Top 10 Food Trends includes Foraging

Lists catch people’s eyes.  That’s why every magazine and internet site include lists.  One that came up this morning did catch my eye and I clicked on it.  The food trend predictions for 2011 on Yahoo.  The list wasn’t anything to get excited about until I came to Foraging!  Yes, Foraging is expected to be a top 10 new trend. 

This is scary.  The site said that Philadelphia has gotten into the swing of things by having a lot of sites mapped.  The Philadelphia Food Harvest Map http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&msa=0&msid=115435414840831758445.00044844c98e0a15821f2 has blue tags for street trees and other public access food, yellow tags for urban farms, green tags of Philadelphia Orchard Project sites, orange for community gardens, purple for PRIVATE GARDENS, red for bee hives.  Tags include apple trees, mulberry patches, orchards, raspberries, private farms, etc. 

The only one listed that truly seems to be available for free foraging is from plants the university is planting on freeway on and off ramps.  A local community near me plants fruit trees in the roadway medians.  These types of foraging is ok.  Most of the sites listed are on private property.  I certainly wouldn’t want the hordes of people coming to my mapped property looking for free apples or oranges.  Of course you should walk up to the door and knock and ask permission to pick the fruit.  Then you should pay them...right...

Check where you live to make sure you are not mapped, probably you aren’t on a site like this but maybe on local sites.