‘Urban foraging helps in preserving uncultivated plants, greens’

The concept of urban foraging has always been part of the urban eco-system, but only in recent years, city dwellers started embracing it more. 

While working with adivasis and Dalit communities in rural Andhra Pradesh, Shruti Tharayil learned about wild plants and how they can be eaten. She started researching and learned more about forgotten greens and plants. 

The herbalist started documenting uncultivated greens on her social media page Forgotten Greens. Now, she is conducting online workshops, talks and walks to promote the idea of urban foraging.

“Urban foraging is foraging anything that grows wild in the urban ecosystem. It is actually a larger concept — one can forage fruits, wild fruits, wild pigment, etc. Through Forgotten Greens, I focus on uncultivated greens growing in urban areas and how to forage it mindfully and consciously. A lot of people are interested to learn about this but there are no proper avenues. That’s why I created an online platform for people to learn and share,” says Shruti.

She adds there is a misconception that there is no nature in cities, especially in India. 

“There is this narrative of how greenery and green patches are slowly disappearing from our cities. But if you start paying attention, you will see that there is a lot of nature in urban spaces. The problem is that it is not being recognised. One of the best ways to connect to your city is through the nature that it hosts — this includes trees and plants. Every tree in a city has a story to share and has some heritage importance. The same plants don’t grow in every city — different plants grow in different cities. That tells you a lot about the soil quality of the city, pollution, what people eat and even the food culture of the city. You can connect to your city on a deeper level once you start looking at what’s growing around you. The immediate eco-system can be your terrace garden, the food path next to our building, or an empty land that is unnoticed,” she adds.

Shruti tells us that communities that migrate from rural to urban spaces always forage. “These are marginalised communities who don’t live in high-rise buildings. You will find a lot of communities foraging greens from the lakeside, pond beds. Through social media, I only share about plants that I have consumed or have used and not any random plants.” Shruti also shares interesting recipes using uncultivated greens. 

“When I talk about plants on social media, people started asking me how to cook them. That’s when I realised that it is not only important to revive the knowledge of uncultivated plants but also revive the knowledge of food. Unless people learn how to cook the plants, they won’t cook them and it remain an intellectual understanding of uncultivated greens. So, I started sharing recipes of the plants and greens as well.” 

The activist conducts workshops called Rewild Your Life which focuses on empowering people to know about plants that grow in their immediate ecosystem. Through WhatsApp workshops, she teaches how to identify the plant, how to cook with it, different properties and so on. “Recently, she hosted a three-day online food festival that focussed on bringing people from across India to talk about foraging in their culture and discussed the topic of whether it is a viable option to bring foraged foods into restaurants. I have been working on collaborative workshops where I teach people how to identify plants and how to use them.” 

She says that urban foraging is very important in today’s scenario as we are getting disconnected from nature and what’s growing around us. 

“COVID was a response to how we were using our resources and how we were living. I feel foraging is an important thing today. At the same time, we need to consciously forage so that we don’t deplete the resources that we are accessing. One has to keep different things in mind while foraging. For eg, you forage tender leaves, roots and don’t uproot the plant and leave enough to forage. You should not forage during the fruiting stage because the plants need to reproduce, and forage minimally. There are some principles that you need to follow.” 

Nina Sengupta an ecologist who lives in Auroville promotes the concept of urban foraging. Says Nina, “I was looking at ways in which I could connect with nature regularly. I arrived at foraging as a response to my internal query and I found it interesting and engaging. It binds people with nature. The first step to foraging is recognising the wilderness around you – if there are any guided walks, you can join and understand the basics.” 

She has also published the first colouring book for adults in India, it’s on edible weeds. The ecologist points out that wild flowers and weeds around us are indicators of climate change. 

“Urban foraging is a very calming and de-stressing exercise for many people and in today’s scenario this concept should be discussed and people should take action,” she adds.