A forager spends just £20-a-week on shop-bought food and makes a fully foraged Christmas dinner - of wild mushrooms, herbs and sloe gin.<br /><br />Megan Howlett, 26, grew up foraging for blackberries and cockles with her grandparents before she became “obsessed” with finding edible wild plants.<br /><br />She taught herself about edible plants and mushrooms and now has a diet of 50% foraged foods.<br /><br />Megan spends an average of £20-a-week on her food shops – buying from local greengrocers and shops.<br /><br />And she makes a foraged Christmas meal for herself and her husband, Tim, 30, who works in clinical trials, using up food collected throughout the year.<br /><br />They eat a wild mushroom pastry, roasted root vegetables and sloe gin.<br /><br />Megan, a full-time forager, living in Midhurst, West Sussex, said: “In foraging you can never be selfish – it’s a mindful practice.<br /><br />“We’re a part of the circle of life.<br /><br />“At Yule [a winter festival over the Christmas period], it is tradition to just use what you have collected over the year.<br /><br />“We make mushroom pastry and roasted root vegetables. Being immersed in nature - you can’t not be happy.”<br /><br />Megan found a love for nature and the “luscious woodlands” after moving to the South Downs in 2018.<br /><br />She said: “I started noticing the world around me. I became obsessed with learning about nature.<br /><br />“You can find rare mushrooms here.”<br /><br />Megan taught herself to correctly identify wild mushrooms and plants and has now made it a passion and a career – quitting her marketing job in June 2023 to launch her business teaching foraging.<br /><br />Megan, who eats a vegan diet, now spends her days outside looking for seasonal wild edible plants.<br /><br />She said: “I pick a spot and wander – then think about what I’m cooking based on what I find.<br /><br />“I go out every day – and choose a different spot.<br /><br />“I have a rule of never taking more than 10 per cent of what I find to not decimate the area.”<br /><br />Megan will go to beaches looking for seaweeds such as kelp, which she uses in her skin care, and sea moss – which she uses as an alternative to gelatine.<br /><br />In forests, she finds mushrooms such as chanterelles in the summer and porcini mushrooms and berries in the autumn.<br /><br />She will have 100 per cent foraged foods when she is able to but often adds what she has collected to her meals.<br /><br />She said: “We have meals that are fully foraged.<br /><br />“Usually it is an addition to what we usually buy.<br /><br />“I have shelves and shelves of dried herbs and mushrooms.<br /><br />“I make our own wine, beer and cider.”<br /><br />Megan makes a variety of different natural dinners from what she finds – such as wild mushroom ravioli.<br /><br />She makes fresh pasta from ground chestnut flour and fills the ravioli with mushrooms she finds.<br /><br />She also makes mushroom tacos, dumplings, wild pesto’s from herbs and garlic, and teas made from elderberries and blackberries.<br /><br />Megan said: “I’ve always enjoyed cooking and experimenting with it.<br /><br />“I love making elderflower fizz – it’s alcoholic because of the wild yeast elderflower contains. It’s lovely in the summer evenings.<br /><br />“In winter I make warmer drinks – acorns are a great hot chocolate alternative.”<br /><br />She make a conscious effort to make sure what she eats has “no food miles” and buys locally grown vegetables.<br /><br />Megan has been cooking a foraged Christmas meal for the last four years – which she enjoys with Tim on the first day of Yule.<br /><br />Tim is “supportive” of her foraging passion.<br /><br />She said: "He’s good at spotting mushrooms but not at IDing them. He’s a fantastic cook.”<br /><br />Megan hopes to encourage others to get out in nature and forage safely by following guidelines.<br /><br />She said: “I find so much peace in foraging. It’s fantastic. I really get to tune into nature.”
