5 tips to start foraging anywhere

THERE ARE MORE THAN 400,000 species of plants on earth, and at least half are suitable for human consumptionyet you'll find only a small portion at the grocery store.

- ANGELA HAUPT

That's part of the reason why Sam Thayer loves foraging. He started collecting wild food from the woods when he was a kid, and he still has cravings for delicacies he can't buy.

"Last year I gathered about 30 gallons of serviceberries"blueberry-like fruits that grow on trees and shrubs-"and I make fruit leather and eat it as a snack year-round," says Thayer, a naturalist who lives in Wisconsin, writes field guides, and posts on TikTok as Well Fed Wild. "I have about eight pounds of wapatoo, which is a tuber, in my pantry, and I grind it up into hot cereal for breakfast. I love it, and you can't buy it."

Foraging spiked in popularity during the pandemic, when people who felt unsafe going to the store discovered it was a fun way to collect healthy, nutrient-packed food from the great outdoors for free. It's possible to forage in all sorts of places, even cities: Thayer recalls an excellent salad he made out of leaves plucked from trees in Washington, D.C. Foragers have found a home on TikTok, where millions of people watch videos explaining how to harvest puffball mushrooms, gather and process black walnuts, and make wild-violet syrup.

We asked TikTok's most popular foragers to share their best tips on getting started.

1. Do your homework before setting out