An eco-warrior who wanted to make a statement about peoples’ food choices challenged himself by building a house for less than £1200($1500) as well as growing and foraging for his own food for a year.

Rob Greenfield, 33, started his challenge on November 10, 2018, and saw him catching his own fish, foraging for berries, and basically living like our forebears.

Watch to meet the activist below.

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Video credit: Rumble

Rob, from Orlando, Florida, said that despite the challenge being over, he will continue foraging for food to help reduce plastic and food waste.

Rob said: “When I set out to do this, I wasn’t sure if it could be done, but I really wanted to find out.

“I have never met a human in our current society who lives independently of the globalized, industrialized food system.

“I’m standing here today, one year later, and I did it.

“Not only did I make it, but I feel healthier and happier than when I started.

“I maintained my weight – my body fat measurement is 15 percent, so plenty of fat on me and I didn’t get sick once.

“I expected it to be extremely difficult and it was, but no more than expected – my body feels about as good as I can recall in my adult life.

“This was my personal quest to see whether I could step away from my usual way of getting food and grow and forage every bite of my own – but at the same time I want to inspire others to question their food.”

Although he basically enjoyed free food for a year, he admits that most of the day was spent toward foraging for food.

He said: “I often worked 40 to 80 hours per week to plant, harvest and maintain the garden, foraged foods, cook, preserve and clean dishes.

“It’s safe to say it was a very demanding full-time endeavor.

“I often couldn’t take a true break from it, because if I did then I would either not have all the food I needed, or something would fall apart.

“I generally didn’t miss any particular food, but what I did miss was convenience.

“I missed having other people make meals for me and even more so just making meals with friends.

“I still did that sometimes as I had a lot of friends over for dinner, but I was sometimes socially isolated by how demanding this year was.”

In any case, Rob hopes that he can keep using the lessons he learned over the year in order to benefit the planet.

He said: “For the next year or two I intend to do a lot of traveling, which means I will not have my own garden.

“Everywhere I go I intend to forage whether it be the edible ‘weeds’ in people’s front yards or taking trips to the public parks or deeper nature.

“I will seek out local foragers who know the region who I can go out with and share the experience with.

“As much as this may seem like an individualistic project, it was all about community.

“I could not have done this without the support of the community – everything I learned came from people before me.

“It’s all about coming together as communities to care for one another and make sure that everyone has their basic needs met to live a happy and healthy life.”

 

Replaced!