…at least not willingly.

Let us imagine a world where you can step outside your door and grab something nourishing to eat, at no cost to you, directly from nature. As an experiment, venture outdoors and see what you can find.

Chances are, you won’t find anything.

A home garden doesn’t count in this scenario. Gardens require considerable human input to generate food. We must coax the nutrients from the earth to sustain ourselves, because the earth is stubborn when it comes to growing what humans eat. I’m challenging you to find an unprocessed food source that occurs naturally in the wild that we can simply eat. I’m willing to bet that – excluding gardens and farms – you’d walk miles and still be unable to find a source that can sustain you. Hunters may have better luck, but what about the rest of us?

We’ve been relying on agriculture to sustain us for thousands and thousands of years, so I’m not necessarily surprised by the results of this experiment. What is concerning, however, is that over the course of those thousands of years, we’ve clearly been forgotten by the earth. We decided our way was better, and she has shifted her attention elsewhere to provide for other species.

If there were ever a long-term warning sign – relatively speaking – that our time has come, that our reign as apex species is over, this is it. The fact that this earth no longer naturally provides – in abundance – that which we need to sustain ourselves.