Vickie Shufer - The Foragers Handbook: A Seasonal Guide to Harvesting Wild, Edible & Medicinal Plants

Copyright 2022 by Vickie Shufer

Illustrations copyright 2022 by Vickie Shufer

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by David Ter-Avanesyan

Cover photos by Evan Rhodes

Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-6786-7

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-6787-4

Printed in China

Dedicated to Jim Duke, who introduced me to the world of medicinal plants and changed my life forever.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

Foraging behavior is a trait of the human species.

The Origins of Human Diet and Medicine

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live a lifestyle of gathering wild plants growing around you and using them on a daily basis as your food and medicine? Or to go to the fields or swamps to gather a particular herb to treat a common ailment rather than a drugstore? The Foragers Handbook serves as a guide for living this lifestyle and provides the link between people and plants. Learn what plants to gather, when to harvest, what plants can be used for, and how to prepare them.

Foraging has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. As a young child growing up on a farm in rural Kentucky, we gathered wild berries in the summer and harvested nuts in the fall. Winter was spent sitting around the wood stove cracking and shelling nuts. I was initially intrigued by the wild flavors but more importantly that you could go to the woods or fields to find a snack to eat without having to go to the store.

In my college years I took a number of botany classes, including one on poisonous and edible plants. I soon realized that there were far more wild edible plants and flavors than I had previously known, and I began experimenting in the kitchen to develop my own recipes.

For years people asked me if I also made medicine. I always responded that I would rather eat than be sick until I heard Dr. James Dukes presentation on medicinal herbs at a wildflower symposium in the early 1990s. It was then that I realized food can be medicine and medicine can be food. You dont have to wait to get sick to use herbs. Using wild herbs as a part of your daily diet can enhance wellness and prevent illness before it happens.

Meeting Dr. James Duke changed my perspective on plants. I became a follower of Duke and attended many of his classes and workshops. Eventually I went back to school at Maryland University of Integrative Health and got my masters degree in therapeutic herbalism.

This book is a culmination of all that Ive learned and shows you how to live the way of the forager throughout the year. In the spring are the greens, providing us with essential vitamins and nutrients. At the hottest, driest time of the year, we get sweet, juicy fruits to hydrate and strengthen us. In the fall are starchy roots and nuts that can be dried and stored for the winter to provide fat and protein. We get what we need when we need it and there is always something available. When the earth provides, the benefits are many.

References

Johns, T. (1996). The origins of human diet and medicine . Tucson, AZ: The University of Arizona Press.

PART 1

FORAGING AS A LIFESTYLE

Living the life of a forager is to live a life connected to plants and spending a lot of time outdoors. A forager follows the cycles and knows when the first plants emerge in the spring, when they bloom and produce fruit, and when they die back and go to seed.

A forager also spends a lot of time in the kitchen cleaning, processing, and preparing the harvest for food and medicine. This is where the magic happens. It is a form of alchemy, transforming plain and simple ingredients into a wonderful gourmet dish or a magical remedy for some ailment. The kitchen is like a chemistry lab where you mix and blend chemicals (in this case, phytochemicals) to get a final product.

Wild plants are a part of a foragers daily diet. When an ailment presents itself, a forager goes to the herbal apothecary to get the remedy. Using herbs in your daily diet is a way of preventing illness. Dont wait until you get sick to use herbs.

CHAPTER ONE

CONNECTING WITH NATURE

People-Plant Relationships

Dr. James Duke once told me that our genes evolve with the plants growing around us, and those are the plants we should eat. In other words, plants have developed mechanisms for dealing with environmental stresses over time, such as secondary metabolites, phytochemicals that protect the plant and may be expressed in the color, shape, smell, or taste of the plant. Many of these secondary metabolites are medicine for people, who have to deal with the same environmental stresses as the plants. The plants growing around us, and especially the wild plants, are our medicine and what we should be eating.

HOMEOSTASIS

Homeostasis is a case of mind-body interaction that enables the body to heal itself through the use of needed phytochemicals to bring the body back into healthy balance. Our bodies are able to pick and choose those phytochemicals that are needed and discard the rest through the process of elimination (Duke, 2007).

Herbs and wild food are a mix of thousands of phytochemicals that have biological activities that have coevolved with our bodies for thousands of years. Our body has evolved with the wild diet that our ancestors consumed rather than the processed diet and synthetic pharmaceuticals that have been with us for less than two hundred years. Your ancestors genes are the ones that your body recognizes, so your diet should include plants from your ancestors countries of origin. Many of these phytochemicals are medicinal and essential for life. The herbs have a menu of phytochemicals that your body recognizes and is able to use them when they are needed, eliminating those it does not need (Duke, 2007).