Season 1; Episode 18: The Healing Power of Nature

Written By Andrea Sadowski

Meet Raeanna, a forager, business owner, chef, and wellness professional specializing in connecting people to nature and their local food systems. In this conversation, Rae and I talked about how she got started in the food industry, becoming a self-taught forager, the joys and pains of working for yourself, ethical and safe foraging practices, building your home food culture, and the most important homesteading skill everyone should know.

I have been following Rae’s business, Foraging With You, for a while now, and I was so grateful that she was open to sitting down and talking with me about all things nature, food, foraging, mushrooms, psychedelics, self-employment, and following your own path. I interviewed Rae in her cozy tiny home in the Chilliwack River Valley, she welcomed me with a steaming mug of delicious, freshly brewed coffee and a couple of slices of homemade cake made with foraged berries. I loved talking to Rae and I hope I get to follow her in the forest someday very soon.

In this episode, we talk about:

  • How she got started in the food industry: 

    • working at the back and front of the house at McDonald's and Boston Pizza

    • Moving away from her hometown of Smithers to do culinary school in lieu of grade 12

    • Working as a sous and head chef in a Heliski lodge and fishing lodges

  • How she got started foraging learning from experienced mushroom pickers and buyers in the bush, in Tofino and the Yukon

  • The push she felt to work for herself and how she made that happen

  • The hard labor of foraging and how to forage in an ethical and safe way

  • Using animal helpers to help foraging

  • Her work of connecting people back to nature and their local food systems

  • Building your home food culture

  • How to ground yourself in nature and the healing benefits of nature

  • The services she offers in her business Foraging With You: guided foraging tours, goddess circles, and cooking classes

  • Her yoga teacher training journey

  • Taking care of your mental health during your cycle

  • The charity she founded to bring children into nature, Blueprints for the Future Foundation

  • How she started a business on her own without going into debt

  • Her advice for people who don’t know what they’re doing with their lives

  • Tips to start meditating and connect to your intuition

  • Cooking as medicine

  • Her catering services with food made from foraged and locally sourced food

  • Our shared experiences working in remote lodge jobs

  • Sexism in the food industry

  • Homesteading skills - growing your home food culture and fermenting

  • Making your own bread and sourdough

  • Words of caution for foraging alone and teaching yourself to forage

  • Growing and foraging your own mushrooms

  • Her upcoming book about foraging and eating with the seasons

  • Being a white forager, Indigenous reconciliation and foraging on Crown land

  • The healing power of psychedelics

  • Her advice for future entrepreneurs and those who want to become self-employed, and her tips on getting over self-doubt

  • The trending nature of foraging, mushrooms, and psychedelics

  • The pros and cons of working for yourself

  • Her advice for 20-year-old Rae and her future aspirations

  • Advice for home cooks who want to level up their skills and intuitive cooking

Andrea Sadowski
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Season 1; Episode 19: Rejecting Hustle Culture
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Season 1; Episode 17: Developing Yourself