Many of us strive for a healthy, fulfilling lifestyle that goes beyond the materialistic, conventional norm, incorporating whole foods, physical fitness, spiritual practices and more into our daily activities. I gradually began on such a path in the mid-1970s, taking up healthful cooking, Transcendental Meditation, Hatha Yoga, aerobic exercise, and eventually, environmentalism. But I'd like to share a more unusual practice of which you may be unaware-one that changed my life as much as anything I've tried: foraging.

It turns out urban, suburban and rural ecosystems are loaded with unnoticed wild foods and herbs. Overlooked as "weeds," these are the same shoots, greens, roots, fruits, berries and flowers that nourished and healed our ancestors for centuries. You can gradually learn to recognize them, harvest them ecologically and safely, and have fun using them to improve your meals and health.

My epiphany occurred in May of 1980 while I was bicycling through Queens, NY, for exercise. I was stopped in my tracks after spotting a group of Greek women, garbed in traditional black, collecting food in the wooded section of a local park.

Four years earlier, I had taught myself how to cook with cookbooks from the library, and had begun using the unconventional ingredients from health food stores that most cookbook writers shun to make tasty, healthful versions of dishes that are usually loaded with refined flour, white sugar or animal products. And I'd also been experimenting with unusual vegetarian ingredients from ethnic stores.

When I asked the traditional foragers what were collecting, I couldn't understand a word of their reply. It was all Greek to me! However, I came home with a bag full of wild grape leaves. Because at the time all commercial grape leaves were laden with preservatives, this was my first opportunity to experiment with this exotic food, and the stuffed grape leaf recipe I came up with was a complete success. Furthermore, when I returned to the park in the fall, all the trees were festooned with clusters of delicious, organic wild grapes that turned out to be fox grapes, the wild forerunner of Concord grapes.

I was hooked! There were no foraging teachers in my region, but using field guides, I slowly uncovered a cornucopia of wild foods. And because the books were written by botanists who didn't forage, or foragers who boiled wild greens to death or smothered everything in white flour, bacon fat or sugar, I had the opportunity to explore the full potential of wild foods for the first time.

Foraging was so much fun, I began leading tours through local parks in 1982, and by 1986 I'd attracted enough attention that the NYC Parks Commissioner, Henry Stern, decided to put a stop to my criminal activity of teaching people to eat the same weeds the Parks Dept. was mowing down by the millions. Going botanical himself, he planted 2 undercover park rangers on a tour of Central Park. The man and woman, who said they were married, fooled me completely. They never held hands or kissed, so I thought they'd been married for years.

The man paid me with marked bills, and kept photographing the specimens I was collecting. Only I was the actual specimen. At the end of the tour, after I ate the leaf of a dandelion, he radioed for reinforcements, and suddenly, every park ranger in NYC popped out from behind the bushes to surround me. They handcuffed me lest I bash them on the head with a dandelion, searched me, looking either for weeds or "weed," and hauled me off to the police station. The cops took fingerprints and mug shots, and even searched my backpack. Fortunately, I had eaten all the evidence.

I was issued a desk appearance summons charging me with criminal mischief for "removing vegetation from the park," which carried a prison term of up to one year upon conviction, and was given a date to appear in court. Then the cops committed an awful blunder: they let me go.

I went home and called every TV station, radio station, newspaper and wire service in the phone book. The next morning, on my way to the newsstand, five cops came after me. But this time they all wanted my autograph. I was on the front pages of newspapers around the county, appeared with Dan Rather on CBS Evening News that night, and ended up on major TV and radio talk shows galore.

Another mega-round of PR ensued at my arraignment, when I served "Wildman's" 5-Boro Salad to reporters and passersby on the steps of the Manhattan Criminal Courthouse. The media frenzy was so scathing that Commissioner Stern asked to negotiate with me, dropped all charges and, in a third flurry of media fanfare, turned over a new leaf and hired me to lead the same tours I was leading when he had me arrested! I worked as a NYC Parks Dept. naturalist for four years and went back to doing freelance work when an unfriendly administration took over and reneged on the terms of my agreement with Stern.

Nowadays, I lead public tours in parks throughout Greater New York every Saturday, Sunday and holiday, spring, summer and fall. On weekdays, I do school classes, programs and birthday parties, and work with day camps, libraries, museums, scout troops, garden clubs and other organizations. I even met my wife, Leslie, on a tour in 1998.

Some Basic Rules

So how should you go about learning to forage? One important rule: be sure to identify anything you're going to eat with 100% certainty before you eat it. Poisonous plants are common, and some of them are deadly. Careless foraging is as dangerous as careless driving.

Unless you can find a local foraging teacher, concentrate on a small number of easy-to-recognize plants without poisonous look-alikes. Follow them through the seasons to learn them thoroughly, and gradually add more species. Eat small amounts at first in case of allergies or adverse reactions.

Pick in clean, uncontaminated areas, at least 50 feet away from heavy traffic, and avoid heavily sprayed areas such as railroad right-of-ways. Pick a small proportion of very common plants where they are very plentiful and your impact on the environment will be negligible. Bring along kids and introduce them to nature and conservation through foraging, and your contribution to a greener earth will be significant. And beware of undercover park rangers! Here are a few common, widespread, easy to recognize plants to get you started:

This invasive foreign plant that's popping up around the country was introduced as an ornamental; it has a delicious flavor and special health benefits. Polygonum, the generic name of the buckwheat family, means "many knees." True to form, the plant's jointed, hollow stem is divided into sections. This goes even for the dead, overwintered stems, which look like a bamboo jungle, helping you locate the edible shoots in early spring.

The triangular, pointy-tipped leaves, two- to four-inches wide, alternate along the reddish, zig-zag stem. Lacy strands of tiny, white flowers emanate from the bases of the leaf stalks in summer, to be replaced by tiny, triangular non-edible seeds in the fall. Look for this plant in fields and in moist areas such as riverbanks, or dry areas such as fields near the seashore, in disturbed habitats, and along roadsides.

The shoots are tender and edible in early spring. Remove the immature leaves and use tender stems less than 1 foot tall. If the skin is tough, as happens with the taller shoots, peel it. The shoots are sour, like rhubarb, a relative. Edible raw in small quantities (like rhubarb, too much raw knotweed may outperform Ex-Lax), the shoots are best cooked. You can steam them for five minutes, or until tender, and serve them with salt and pepper as a lemony flavored vegetable side dish. Or cook them with fruit, such as in compotes and sauces, to contrast the sweet fruit with a sour tang.

Japanese knotweed is an excellent source of vitamin A, vitamin C, rutin, potassium, phosphorus, zinc and manganese. It's also rich in resveratrol, the antioxidant present in the skin of grapes that makes red wine reduce LDL (bad) cholesterol levels and decrease the risk of heart disease. Resveratrol may also slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease or delay its onset. In this horrific neurological ailment, an accumulation of gunky amyloid plaques in the brain affects glial cells, which normally support neurons (nerve cells), signaling them to selfdestruct. New research indicates that resveratrol may block this fatal signal.

This group of shrubs or small trees have smooth, tight, gray bark ornamented with dark, vertical stripes, making them easy to identify any time of the year. The leaves are about two inches long, alternate (configured singly), oval and finely serrated, with pointed tips, and undersides distinctly light green. In early spring, long-stalked, five-petaled, radially symmetrical white flowers arise alternately (singly) from a long flower stalk. They give way to spherical, blue-black berries, usually in early summer, although some species fruit as late as September. The tip of the berry features a flaring, five-parted crown, distinguishing it from poisonous berries, which are smooth all the way around. Blueberries and huckleberries also have crowns, but they're edible, and the other features differ.

 Called Juneberry for its late June fruiting, it also came to be known as the serviceberry in 19th century New England. During the winter months, impassable roads delayed religious services until April, when the snow thawed and the serviceberry bloomed. April is also the time when shad first migrate from the sea up the shadbush-lined rivers, thus their third name-shadbush.

Juneberries grow in cultivated areas, planted as ornamentals due to their showy flower clusters. You'll find them in thickets, at the edges of woods, in wetlands, and in dry soil-wherever there's enough sunlight.

The flavor of most species is remarkably good-quite sweet, combining the flavor of apples (they're related) and blueberries; and the soft, edible seeds inside taste like almonds. It's beyond belief that no one ever cultivated this superior-tasting fruit. Use the berries the way you would commercial blueberries-in pies, cakes, tarts, muffins, ice cream, shakes and pancakes, or eat them raw in cereal and fruit salad. They freeze well too.

Gingko Rice

Juneberry-Almond Cookies

Knot Soup

Tofu-Cream Cheese

Naturalist “Wildman” Steve Brill is the author of Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not-So-Wild) Places (William Morrow), considered a classic on the subject, and Wild Vegetarian Cookbook (Harvard Common Press). His Foraging with the “Wildman” DVD series is showing people how it’s all done. But he’s still best know for having been dragged off in handcuffed by undercover park rangers for eating a dandelion in Central Park. To learn more, visit http://wwww.wildmanstevebrill.com.