Nourishment

Eating the Wild

~ Nicholas Tippins
Photo by Daniel Beilinson
Photo by Daniel Beilinson

The following is an excerpt from Stephen Harrod Buhner’s The Secret Teachings of Plants.

One of our greatest fears is to eat the wildness of the world.

Our mothers intuitively understood something essential: the green is poisonous to civilization. If we eat the wild, it begins to work inside us, altering us, changing us. Soon, if we eat too much, we will no longer fit the suit that has been made for us. Our hair will begin to grow long and ragged. Our gait and how we hold our body will change. A wild light begins to gleam in our eyes. Our words start to sound strange, nonlinear, emotional. Unpractical. Poetic.

Once we have tasted this wildness, we begin to hunger for a food long denied us, and the more we eat of it the more we will awaken.

It is no wonder that we are taught to close off our senses to Nature.

Through these channels, the green paws of Nature enter into us, climb over us, search within us, find all our hiding places, burst us open, and blind the intellectual eye with hanging tendrils of green.

The terror is an illusion, of course. For most of our million years on this planet human beings have daily eaten the wild. It’s just that the linear mind knows what will happen if you eat it now.

But we’ve gone astray with this, distracted from our task. Still, it’s a good reminder. When your hair begins to grow long and you think strange thoughts, sometimes you will wonder what is happening and will become afraid.

In Nature, human markers fade, lose significance. It takes awhile to learn the old markers again, to see the path that ancient humans took before us. In kindness, learn how to comfort yourself, to hold yourself as you would a child that is afraid of the light. (I suppose you could learn the poisonous plants first if you need to; there aren’t very many.) For on this journey, you mostly have yourself for company.

It helps if you become your own best friend
and find out what is true about all this for yourself.
Open the door and take a look around outside.
The air is shining there,
and there are wonders,
more wonderful than words can tell.

Food Nannying For the Poor? Restrictions on Organic and Healthy Food in Food Assistance

~ Nicholas Tippins ~ 2 Comments
wisconsin organic food choices restricted for WIC and food assistance.
Food assistance program. Photo by USDA.

Wisconsin’s Women, Infants and Children’s Program “Approved Foods” brochure is cheerfully decorated with stock photos of vegetables and smiling children. Inside is a well-intentioned (or well lobbied) and utterly misguided attempt to… what? Help people? Make sure those in food assistance programs eat healthy food? Or cheaper food? Continue reading →

Wild Food for Busy People: Easy Ways To Include Wild Food In Your Diet

~ Nicholas Tippins

Walking into the field with a shovel. Cold hands on the smooth wooden handle. You are warmed by the smell of earth as you dig. Hands plunge into chill earth, searching with strong fingers. Finally, you clutch the wise burdock root, and you feel somehow compelled to bow.

Easy Ways to Add Wild Food to Your Diet
Salad of Romaine lettuce and wild Toothwort, Purple Dead Nettle and Redbud flowers. Photo by Jay Sturner.

There is something to be said for taking one’s time with plants. They offer so much more to our psyches than most of us living a modern lifestyle can comprehend. Watching a plant through all of its seasons, befriending the little star lady Chickweed and allying yourself with Burdock’s ancient wisdom. There is nothing to describe the joy. It is something like coming home.

But not everyone is up for harvesting burdock, or even devoting much of their busy lives to foraging. Continue reading →

Pickle By Pickle: Interview with Kelley Hillis

~ Nicholas Tippins ~ 1 Comment

Photo by Jonathan Pielmayer

I met Kelley on a chilly morning at her booth at the Saratoga Springs farmer’s market in New York. Pickles and ferments with colorful labels shouted to me from the table. Kelley was deeply engaged in a conversation about health and nourishment, and–despite the cold–I stopped and edged in closer. I eventually asked her if she would continue the conversation with me, and with you. Here is what she said. Continue reading →

Dangers of the Raw Food Diet

~ Nicholas Tippins ~ 1 Comment
Photo by Leonie Wise

This is a guest post by my mother, Prudence Tippins.

 Nicholas asked recently why I’m no longer a raw vegan.  It’s a complicated subject for me, and one I’m hesitant to summarize simply.  I loved eating raw food.  I did it exclusively for almost ten years.  There were so many benefits, which I feel compelled to list here again:

  • a hugely improved immune system
  • lowered cholesterol for my husband, Steve (95 points, which kept him off Lipitor)
  • brighter eyes, shinier hair, clearer skin
  • automatic weight control (not too fat, not too thin)
  • a feeling of being close to God
  • a consistent feeling of happiness and good will

But, as it turns out, it stopped working for me right around the decade mark. Continue reading →

Spring Greens in Spring Green

~ Nicholas Tippins ~ 1 Comment
IMG_3020
The Land in Spring Green, Wisconsin

“Spring” is the perfect word. That’s just what the forest floor does, popping may apples and wood violets from the formerly barren, leaf-strewn earth. We’ve had a few cold snaps, windy days, and even some snow (which is to be expected in Wisconsin in April), but now that May has arrived, it appears that Spring is here to stay. Nevertheless, old-timers will tell you not to count on it until May has ended, for a check of old weather reports says the last frost isn’t until the end of this month.

Regardless of the risk–or even because of it–plants surge up towards the ample sunlight, gathering nourishment from the earth and sky, readying themselves for the frosts, heat, insects, and foraging humans that will come their way, hoping (I imagine) to live long enough to be pollinated and produce offspring. Continue reading →