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The Food Chain

Factual: Food & Drink

Examining what it takes to put food on your plate

The Food Chain examines the business, science and cultural significance of food, and what it takes to put food on your plate.

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The Food Chain: Foraging: Pleasure or profit?

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Foraging: Pleasure or Profit?

Foraging: Pleasure or profit?

BBC World Service - The Food Chain, Foraging: Pleasure or profit?

Should we be worried about money changing hands for wild ingredients?

Most of us have no need to hunt in the wild for our food, so why is foraging seeing a resurgence in some parts of the world? 

Emily Thomas speaks to professional foragers in Peru, Sweden and England to find out the appeal of combing rocky shores for seaweed or trekking up mountains for rare fruits. Is it the love of a freebie, the thrill of the chase, or simply a sense of wonder at our natural world? 

We hear about the rules governing what, where and how much you can harvest from the wild, and that the forager’s freedoms can be extensive. 

But as wild finds become increasingly visible on the menus of top restaurants and sometimes end up on our supermarket shelves, could natural habitats become threatened, and does something integral get lost when money changes hands?

Producers: Marijke Peters and Simon Tulett.

(Photo: John Wright picking seaweed. Credit: BBC)

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