The foods that sustain us are becoming less nutritious (via National Geographic), reduced to commodities and cheaply mass-produced to feed a growing global population of nearly 8 billion. Along the way, we’ve lost touch with the planet’s provisions. Yet real food — both nourishing and delicious — is often as close as our own neighborhoods, and our guest Valerie Segrest knows how to find it.

Valerie Segrest is an author, Native nutrition educator, and member of the Muckleshoot tribe. Her work focuses on foods that are endemic to North America. In the book Valerie co-authored with Indigenous Food Lab, Indigenous Home Cooking: Menus Inspired by the Ancestors, you’ll find wisdom about wild plants and familiar, accessible ingredients like bison, salmon, berries, squash, sweet potatoes, and more.

This episode will make you hungry for knowledge about the world around you. Valerie talks about the elusive and charismatic morel mushroom, the ubiquitous and recognizable dandelion, and the softer side of stinging nettles. She praises the nationwide movement of tribes restoring ecosystems in the form of fisheries management and other projects. You’ll learn about “weeds” that are both food and medicine, telling time according to nature’s rhythms, the many names for the moon, how there are never just four seasons, and sweet birthday gifts that make Valerie want to eat mountains. 

Valerie also underscores the importance of food sovereignty. This is crucial for Native communities, who are disproportionately affected by food insecurity and related health conditions, according to Feeding America.  Valerie’s efforts contribute to the reclamation of traditional foodways and the re-emergence of an Indigenous cuisine, in which local, seasonal, and sustainable ingredients are front and center. In a time when so much of our food comes from somewhere far away, honoring Indigenous foods is an action that all of us can take to recognize that we are still a part of nature — and always will be.