This modern-day forager hasn’t bought any food for almost a year

By Sarah Ward via SWNS

A herbalist gave up shopping on Black Friday after being sickened by consumerism - and has spent nearly a year foraging and surviving on wild food.

Mom-of-three Monica Wilde, 57, lived in Nairobi, Kenya, as a child and learned about herbal remedies from the Kikuyu tribe.

She trained as a scenic artist and worked in London, UK, before moving to St. Vincent in the Caribbean where she sold t-shirts on the beach and tried her hand at graphic design.

After getting divorced she moved to Edinburgh, Scotland with her children, and for 15 years has taught foraging as well as running a Lyme disease clinic.

Last November after becoming disheartened with mass consumerism for Black Friday she decided to give up shops and farmed food altogether.

She bought a secondhand fridge/freezer to store excess plants she picked and traded stuff in exchange for meat.

Since Black Friday, November 27, 2020, she has been to the shops twice - once to buy cat food when her cat was unwell, and once to buy supplies for an event she was organizing.

She said: "You don't have to have a university degree to do it, if you can tell the difference between cabbage and lettuce you can do foraging.

"You can't eat like a vegan with foraging, I have to eat rabbit, geese, ducks – at Christmas, I had a deer which had been culled.

"The rule still is that I'm not allowed to buy food."

Monica Wilde in Scotland

Monica Wilde's storage jars

Rosemary found in Scotland

Herbalist and forager Monica Wilde

Edible plants found by Monica Wilde in Scotland

Edible plants found by Monica Wilde in Scotland

Vegetables freshly picked by Monica Wilde

Jars of dried plants

Monica Wilde

Edible plants picked by Monica Wilde in Scotland

Herbalist and forager Monica Wilde

Herbalist and forager Monica Wilde with wild mushrooms

Monica Wilde

Monica Wilde fishing

"I had to build a community of people who would be willing to give me the things I needed by trading and swapping.

"I've got more energy now from eating meat - farmers do cull animals so they can grow vegetables.

"At Christmas, I was eating deer which had been killed for raising sprouts.

"When we die, we become food for a whole host of bacteria and fungi."

She had to purchase an extra fridge freezer and said: "The ancient people didn't have those, but I buy all my electricity from green suppliers so I don't feel too bad."

In the past year, Monica has seen her weight reduce by over 30 pounds and says she is now the same size she was in her 30s.

And having adult children has given her the freedom to try out an idea she had always been asked about by friends - whether she could survive living entirely on wild food.

She has a MA in herbal medicine and also runs a busy clinic treating patients with Lyme disease but spends several hours a week foraging.

Monica, who lives in West Lothian, Scotland added: "It depends what's in season, it doesn't take as long as an office job.

"I go where the food is.

"If I need seaweed I go to the sea, if I need mushrooms I go to the woods."

Her foraged highlights have been dandelion roots but she also loves chanterelles, and wild strawberries after not having had any fresh fruit since crab apples in March.

She said: "I love them roasted with a tiny drizzle of birch sap syrup over the top of them, they are delicious.

"They are quite bitter, but cooking them that way, they are just really great."

Originally from south London, UK she moved to Africa as a child because of her dad's job and lived by herself at the age of 16.

"If you appreciate the plants and depend on them for food then you are going to make sure that the environment is tended and looked after year on year.

"It's a two-way relationship, we all live on a planet where everything is interconnected, you can't ever think of nature as something separate unless you want to live in concrete boxes on Mars and if you do, please hurry up and go.

"I don't despair at the world or humanity but I despair at politicians.

"I'm just astonished that in the planet's hour of need we have such a bunch of immature self-centered egotists."

Monica encourages people to leave every piece of non-biodegradable packaging at the checkout in grocery stores.

She believes if everyone did that: "It wouldn't take long before supermarkets would change to renewable packaging.

"If we want something to happen fast, as individuals, we need to take some responsibility for what we consume.

"It's good to feel hungry as it makes you appreciate things a bit more."