5 Wild foods to restore lost nutrients

If there's one type of food that goes beyond organic, it’s wild food. Whether it is wild game, foraged plants, or wild-caught fish, foods from the wild offer nutrients we rarely get in our diet and put us more in touch with the land we live on. 

Most people will stick to farm animals and what grows in abundance under farming conditions, and very few people venture out into foraging their own food or living in greater connection to the land by eating wild game that was raised by nature locally to them, so what are these people who eat wild getting that you may not be? 

1. Game meat 

Wild animals are raised by nature in their true environment year-round; this often makes their meat far healthier than most conventionally farmed animals. They have eaten from untouched lands, roamed as they would have done hundreds of years ago and avoided any antibiotics or hormones that conventionally farmed animals receive regularly.

Wild game puts us closer to the hunter-gatherer; the meat we eat still carries the wild animal's energy. Wild animals are more closely connected to the land than farmed animals; they live alongside it, not just on it. Eating wild game also reconnects us with seasonal meat eating, which many have forgotten.

This isn’t to say wild game is better than well-sourced 100% grass-fed beef, but it does mean including some of this wild meat in your diet, whether that is venison, pheasant, rabbit, hare, duck, goose, pigeon, or boar, all of which are commonly eaten wild meats.

2. Nettle tea

Nettle is incredible for us, whether in tea or soup, delivering nutrients far fewer people get, such as silica and molybdenum. 

Silica supports connective tissue and collagen-rich areas of our body, such as hair, skin, nails, and bones/joints.

Molybdenum supports enzyme function and sulphite metabolism, which is key to detoxifying harmful compounds in the body. Nettle tea can also help lower histamine levels; for those with histamine intolerance or MCAS, this can help when consuming higher-histamine foods. 

Nettle is also abundant in both the UK and US, making it easy to forage and dry for home use. Putting you back in connection with the land around you. 

3. Wild berries 

From elderberries to rosehips and hawthorns, autumn wild berries are an incredible source of vitamin C and immune-system-boosting nutrients. 

Knowing what berries are growing around you and how to use them to make free food is deeply rewarding; we don’t need to constantly turn to shops or ship produce from overseas when it is literally on our doorstep. 

Again, seasonal eating is more important than most realise, and we aren’t meant to eat strawberries in the depth of winter. Foraging for local berries reminds you how few there will be in winter, but that only makes them more special when they return in spring. 

4. Mushrooms 

Most people eat mushrooms weekly, but few forage their own. Of course, you must know what you are doing to forage safely.

Mushrooms are a rich source of antioxidants, beta-glucans and polysaccharides. They can help boost our health in ways we would struggle to achieve with a standard diet without mushrooms. Mushrooms such as baby buttons can help bind and clear estrogen from the gut. 

Mushrooms such as lion’s mane and cordyceps can help brain function and blood flow. Always forage with an expert if you aren’t one yourself, and if none are near you, try sourcing wild-foraged mushrooms online.

5. Wild-caught fish 

The toxic conditions in which most farmed fish are raised have led many people to source only wild-caught fish, and rightly so; a healthier environment creates a healthier fish. But as we head into days of less sunlight and far less (if any) vitamin D from the sun, we must turn to our food to get this. One excellent source of vitamin D in the winter is wild-caught salmon. 

But that is not all, wild-caught sardines are also an excellent source of creatine, collagen, amino acids, and skin-boosting nutrients. Eating more wild-caught fish helps us more than most realise, and if you live near a lake or the sea, turning to catching your own can again put you closer in connection with the land you live on

Summary 

Including more wild food in your diet can improve your health and often shows you the abundance around you that you never realised was there to begin with. 

I suspect we do not yet know all the benefits of eating more wild meat or foraged goods, but we can make a pretty good guess. Adding more of these wild foods to your diet isn't just about the health benefits,  it's also about changing up your food sources and understanding the seasons that come with them, something we shouldn’t ignore.