On our hiking trips to the Cascade Mountains this summer, we decided to pick blue- berries and freeze them for later consumption. We usually buy our berries from natural food markets, but we decided to collect wild berries because we really like their taste. We noted that the blue stains they left on our fingers after picking them lasted for many hours before disappearing. When we eat the store bought blue- berries, they usually leave little or no stain on our fingers. The wild picked blue berries are definitely more potent in terms of their internal content than commercially grown foods.

Ask yourself, “Is there really a difference between wild grown and commercially grown foods?” “Are wild grown foods better for you, stronger or more viable, more nutrient rich, etc. than agribusiness foods?” The following examples confirm that adding wild grown foods to your diet can help you develop a healthier and stronger body.

Professor Katharine Milton, of the University of California, Berkeley, studied wild monkey species in Panama, and found that the fruits, flowers and plants that the monkeys ate were loaded with nutrients, providing far more nutrients than the typical diet of humans. Professor Milton also found that wild Panamanian fruits are considerably more nutritious than cultivated fruits found in supermarkets, and that the wild fruits had higher levels of calcium, potassium and other micronutrients-plus a different sugar content-than the fruits found at the supermarket (Living Nutrition, Vol. 12, p. 61).

“Let’s Live” magazine compared three factors between wild and farmed Atlantic Salmon. Per serving, farmed salmon had 10.5 grams of fat, 175 calories and 52 mg. of sodium. The wild salmon had 6.9 grams of fat, 162 calories and 48 mg. of sodium per the same serving size (weight). The major difference between the two foods, is that one is penned and fed commercially manufactured foods and the other finds what it needs in the natural environment. This example shows a wild food having ingredients that are better for your health, in this case less fat, fewer calories and less sodium (Let’s Live, March 1999, p. 24).

A research report published a number of years ago and passed on by Jeanne Silk, MS., RN., in her monthly newsletter, stated that “store bought” eggs from chickens that were penned up in a chicken egg factory had 19 grams of cholesterol per egg while “free range” chicken eggs sold in the same store had only 4 grams of cholesterol. In this case, ask yourself which is better for you, 19 grams of cholesterol per egg or 4 grams per egg? The major difference, is that the penned chickens were fed selected foods and additives by the commercial farm employees and the free range chickens ate what they could find from their natural environment.

Now let’s compare a wild grown, wild harvested strain of blue green algae (Aphanizomenon Flos-aquae) with a commercially grown strain of blue green algae (Spirulina). The Spirulina is commercially grown in river water in concrete tanks in the state of California and is fed mineral rock dust. Aphanizomenon flos-aquae, also known as Super Blue Green® Algae, grows naturally in a high mountain lake in the southern Cascade mountains in the state of Oregon, where it consumes nutrients from natural sources (minerals in glacial sediment at the bottom of the lake and in suspension in lake water from 17 in-flowing streams).

A quantitative analysis of the these two blue green algae, reveals that their vitamin contents are similar, with important differences. “The Vitamin B-Complex group is higher in the wild algae. This is especially true of B6 and B12, which are necessary for blood production. Choline, an ingredient important to the brain's phosopholipids is absent in the commercial algae and extremely well balanced in the wild algae (2.3 mg.).” (Opto-Crystallization Patterns of Freshwater Algae, p. 2)

Wild algae has a higher protein content than the commercial algae. Sodium, is three times higher in the commercial algae than in the wild variety. The wild algae has four times more chlorophyll than the commercial algae. Additionally, there’s a striking difference in the amount of minerals (composition and concentration) in the wild algae vs. the commercial algae. Wild algae has more minerals and higher concentrations by weight than the commercially grown variety(p. 2).

We can give you another 20+ examples of the differences, some of them less quantitative and more logical. All you need to know is that there is more good stuff and less bad stuff in wild grown foods than in a commercially grown food, in most cases, NO MATTER WHAT THE FOOD!

Add to these facts, wild grown crops only come from the seeds of the genetically strongest survivors of last year’s crops, so they have stronger immune systems and are the most genetically viable strains available. And when you consume them, their natural strength is transferred to every single cell in your body.

Your health reflects what you eat. Don’t you think it’s time to try some wild foods in your diet? Want more energy to burn, more smiles to share and a gleam in your eyes more often? Feel what it truly means to experience health and vitality with wild foods. So what are you waiting for? GET ON THE WILD SIDE!

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