Free lunch from nature as long as we control our appetites?

[rmbriar]

Hi folks,

I will be giving a speech at a UK public speaking competition soon. From the title statements provided I have chosen:

"Nature provides a free lunch as long as we can control our appetites."

I have an idea of how I will construct my argument, but I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions on this, as I am sure there are many varied ones on BCUK concerning thistopic.

Thanks in anticipation,

Rab

[British Red]

My opinion?

If everyone in the UK foraged Lunch, the country would be stripped clean in a week. There is less than an acre apiece!

Red

[rmbriar]

My thoughts are similar Red, there is a clear line separating foragers and ravagers

[southey]

Nature provides for those willing to take, and put the effort in to get there first.

[British Red]

Also sadly too many of us on a little island.

We can only survive here because we use fossil fuels to grow intensively (in the form of both feriliser and diesel) and supplement our food with more imported in.

I would love to live somewhere less "intense" where we had plenty of land and less people per resource. Then we could really forage

Oh another thought ......Nature just gives, it gives food and poison, appetite and parasite. The art of foraging is knowing the difference!

[Thenihilist]

A lot of what i eat is foraged simply because i have almost zero income.

People always avoid bugs, when you get passed how they look they are amazingly tasty, worms are a favourite, they are very nutritious and taste very good as is the same with a lot of other bugs.

Bugs are my main source of foraged or trapped food, i go camping 3 days a week and set up 50 or 60 snares but TBH i'm lucky to take 2 rabbits a week due to location.

Greens are available in quantity, fruits are also available in quantity and i have nearly 40 jars of jam made.

Winter is another story though.

The plan for next year is to go for a 100% foraged diet, considering around 60% of my food is foraged i think it's attainable.

However if everyone was doing it it would be difficult.

[rmbriar]

Inspiring, thanks very much Thenihilist

[robin wood]

Funny that most have taken "nature" to mean hunter gathering, to me we are part of nature and farming just as "natural" as hunter gathering. I would look at the question globally rather than locally or nationally. All our lives have global impact and that global impact is beginning to feed back and impact locally.
Gandhi summed it up well
"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed"

[rmbriar]

Quite right, the issue of logging is destroying a collective part of our planet, which in turn hinders a forest's ability to decrease the damage of Co2 on the outer layer, so it could be argued that some parts of the world are a little "too hungry" in terms of taking from nature

[sandbender]

What British Red said, if everyone in the UK was forced to start foraging for their food right now, folks would be eating each other by next week.

I think farming can be every bit as 'natural' as the hunter gatherer life, however farming without modern machinery and fertilisers will not feed us all.

[Martyn]

Free lunch from nature? At a push, perhaps, but you'd need to look elsewhere for breakfast, dinner and supper.

My opinion?

If everyone in the UK foraged Lunch, the country would be stripped clean in a week. There is less than an acre apiece!

Red

Agreed. Quite a bit less actually. Of the 56,000,000 acres, only 75% is arable, making about 42,000,000 acres of usable farmland or about 0.64 acres each. That's farmland (which needs farming), not rich foraging woodland.

[Ivan...]

May be a little off topic, but when we were kids 4 of us decided to live off the land for a weekend, its so long ago it wont matter so much , my mum dropped us in a small village in Devon,where we had permission from a local farmer to camp we had a family tent and a sleeping bag each and that was it .

After a couple of hours falling out trying to erect the tent, sitting in it talking rubbish , it was time to go on the big forage as we were all getting hungry.
Obviously as inexperienced 15 year olds , apart from blackberries and apples from the local orchard, we were stumped miserable and hungry .

Anyway as the evening drew on , wandering around the village , we stumbled across an allotment , brilliant everything you could think all manor of fruit and veg, we even managed to get drunk for the first time in our lives , courtesy of booze in the allotment sheds !!

Well what a weekend , this living off the land lark was easy , up at 5 milk , bread , orange juice even clotted cream for breakfast ! just followed the nice milkman around and relieved various doorsteps of produce.
So athough not so easy in 2011, it once could be done !!

Ps a big apology to the good folk of Denbury , oh yeah and the unigate milkman ...

[robin wood]

We all do receive our free lunch from nature, the most urbanised city dwellers still rely on nature for their food and to dispose of their waste, we are all animals. The question is are we taking too much too fast, is the current rate of consumption sustainable? and if not then how do we get from here to a situation that is sustainable? I believe it is possible and absolutely necessary and the best bit is I believe that a sustainable future can be enjoyable too, it's not all about giving up fun stuff like petrol thirsty cars, it's about concentrating on the stuff that really makes life worth living.

[rmbriar]

Guys, great feedback, its really helpful to get different viewpoints, keep them coming

Rab

[Ivan...]

Not quite living from the land , but our local Marks and Spencer used to discount food products late in the day particularly on a Sat as they closed on a Sun, they dont now they offer it free to staff, and then throw it in their wheeled bin with a lid , purely full of sealed foodstuffs, it has become such a popular way of foraging they now lock the lid ! shame on them , i would have thought that they relinquished all responsibility once discarded, and you could live like a lord , on foodstuffs your average family could not afford ! another example of the crazy world we live in !!

Ps i think it was the skip company that highlighted what was going on , as their revenue was affected because joe public was emptying it ..

I will shut up now !

[Martyn]

I think there is an important distinction between foraging and theft. Poaching the occasional bunny might pass, but taking food from allotments, doorsteps and skips, isn't foraging.

[Ivan...]

Very valid point Martyn, as the camping trip was 35 years ago , and was just 4 kids having a bit of fun, don't exactly think it was that criminal .
I wish it was the worst thing i did as a youngster , was just trying to add my little bit to the chat . Apologies if it caused offence.

[Martyn]

We all do receive our free lunch from nature, the most urbanised city dwellers still rely on nature for their food and to dispose of their waste, we are all animals. The question is are we taking too much too fast, is the current rate of consumption sustainable? and if not then how do we get from here to a situation that is sustainable? I believe it is possible and absolutely necessary and the best bit is I believe that a sustainable future can be enjoyable too, it's not all about giving up fun stuff like petrol thirsty cars, it's about concentrating on the stuff that really makes life worth living.

In the year 1 AD, there were 250 million people on the planet. In the year 2000 AD, there were 9000 million. That kind of population growth is unsustainable.

[Martyn]

Very valid point Martyn, as the camping trip was 35 years ago , and was just 4 kids having a bit of fun, don't exactly think it was that criminal .
I wish it was the worst thing i did as a youngster , was just trying to add my little bit to the chat . Apologies if it caused offence.

Didn't mean to be critical, we were all kids once. Just that I'm not sure it can be used as valid content for a talk on the subject of foraging from natures larder.

[Harvestman]

Not sure about the 'free lunch' bit. Nature provides, whether wild or farmed, but it isn't free. Look at the effort that goes into farming. Even all of the discussion around foraged food, which is usually perceived as free, involves a cost in terms of time gathering, travel to your foraging location, and the time spent gaining the knowledge to know what you can forage and where to find it.

I have collected a huge quantity of chestnuts today, more than I ever have before, but I had to take the car to get to the site, spend a long time actually collecting the things (back-aching work, not to mention the scratches and prickles that are inevitable in any forage), and then get home again. If I'd bought the same from a shop it would cost me money, but would have been much quicker and less painful, and I would have had the time to do something else instead.

I think it is about choosing which costs you want to pay.

[blacktimberwolf]

"Nature provides a free lunch as long as we can control our appetites.

Nature may provide, but it isn't destined for us & our appetites are as unsatiable as our desire to breed.

[Laughoutlouder]

Quite right, the issue of logging is destroying a collective part of our planet, which in turn hinders a forest's ability to decrease the damage of Co2 on the outer layer, so it could be argued that some parts of the world are a little "too hungry" in terms of taking from nature

Agreed Rmbriar, some parts of the world are a little "too hungry". With regard to logging though, we (the developed peoples of the world) chopped our forests ages ago and took advantage of these resources. Who are we now to tell developing countries not to do as we have done?

There needs to be an alternative for these peoples available whereby they recieve some reward for maintaining these globally relevant forests for the entire planet.

This reward needs to come from us!

[udamiano]

From an academic point of view, why not take 0.64 acres of the most profitable wood /farmland you can find and each day write in a diary what you could take from that patch to keep yourself alive, forget water, just food. you wouldn't need to actually take anything, but only list what is actually found in that plot , nothing more. your not allowed to introduce fertilisers, pesticides, etc just what is in the plot each day you visit, calculate based on a daily average in calories and see if the sheets balance. would be an interesting experiment, and topic for your talk

[greensurfingbear]

Not sure about the 'free lunch' bit. Nature provides, whether wild or farmed, but it isn't free. Look at the effort that goes into farming. Even all of the discussion around foraged food, which is usually perceived as free, involves a cost in terms of time gathering, travel to your foraging location, and the time spent gaining the knowledge to know what you can forage and where to find it.

I have collected a huge quantity of chestnuts today, more than I ever have before, but I had to take the car to get to the site, spend a long time actually collecting the things (back-aching work, not to mention the scratches and prickles that are inevitable in any forage), and then get home again. If I'd bought the same from a shop it would cost me money, but would have been much quicker and less painful, and I would have had the time to do something else instead.

I think it is about choosing which costs you want to pay.

Totally agree with that point....just because you didn't pay in cash don't mean you ain't paying for it.


Orric

[robin wood]

Agreed Rmbriar, some parts of the world are a little "too hungry". With regard to logging though, we (the developed peoples of the world) chopped our forests ages ago and took advantage of these resources. Who are we now to tell developing countries not to do as we have done?

There needs to be an alternative for these peoples available whereby they recieve some reward for maintaining these globally relevant forests for the entire planet.

This reward needs to come from us!

To be honest I would not mind as much if I thought the logging companies were local initiatives being paid a fair price. I suspect the norm is that they are multinationals and paying a fraction of the true worth. As with fossil carbons we treat global assets as if they were income and if you realise that these things are in fact assets then the folk who are currently getting rich are simply cashing in the family silver to the detriment of their children and grandchildren.
I agree the solution has to come from the West in the form of changed consumption. We need to pay for what we value, stop buying cheap disposable BBQs, palm oil, plywood etc.

[Martyn]

From an academic point of view, why not take 0.64 acres of the most profitable wood /farmland you can find and each day write in a diary what you could take from that patch to keep yourself alive, forget water, just food. you wouldn't need to actually take anything, but only list what is actually found in that plot , nothing more. your not allowed to introduce fertilisers, pesticides, etc just what is in the plot each day you visit, calculate based on a daily average in calories and see if the sheets balance. would be an interesting experiment, and topic for your talk

The problem with the 0.64 acres each, is that huge chunks of that are Scottish hillside and moorland, which is only really suitable for sheep, bunnies, moorhens and Scotsmen. It wouldn't take long to eat through that - though I'm told Scotsmen can be a bit chewy.

Of the remaining land, most is either pasture or planted cereal crops. Again, once you've eaten your way through the farm animals and bunnies, there is not much left. To forage, you need a mixed landscape with plenty of woodland and there is far, far less than 0.64 acres each. Not sure how much woodland is in private hands in the UK, but most of it is state owned and there is 637000 acres of that. Lets be (very) generous and double that for an estimate of total UK woodland at 1.3 million acres. That's 0.02 acres of woodland, or about 870 square foot - or a 30' by 30' slice each. Remember, that's being generous. You'd eat that dry of every squirrel, mushroom, berry, nut and nettle in a single day.

Even if every bit of farmland, moor and hillside in the UK was magically converted to woodland to give us the 0.64 acres each, the daily tally thing still wouldn't be viable, because each day you'd be removing from it, without putting anything back. It would still only last a few days before everything edible was raped out of your 0.64 acres.