Eat Weeds: A Field Guide to Foraging: How to Identify, Harvest, Eat and Use Wild Plants

A guide to finding, identifying, and eating wild plants. Essential for anyone interested in reviving the lost art of foraging.

For thousands of years, and as recently as three generations ago, it was common practice all over the world to collect wild food; knowledge of what, when, and where to forage was a necessary part of daily life. Few people today have experience harvesting wild food with their own hands, and with the advent of supermarket culture, monocultural systems of food production, and escalating urbanization, foraging knowledge has largely been lost.

But now there is a desire to learn how to forage once again for health and economic reasons as well as pleasure. From forest to seaside and from riverbank to city street―even your own backyard―there is wild food and medicine available to those who know what to look for. In the face of global challenges, such as climate change, food security, and pandemics, people seek to empower themselves with the information and skills that bring self-reliance and equip them to care for their families and communities. Now available as a flexibound book, Eat Weeds shows readers how to engage with wild food sources through identification guides and with twenty recipes for food and remedies. It’s time to reconnect with the stories of our ancestors and care for local ecologies while transforming our neighborhoods into edible adventures. Including helpful illustrations throughout, this engaging book gives readers the tools they need to forage edible plants.

Illustrated in color throughout

Diego Bonetto runs foraging workshops that teach participants how to engage with delicious wild food while starting conversations around belonging, sustainability, and agency. He has collaborated with chefs, herbalists, environmentalists, and cultural workers. He is also an artist passionate about using his practice to return botanical literacy to communities. Diego has been featured by Marie Claire, GQAustralia, Lonely Planet, The Sydney Morning Herald, and ABC, among other media outlets.