will quickly be picked clean.

Living on the coast, with good quality sea water, and strong tides, (north Anglesey) it would be hard to starve here, there's an abundance of shell fish, fish fish, lobsters and crabs (at extreme low tides) not to mention edible seaweeds (pleasent varieties) and coastal plants such as samphire.

One thing that I think is interesting about foraging is that we tend to think of it as a hallmark of hunter gatherer societies but actually it remained extremely important well into the medieval era. Medieval peasants would forage not so much for calories but for ingredients to add to their food, that's how despite almost entirely living off cereal crops they could actually cook up some decently interesting meals that had seasonal variety. And that is oddly similar to what you're doing in this video.

As a kid, i used to love reading survival books and foraging for food in the forest or jungle, my absolute favourite was the breadfruit tree, imagine that, bread growing on a tree. Then I went into the army and we had jungle survival training and foraging for food is one of the training topics. And reality hit hard, I quickly came to realise that I would starve to death in a lush jungle environment, it's nothing like what is written in the books. But still had loads of fun trying not to die from hunger.

What you said at 19:00 reminds me of something my grandma said about preserving food: We eat what we can, we freeze what we can, and what we can't, we can.

Man, i love seeing you foraging and cooking. You could just record your everyday walks or everyday cooking while talking about whatever and i would still watch it! Keep doing a great job!

Lovely video, as always! As a child in the 1960s, we used to pick clover heads and suck them for the sugar. My mother made rose-petal wine, but she used her own roses, not briers. And she didn't use any pesticide on them, she used teabags on the ground for the slugs and a diluted nicotine spray for the aphids.

I've often thought about this not just from a foraging perspective, but also a farming one. If you were to try and grow/cultivate/raise sufficient crops/animals to feed say an average 2 adult, 2 children family, how much land, and what kind of time requirement would that take. I would imagine it takes a lot more land, and a lot more time than people really realise.

If I lived in the UK and didn't have an acre for compost and potatoes (thus allowing chickens through winter as well), my strategy would definitely be to keep Rabbits. Like silent miniature sheep they are, and all that low calorie greenery you passed is suddenly a treasure.

I ate wild food for about a year back in the 80's when I lived on a boat. I was only able to supplement my diet. After eating "normal food" wild food is pretty bland, I remember using bottles of salad cream. It's also bloody hard work, try digging wild roots up, it's knackering and for little profit. One plant stands out though - fat hen or orache. With poached rabbit or pheasant, a few "liberated spuds it makes great soup/broth.

also in line with foraging being a group effort, the whole of the wooded and wild area would likely be "cultivated" or "tended" to allow for the encouragement of both edible food growth as well as lumber collection. it doesn't take much to encourage those blueberries to spread and grow along with all of the other edible plants

Here in Finland you can easily survive from early spring to late autumn, what helps is the abundance of edible things in the forests, and the ”everyman’s rights” in the law allowing you to forage and fish for free on other people’s land. But food preservation is a must since it’s pretty hard to find enough in wintertime

I love watching you explain all the time about all the different plants you have in your area, but it breaks my heart to know that these wild fields are going to be built upon. Sometimes I think big companies just don't care about our nature dwindling away, we're losing enough as it is.

The joy in the final meal is fantastic! So affirming :)

Exactly! Collaboration and helping eachother made us survive, not exactly just because we knew what plants to eat :)

I often look at the hedgerows and banks as I'm walking my dog and think "how much food could I forage if I had to live out here" and the answer is "not much" unless it's blackberry season when there's a glut of something at least... so I'm going to be useless in the zombie apocalypse If it's not just for one day you will have stores and preserved food that will stretch that harvest over a longer time. So doing it as a one day challenge would be really tricky

You're one of the most interesting people I've come across. You've learned a lot about a lot of things, it's very impressive.

Once again may I praise your wonderful clickbait-avoider? Just one of *many* reasons I love this channel.

Was that Angelica that you walked past at one point? If so, I've heard that is not only edible but medicinal! Edit: It turns out that it was Hemlock, proving I would have poisoned myself within a day foraging in the UK :P

Looks delicious to me, your foraging videos are my favorites. I'm 70 years old and have enjoyed wild edibles my entire life. Keep up the great work.

One of the things that I learned foraging our mountain growing up was this: Although there may be sufficient natural resources to enable a small group to forage, hunt, and fish for their sustenance in a natural wilderness, nature does not plant everything to the liking or convenience of humans. It took a lot of running about to get everything together, and as you observed, it does not all come in at convenient times, either. This has led me to the conclusion that perhaps several of those civilizations that we have assumed to be hunter/gatherers might have been horticultural people, at least in their beginnings.

Hey on the Sloe, in Germany, it is fairly well known that you wait untill the first frosty night, and then you can pick it, and the bitterness will be mostly gone. My family uses these for a liqour, "Schlehenfeuer" in german Schlehe meaning sloe and feuer meaning fire.

Blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) is super tasty. Pick them in the fall (when they have turned black, but before the first frost). Drop them into your freezer for a night and they turn sweet and super flavorful. I have used them in several ways, either pour alcohol over them and let it sit for a few months (you can just do so for a few days, but if you do it longer then the seeds will add an almond flavor). Or use them in cooking, any place where you normally use black berry or black current.

I would love to see this as a dedicated series/segment/challenge where once a month you attempt to forage a meal with the seasonal plants that are available. I think from an understanding point of knowing what is edible, knowing how to make something taste good is where the real challenge lies and I think thats what makes whatching your channel quite the inspiration for many who visit your channel and enjoy these types of videos. Thanks for the randomness of your channel its always a pleasure to see what you will post next.

To really have a shot at any kind of sustainable foraging, you need an area that has always been, or at least for many decades, wild and untouched. Here in Colorado and Montana there are areas that have never been developed by humans, and the variety of edibles is staggering. Frogs, rabbits, squirrels, crawfish, can all be easily added when available as great protein sources.

I'm from south of Lake Erie in the United States and I find it fascinating that a huge amount of the plants shown in this video are actually around here!

In early spring I often forage for Cardamine pratensis, the cuckoo flower, lady's smock, mayflower, or milkmaids (in German: Wiesenschaumkraut). They have small purple flowers and taste a bit spicy and sweet. They flower in march-april in relatively wet meadows. Or sorrel, I like the distinctive sour taste. Just make sure you don't eat too much because it contains a lot of oxalic acid. It also contains a lot of vitamin C. I like to chew on the stem when I'm bored or a bit hungry. I then spit out the chewed stuff. About the Ribwort Plantain at 28:06 I use the crushed up leaves when I have a mosquito bite. It helps soothe the itching. You can use the juice to soothe most insect stings or the ones from the stinging nettle.

After years of mowing the lawn every 2 weeks, I now leave it to grow for 3 months so it's as wild as permissible. Dandelions are left to flower for the bees but I do put the seed heads in the food bin, we get daisy and clover and grass that seeds itself. I worry that all the area used by golf courses (especially around us) is a travesty to nature and the enjoyment of a few.

I'm glad I waited before leaving a comment because you answered every question I had at later points in the video. Sometimes I leave a comment as it pops into my head and look silly when it ends up answered in the video

The meal you created looked fantastic. Yes, I’m sure foraging is a challenge and you have to know what you’re doing to be confident in what you’re eating.

Used to grab a little salad on my walk to work. There was always a patch of alfalfa, there'd also be a mulberry tree or if those weren't ripe, blackberry not far from it. I'd grab those, some chicory flowers and whatever in season additions I could find. Of course this was all in the summer.... seasons make all the difference.

I lived off foraging for around 3 months and it's definitely difficult and takes pretty much a full day but I knew where and when things grew as I've foraged for a long time and I think if I'd done it any other time of year I would have struggled a lot more

I was told also by an Indigenous friend that red clover leaves are also edible. They can be added to salads or just eaten on the go and provide a small amount of protein.

When you mentioned about the tropical plant smell, reminded me when I was 15 I touched a tropical plant and come out with itchy blisters all over my body. They then found out I am sensitive to tropical type plants just before I went to Cuba so I had to watch out for certain plants when I was there. Great video I love these informative videos. 👍

...but if we extend the definition of land to include private business and store, and foraging to include permanently depriving another of their property, then you could live succesfully, until you dont. So yes, difficult in all ways.

I remember years and years ago planning to go awol and just live off the land, quickly realised how difficult it was to find a suitable area with flowing water that wasn't a nature reserve or private property but also realised just how difficult it would be to forage food and that I'd have to rely largely on fish which presents further issues when you consider most places require a fishing license, it's just an all round nightmare to try and live off the land in the UK.

Funny thing is, I remember my mom actually showing me that these Sheperd's Purse "Leaves" are actually edible when I was a kid... And now I learn, they aren't the leaves. They are the FRUIT of that plant?! Mind blown honestly.

The UK is a great place to forage I do it almost every day, like you say very seasonable. The key for me is to collect and store for winter months or when certain plants are not around. I still have loads of Hazelnuts from last year to last me until late August this year when I will collect again. I have also done some gorilla gardening with plants and trees. And we are so lucky to have so many stinging nettles and sea beets .

i love that u live fairly local to me so i recognise most of the places u visit in your videos!

Love the videos and captivated the whole way through. Wouldn't have the confidence to attempt wild foraging but enjoy watching you do it. Keep them coming please :)

Thank you for sharing, great video! There is a very good reason we made the switch to intensive farming. Foraging is difficult if it is your only method of eating. It also does not support high density population.

There's like a whole lot of wild carrots all around where I live. But they can easily be mistaken for poison hemlock by people who can't tell the difference. So yeah. Also. You need like 20 for a decent meal. Wild parsnips also grow. But their leaves causes serious burns.

Love it, i like going around snacking, in a survival situation i would probably go for the roots.. but man it would not go over well. I live in Sweden so i would starve pretty fast if i couldn't get some meat!

Thinking about foraging, I used to live next to the Pacific Ocean. Close enough that I had wanted to try to make Japanese style sea salt. Unfortunately I moved and now only see mountains. You inspired me to try that. Found a food item I felt comfortable with and a use for it (large Crystal salt for grilling), however I just did not make enough time before I had to move. Thank you for seeing that spark. Now I just need to find the equivalent item to be excited about in my new home!

Here in the midwest, (something to note, I live in a small town with lots of surrounding forest) I can walk outside and forage a varied meal almost any time of the year. I can't think of a timeframe except winter where there are no fresh berries, fruit, buds, flowers, etc all over the place.

One of the absolute best channels around.

From Quebec, Canada. I just had a feed of fiddleheads. They`re delicious. Love your videos.

Living in the netherlands i’m a little surprised how many plants i recognized. You’d think a whole sea apart you’d see different flowers, apparently not.

Interesting what you made! I can't imagine how elderflowers would taste in a savoury patty, I tasted them a week ago in crepe batter and they taste, wel. like they smell. Reminds me of a herb with how potent the taste-smell combo was.

Seeing everything being built on makes me so sad as well. I guess that’s progress in todays society. We are lucky to live on a lot of land but even so we like to roam widely and forage and enjoy nature and the animals that live there. Love your videos so much, feels nice to know there are others with similar interests out there!

Living in the rural middle east and again eating by seasonal variations brought back the joy of the arrival of the new foods which I had forgotten from my youth.

Goat's Beard flower buds are one of my favorite wild foods. They are good raw or cooked, and they also make wonderful pickles.

"Hmm, buttercup. That sounds good." "Nah, buttercup is toxic. Let's get some Goat's-Beard instead."

New York City native here I'm homeless and yes although it's really hard to collect enough for three meals you can do enough for one meal a day even in an urban environment if you look around. I get one of my two salad basis, Linden Leaves from a graveyard. Branches hang over the wall but I know that soil is good. (There are no graves in that section)

While foraging doesn't necessarily mean you're surviving by yourself, but a lot of people think of it in combination with living alone, or with a single partner, surviving independently "in the wild" like our ancestors did for thousands of years. There are a number of issues with that idea, but a HUGE one is that our ancestors didn't naturally live independently, hunting and foraging on their own. In fact, exile from a tribe or band was likely considered all but a death sentence. A defining feature of our species is our hyper-sociality in which the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. A band divided its workload into different tasks, each of which had a potential to succeed or fail, but together, significantly increased the likelihood that some of these survival strategies would obtain/produce enough resources to get the group through until the next source became available. If that band consisted of, say, twelve members, it wouldn't simply take in the resources one person is capable of harvesting multiplied by twelve. The new capabilities that become available to groups as opposed to individuals are not just different in degree, but in kind, producing much more per person than individuals could alone. While it's certainly possible to survive on one's own with the proper knowledge and skillset, it's far from our "natural" condition. We're not just relatively slow and frail compared to competing megafauna because our intelligence makes up for it, we were able to survive with said traits because we worked in groups. While projectile weapons gave our ancestors some advantages, a spear or bow and arrow is still little match for a pride of lionesses. Our stone weapons only became truly threatening against such species when used cooperatively. We can only understand our rise to the status of apex predator when we recognize that our basic unit of survival is the group.

Living off foraging is super hard, very much an inconvenience!

Here in the U.S, whenever the soil is moved for construction like pipelines, road work, etc seeds are planted. They spray seeds on the disturbed soil, put burlap cloth on the soil and wet it down. They also build drainage diches and put bundles of hay to slow down water from rain runoff. It works great and I have yet to ever meet or hear of anyone who does not like or support the process.

I am going to intentionally hunt/look for stinging nettles, I remember when I was young and there was a drought and people in Kenya were eating this. We don’t foliage for food and relies on normal food that come from farm ( potatoes, etc) but I have now discovered that nature has so much we could use for food. I come from a farming community and I have appreciated learning from this programs.

Elderflowers can be used to make tea or wine and elderberries can be used to make jam or wine.

I once had a discussion with a acheology professor at uni (ancient studies (mainly greek culture)) about the northern europe versus the southern europe, like greece and italy. He claimed that the southern part were much more sophisticated due to being more intelligent. I pointed out that he wasnt taking the climate into consideration. In the south, its warmer and the summer/warm season lastet much longer and the winters were milder versus the colder climate in the north, making the survival harsher. The northern areas had to use much more energy and time to just survive, meaning there werent the same time to develope paper, written language, writing stories down. So in fact the north were more inginious cos of the things they actually developed with the little time that they had aside from survival. He sat for a bit pondering then nodded and agreed that was a very good point.

Yay starting the weekend off right with a new Shrimp vid, thanks Mike interesting as always

Just a tip, helpful hopefully, those net bags that supermarkets sell instead of single use plastic bags in the veg and fruit aisle are brilliant for foraging.

Sloe correctly prepared (only gather them after the first frost, let them ripen like medlars) tastes wonderful as a jam, juice, or in a sweetened liquour. Hunter gatherers would probably combine it with honey or other, sweeter fruits. Very healthy for digestion, or for people recovering from a severe illness). The blossoms make a delicious, marcipane smelling tea that help with diarrhea.

I suspect the bottle of vegetable oil would’ve been the most shocking kitchen addition to a pre-agricultural person.

I especially like these foraging vids of yours! My knowledge of plants is quite limited, and I've mostly gathered just ground elder and stinging nettles, plus young shoots of Chamaenerion angustifolium. Last fall I tried chickweed for the first time, inspired by your video. When it comes to fungi, I've gathered a relatively decent amount of knowledge. Hopefully you'll post more fungus-related vids this season! Maybe more foraging trips and some some novel recipes?

I truly think our country is close as one could be to paradise. It may have its problems but I feel darn lucky i was born in England x

A major difference between foraging today and in the past is as you mentioned you can only reap surface level "harvest" from the land, you can't really alter your surrounding. Which is something hunter gatherer societies did and do! They didn't just live in the land, they did things like spreading seeds, using fire to hunt, domesticating dogs and buildings weirs from stones in rivers. They may not have farmed but they definitely helped nature to be more nice to them.

I do think we have an advantage in certain parts of “the new world” when it comes to living off the land for real…but also to be fair, a lot of plants were brought over here from the UK and aren’t native- such as chamomile, I think, which you just showed! (Pretty sure a lot of herbs like that aren’t native) But I know I could live off foraged fruits, vegetables, fungi and animals & fish in Michigan but that’s the Great Lakes and not like…the desert or even landlocked Midwest states.

Basically foraging seems to fall into the category of things that I class as "free for a reason." If it was simple to do and people could live off it, some bugger would have found a way to monetize it.

Never thought I'd be interested in this but here I am. These are fascinating.

Again, giving the answer in the thumbnail and not trying to make clickbait. Legend

Honestly where I'm at in Texas I'd likely starve. Outside of cactus fruit and what's in people's yards the drought has made foraging a non starter. You know your in trouble when even the wildlife looks gaunt.

One thing I think ypu missed are acorns. With some work and knowledge they can be processed into edible flour and can be very plentiful. Easily one of the best food sources for the pre-agricultural people but with some limitations of its own.

First 2 minutes and I'm already entertained and learned something new. I don't know how you do it, honestly.

With as insightful and knowledgeable as Atomic Shrimp is, I think this man's lived a few lifetimes already.

The United Kingdom: You got a license to dig that hole?

If you've got an entire field of clover it's a sign of a fairly significant nitrate deficiency

Thanks for an enjoyable, informative film. On the sloes - they lose much of their astringency, following the first frost, so a modern option is to freeze them.

I love foraging. With the cost of living increasing in NZ, I've been doing more and more of it. I've learned so much from locals in my community who also forage - sharing skills and knowledge about foraging is very important, in my opinion. So far, my favourite things to forage for are mushrooms (as I'm sure you know, these take a lot of research and care to correctly identify and in some cases, prepare safely - I also like to seek a second opinion from people who I know are experienced with mushroom identification in my region). Right now, we have a lot of Leccinum scabrum (birch boletes) out and about - but my favourites are probably Cyclocybe parasitica (tawaka). Fantastic video - very informative and interesting!

Love your content atomic!!!!!

If you spent 2 hours a day on foraging edible things from the wilderness, maybe even setting up traps for a little meat, what percentage of your daily calorie needs would you say you could obtain "off the land"? I understand this question comes with a ton of variables, like where exactly do you live, what your total daily energy expenditure is like and what time of year is it and so on, but just for the sake of thought, I'd like to hear your extremely rough estimation. It's interesting to think about, because if it takes you £8/day to feel yourself by buying groceries, but if you can get 10% of your calories through foraging, you're essentially cutting your food costs by 10%, down to £7.20/day. Ultimately that would mean you'd save £292 per year. I can harvest several kilograms of edible plants straight from my own yard, but I doubt I'd really want to eat so much one thing, and I guess getting sufficient calories from ground elder/goutweed and nettles (including white dead-nettle) would be problematic in a few ways... But at least I could eat 10% of my ~2500kcal/day (= 250kcal total) from such sources to save a little money. If I am to spend time outdoors anyways, converting that outdoors time into pure foraging is not going to change my net energy needs. Although, if the idea of foraging is expanded into a year-round activity, one could theoretically spend each season just harvesting and processing tons and tons of edible seasonal goods to guarantee a more diverse diet later on. For example: you could collect hundreds of liters of sap in early spring and then process it into a storable form; spend all spring and summer for harvesting mushrooms/plants/sprouts etc. for you to dry and/or freeze; spend your autumn hunting and collecting acorns and such to last you a long, long time; in the winter you could hibernate, or something. This type of a year-round approach to foraging could yield great results, as you could have reserves of foraged goods in your pantry -- but when you just go out one day in an attempt to get food on your plate, you're just going to have a very rough time getting anything substantial.

Just picked a bunch of green wild garlic seeds today, ground them and added to vegetable stew. Wonderful strong garlic flavour.

Being from the rural US it's such a culture shock to hear that hunting isn't something the general population does in the UK, especially the north. I remember as a child when times were tough, namely after my father was laid off from his job with a logging company, the meat we would eat would be almost exclusively wild game killed and butchered on either the property our family owned on the woods on a family friend's farm. One would imagine that bow hunting would be popular in the UK considering tradition and all but obviously not every culture shares the same ravenous love of tradition that the US does lol

It's incredibly difficult to live off the land unless you have a right to hunt. Foraging can suppliment a diet though and get that cost down. That's not the main benefit of foraging though. The main one is you get some excellent food that you would otherwise have to realy pay up on in specialist shops and top restaraunts if you had to buy them. There's a misconception about foraged food where most think it's bad becasue it's "free" but the truth is (although I'm happy to perpetuate the misconception) is that some foraged food is better than anything you woukd get in any supermarket and better than its equivelent as you can have as fresh as you choose

Loved the video! I really enjoy watching you do your food challenges and foraging.

That was a captivating video from start to finish. Thank you for your work!

Foraging in the winter is impossible without being allowed to dig up roots and hard enough in the spring. Late summer and autumn it isn't as hard and I think you could pick enough to survive then without using up your preserves. Mushrooms makes a huge difference. I am glad you saw so many bumblebees, those were almost extinct in many parts of the UK 20 years ago. I know we (Sweden) sent a 1000 queens to help and a British program to make things easier for them seems to have worked. While honey bees are great there are many flowers they skip so a mix of wild bees and butterflies are important. A bumble bee pollinates 10 times as many flowers as a honey bee. I used to forage a lot when I was younger, particularly different mushrooms, berries and wild leeks (who grow near the ocean) but I gotten a bit lazy so now I mainly pick some blueberries and black berries. As long as you know what you are doing it is a pretty nice hobby, some exercise, fresh air and something good to eat. You do need to hunt a bit as well to survive though, I don't think being a vegetarian hunter-gatherer is feasible. Some meat or fish is more or less required to get enough calories and protein.

The only real way to live off the land is to learn from a homesteader that has already made all the mistakes and being in Canada 🇨🇦 I would definitely need to learn canning and food storage techniques from 100 years ago.

atomic shrimp, do you sell merch? i would love to own a shirt or something relating to your youtube channel. your videos bring me so much joy and i always learn something new! very grateful to have found your channel back in 2019 and very grateful to still be here today waiting for every upload :)

I have shepherd's purse in my garden and have been trying to identify what it was. So thanks for mentioning that.

Another great piece of content and some 'food' for thought. I think the progression from day to day foraging to a more planned harvested/stored approach is evident from what we know about about our ancestors. Digging up roots and tubers would have been part of that food gathering which, as mentioned, needs to adhere to current laws, etc these days. (In a post apocalyptic world they would go out of the window!) 'Road kill' will have been part of the diet and, it has to be said, cannibalism would have been on the menu! I've tasted a raw sloe - f*ck me they are sharp! - but our ancestors might have found them 'refreshing'