WorldWild Podcast
Episode 43 1st May 2020
Hungry Hearts with Fred Gillam
This week we are talking with Fred Gillam, who speaks to us from the middle of the largest stone circle in the world in Avebury. Fred is the author of Poisonous Plants in Great Britain and runs The Wild Side of Life which offers wild foraging, medicine making, and survival crafts courses.
We go deep into the biochemistry of our experiences; why we feel reward, addiction’s evolutionary role, and the life-supporting mechanisms which go on when we forage and how it can be subverted. We also discuss: bee-keeping, de-organisming things, foraging as normal human behaviour, and being human when we are less than fifty-percent human cells...
'The primal urge behind the addiction is being subverted'
- Miles Irving / ep.43
About Fred Gillam
Fred Gillam is a forager and wild mushroom expert, he runs the Wild Side of Life which takes people on immersive wild food courses and workshops. He is the author of Poisonous Plants in Great Britain, a botanical history with a hint of the macabre!
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Further reading
> See more from Fred at The Wild Side of Life.
> Foraging with Fred the Forager on Facebook.
> Mentioned in episode: 'Alison' by Elvis Costello
> Mentioned in episode: 'Pure, White and Deadly' by John Yudkin
> Mentioned in episode: Watch 'A Hacking Of The American Mind' by Robert Lustig, MD
> Mentioned in episode: WorldWild Podcast with Fred Provenza
About the show
We offer a series of conversations to tap into the wildness within ourselves and to uncover what is possible when we do. It is our hope that through the WorldWild Podcast we can contribute to the revitalisation of wild food culture and conversation around the world.
Through people who know their landscapes intimately, we gather the threads to weave a rich tapestry. Piece by piece the vision of a wilder world comes into view. The wild embrace of nature welcomes us back and offers us a seat at the table. A feast, no less!