Growing and Foraging 100% of My Food - No Grocery Stores for a Year!

It's the dream of millions of people.

Complete self sufficiency.

To grow all of their own food and never

have to take a trip to the grocery store.

But for most people, it's just that, a
dream.

The ease of our current global, industrial

food system is just that, too easy.

Too convenient. Too time saving and too
alluring.

I've been exploring food for nearly a
decade,

and since the beginning, I've had the
burning question-

Could I step outside of the Big Ag system?

Could I go without grocery stores and
restaurants?

Nothing packaged or processed,

nothing shipped from a far off place.

Could I grow and forage 100% of my food,

everything that I ate, for an entire year?

That's exactly the journey and the quest

that I decided to set out on

and now I am here to share the story with
you.

(music)

(music abruptly stops) But one big thing-

I had very little experience with growing
my own food.

When I lived in San Diego I did have a

few raised beds where I grew some greens,

tomatoes and herbs but as a traveller for

the last seven or so years, I had never

really settled in one place long enough to

grow my own food.

So, in order to do this I would have to

settle in one place.

And that place that I chose is Orlando,
Florida,

where I am sitting right now.

Besides being really fresh to growing my
own food,

I was also fresh to the scene here in
Orlando, in Florida.

And I was giving myself just two years

here before hitting the road again.

So I had to get planting as soon as I
landed here.

But I didn't have a garden, I didn't own

any land, and I had almost no experience

with foraging in the state of Florida.

I chose Florida so that I could grow food
year round.

And I chose Orlando because I had passed

through here a few times and met a great

community of permaculturists and people
who grow their own food.

Specifically, I chose the community of
Audubon Park

because that's where Orlando permaculture

and my friends at Fleet Farming were based

and there was already a movement here of

turning front yards into gardens.

So I would have the support I needed in
order to do it here.

I quickly got to work meeting people in my

neighborhood and proposing the idea to

them of turning their front lawns into
gardens.

It really wasn't hard to find takers

because it was a pretty sweet deal.

Their boring lawn would be turned into a

garden, I'd do almost all of the work,

cover the costs and they could eat all the

food they liked right from their front
yard.

In fact, I quickly had a list of lawns

longer than I could handle.

The transformation was amazingly quick

and within just a few months, I was

growing more food than I could eat,
myself,

and sharing it with friends in the
neighborhood.

I ended up creating six small plots

all within easy cycling distance of each
other.

I was just figuring out what I was doing
the whole time.

I went to local meet ups like Orlando
Permaculture,

volunteered in the garden with Fleet
Farming,

visited farms, and gardens and nurseries,

took foraging classes with local foragers,

like Green Deane, read books by local

growers, and watched videos online, and
more.

For a place to live, I built a simple,

tiny house homestead in the backyard of a

community member that I met.

And in exchange for using their space,

I turned their monoculture of grass into
an at home supermarket.

Starting from scratch, it took me ten

months to be comfortable and ready to
begin my year.

November 11th, 2018 would be my first
day.

It was now time to eat 100% from my

gardens and food that I would forage.

Now, when I say 100% I truly mean it.

No grocery stores or restaurants.

No drinks at a bar.

Nothing packaged or processed.

Nothing shipped long distances.

No farmer's markets.

Not even going over to my friend's pantry

or even going to their gardens or their
food forests.

Why not share food from my friends'
gardens?

Because I wanted to truly immerse in my
food.

I wanted to have to have to literally

figure out how to grow every single food

or ingredient that I needed or how to
source it from nature.

Many people know me for my dumpster diving

to raise awareness about food waste.

And a lot of people who follow me online

assumed that I would still be eating from
dumpsters.

But, nope! No food from dumpster diving
at all!

I had already proved to myself that

I could live off of the waste of our
globalized food system.

Now it was time to see if I could step

away from that completely.

That included everything that I put in my
body.

Even supplements, vitamins and medicines.

Now, you'd think on day one, that maybe

I'd have eaten a lot of 100% homegrown and
foraged meals,

but to be honest, my first meal on day
one,

was my first 100% homegrown and foraged
meal of my entire life.

It was day one and I was in the deep end.

But I had laid the foundation that I
needed.

My gardens, scattered across the

neighborhood, were full of food

and I had scouted out food, both in the

city and the countryside, to forage.

My supermarket was on nearly every street

I could walk down and the shelves were
stocked.

Over the last 365 days I grew and

harvested over 100 different foods from my
gardens

and foraged over 200 different foods from
nature.

That's a new species for almost every

single day of the year.

I grew a dozen different greens packed
with nutrients.

Moringa,

katuk,

chaya, purslane,

collards, kale,

and perennial spinaches, just to name
a few.

I grew sweet potatoes, cassava and yams

for my main caloric needs.

Pigeon peas and southern peas for
protein.

Delicious fruits like papayas and bananas.

Seminole pumpkins, carrots, eggplants,

just to name a few vegetables.

And garlic, onion, peppers and many
herbs

to add flavour and nutrition to all of my
meals.

And I raised bees for honey to satisfy my
sweet tooth.

Which, believe me, I do have quite the
sweet tooth.

All of the bees that I stewarded were

rescued with my friend, Dennis the bee
guy,

from locations where people didn't want
them living

such as in the side of their homes.

I harvested giant wild yams from the
woods.

Picked coconuts to make coconut milk,

butter and coconut curries.

Foraged from fruit trees in the wild,

growing in public parks and in the city,

with the bounty of fruit falling onto the
sidewalks.

And, of course, wild bananas, too.

I caught fish from the oceans, lakes and
rivers.

And even harvested deer that had been hit

by cars during my visit to Wisconsin.

I harvested over 20 species of mushrooms
in the woods.

Picked nutritious plants that people call
weeds,

that they walk by, unknowingly, or even

constantly battle with in their yards and
gardens.

My caffeine came from the native Yaupon
holly tree

that I made a tea from.

And I even harvested my own sea salt from

the ocean by collecting the water, boiling

it down in a pot, until I was left with

just the sea salt for my meals.

I grew and foraged all of my own medicine

and vitamins, too.

I grew fresh turmeric and ginger in my
gardens.

Foraged elderberries from the wild.

I harvested reishi mushrooms and herbal
teas.

And grew moringa, also known as the

vitamin tree, to make an easy to travel

with multi vitamin powder.

But most importantly, my food was my
medicine.

It's a different way of thinking for most

people, but even the weeds that grow just

outside of our doorstep, are some of the

most nutritionally and medicinally dense
plants on earth.

For the last year, nature has been my

garden, my pantry and my pharmacy.

With the seasons my foods varied greatly.

I cooked up dozens of different healthy
meals.

Fermented foods, like sauerkraut, with my

homegrown cabbage and herbs, and fermented

delicious beverages like honey wine and
ginger beer.

And whipped up delicious desserts,

and ate the healthiest food of my entire
life.

This was food that I could feel truly good
about eating.

It was all local, all natural and all
organic.

I made it through the entire year without

using a single pesticide.

Now sure, I had my problems with pests,

like when the cucumber worms decided to

attack my seminole pumpkins.

But when I was growing over 100 different

foods, if the pests were attacking 4 or 5

of them, I still had 95 other foods that
I could eat.

Just as importantly, though, I chose to

grow the plants that thrived in this
environment.

When I started, I didn't walk down the

aisles of the grocery store and ask which

foods that I liked the most.

Instead, I talked to local farmers and

gardeners and my permaculturist friends

and asked them what foods grow so

ridiculously well and so ridiculously

abundantly that I could hardly screw it
up.

And those are the plants that I chose to

focus on, and that's one of the main

things that got me through this year.

This was, without a doubt, one of the most

challenging things that I've ever done.

A year is a really long time and I had my

highs and my lows.

There were times when I felt my absolute
best,

and there were times when I just didn't

know if I could go on.

Generally, I did get enough food.

My weight stayed the same about the entire

time, so I did have enough calories.

But there were times when I felt like

I was really deficient, mostly in fat and
protein.

Those were the times when I found it

really hard to want to keep going.

And there was the social aspect.

I was on my own a lot of the times, not

able to join other people for their meals

and sort of isolated. Not being able to go

to restaurants or eat with friends and
family.

Overall, with all the ups and downs, the

year went about as well as I could have
possibly hoped.

I maintained my body weight throughout

the year and I never got sick once!

And I really attribute that to my food

being my medicine. I think that nature is

able to provide for our basic needs and

I trusted earth. I trusted nature.

Now, I want to say, though, that this

project, it wasn't really about my health.

It wasn't about a diet.

And I don't believe that this is the diet

for 7 billion people, I don't actually

think there is one diet for the 7 billion
people.

I think we live on a diverse world where

we have diverse cultures and people need

to do things in a very different way.

So I'm not trying to represent a diet for

everyone or anything like that.

This was just my own personal quest.

To see if I could step away from Big Ag.

Step away from what I see as a broken food
system.

And, instead, grow and forage 100% of my

own food for an entire year.

This project wasn't just about growing and

foraging all of my own food, though.

It was about empowering others

to grow their own food, to take back power

from Big Ag and, ultimately, to take back

their health and grow their communities.

So during this time I started a few

community initiatives.

We built 15 gardens for the people,

planted over 200 community fruit trees,

and sent out over 5,000 free seed packs

to help others grow their own organic,
healthy food.

And I taught dozens of free gardening

classes, in my gardens, to the people in
my community.

I'll be honest, though, I do have an
agenda.

I want you to question your food.

Where did it come from? How
was it grown?

How did it get to you? And what was

the impact that it had on the earth,

other species and the humans that
grow that food?

And if you don't like the answers that you
find,

I want to empower you to change them.

The good news, though, is that you don't

have to grow and forage all of your food.

The solutions are there in your
community.

You can grow a little bit of your own
food.

Maybe an herb garden on your window sill.

Or some pots of tomatoes and basil on your
balcony.

Or a raised bed in your front yard.

And if you don't have any space, at all,

you can join a community garden.

You can source your food locally.

And purchase from local farmers and
gardeners.

The farmer's market is a great place to
start.

You can buy whole foods and cook more,

rather than packaged, processed foods that

leave trash behind.

And you can work with your
community to

make healthy foods for people in need.

Grow a garden for your elderly neighbor,

or start a grass roots organization to

harvest the fruit trees in your community

to distribute it to others.

And this doesn't need to be a lonely
journey.

For most of us, food is at the center of
our lives.

And we can do this, together, in our
communities.

My year is over but my journey of food
has just begun.

A book is in the works and 100% of my

proceeds will be donated to organizations

working on the food solutions.

And I'll be here, online, sharing

inspiration and education on how you can

get involved in gaining food freedom.

(music)

My mouth is cold now.

(Muffled)...my own (laughs) medicine
and vitamins to...

(Laughing)

Alright make note of that (laughing)