The best way to live · Maybe they just sort of fell into it? · Maybe they were just hungry? · New world adopters of the meme

The author says many young people tell him they’d like to disappear into some wilderness and forage for their food or that they’d like to live with a hunting-gathering people. What about you? Do you have any doubt that growing all your own food is the best way to live?

Figure out all the steps it takes “to put three ounces of corn in a can of water on your supermarket shelf.”

Let’s say you walk ten minutes to buy a bunch of bananas at a store. Let’s also say a forager walks ten minutes to pick a bunch of bananas off a tree. The difference between the two of you is that you have to have some money in your pocket to buy the bananas. How much money would you need for, say, four bananas? How long would you have to work to get that money?

See if you can estimate how many calories the forager spends and gains in the example above. Then see if you can estimate how many calories you’d spend and gain. Are the results similar to those the author gives here?

On a map of the Americas, locate the homelands of the New World peoples mentioned here.