How an Activist Lived Off Food From His Yard

"I want to inspire [people] to question their food and then to change their diets." For a year, environmental activist Rob Greenfield lived off what he grew in his backyard — could you?

Simple and Sustainable Living


Greenfield survived for a full year without ever buying food or medicine. But he didn't live in the woods. He did it all in a backyard in Orlando. Greenfield wanted to prove that natural food is available all around us even in urban spaces. When he wasn't growing his own food, Greenfield foraged fruits and vegetables growing across the city or preserved them for the future. Greenfield says he used to have a regular life running a company in San Diego. But since 2013, he has been on a mission to prove that we can live well with much less.


“For the last year I’ve been growing and foraging 100% of my food. No grocery stores, no restaurants, no beer at a bar. All of my food has to either come from my garden, or that I foraged from nature. So, when I moved here, this abundant garden was just a lawn like that. Which could be going to the ocean to collect my own salt, going fishing or collecting fruit from trees. So, nature has been my garden, has been my pantry and it’s been my pharmacy,” Rob Greenfield tells Brut.


He crossed the U.S. on a bamboo bike during which time he never turned on a single light. He only washed himself in rivers, lakes, and leaking fire hydrants. He wore his own trash for 30 days. He dumpster dived to expose the thousands of dollars worth of food that are wasted every day. He says he is not in it for the money. His income in the year before this experiment was $5,000 based on data from National Geographic. And he's not trying to convince everyone to go off the grid. Instead, he says he wants people to think more carefully about where their food comes from.


Brut.


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Brut.