Can You Really Live on Wild Food? Robin Greenfield Is! | Food Freedom

Year of Plenty: Traditional Foodways

Year of Plenty: Traditional Foodways
Can You Really Live on Wild Food? Robin Greenfield Is! | Food Freedom
Jan 06, 2026
Poldi Wieland, Robin Greenfield

This episode is a conversation with Robin Greenfield, activist, forager, and author of Food Freedom. Robin has spent years experimenting with what it means to step outside the industrial food system, first by growing and foraging all of his food for a year, and now by eating only wild food. In this conversation, we explore what food freedom actually looks like in practice, the role of community, and why food sits at the center of ecological and personal resilience.

Episode Overview:

  • Robin’s background and journey away from the industrial food system
  • Why food became the central focus of his activism and life experiments
  • What “food freedom” meant during his year of growing and foraging all of his food
  • The real challenges of food freedom, including time, processing, and preservation
  • Why community support is essential for living closer to the land
  • What motivated Robin to take the next step and eat only wild food for an entire year
  • How he plans calories, protein, fat, and nutrients on a wild food diet
  • Key wild food staples including wild rice, venison, fish, nuts, fruits, greens, and herbs
  • The hardest parts of eating wild food, including fat scarcity and food storage mistakes
  • How seasonality and travel shape his wild food strategy
  • Ethical foraging and reciprocity, including harvesting invasive species
  • Why learning individual plants matters more than following blanket foraging rules
  • How foraging can deepen connection, purpose, and gratitude for the natural world
  • Practical advice for beginner foragers who want to start building food resilience

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