Oaks & acorns, our ancestral heritage

Coastal live oaks are dropping ripe acorns across southern California at this time. This food was once greatly admired, prized, adored, and consumed.

When I learned that the human population of the northern hemisphere had consumed more acorns than any other known food (so “they” had tallied) over the great expanse of time I had to wonder, “what else do we not know if we don’t even remember the foods we once ate?

-or, further, as many of us now consider this food toxic…how much knowledge could we have lost over time?

I recently came across this 20 minute video clip from a presentation I gave on oaks and acorns amidst the coastal live oaks (Quercus agrifolia) in the Santa Ana Mountains in Orange County, CA.

Here’s a rough timestamp of the main features of the talk:

-ancestral relationship to oaks

-natural history of oaks (9:25)

-Belloteros of Sonora (16:00)

-Emory oak Acorns as Metabolic Healing food (19:00)

I hope you enjoy the presentation. Please leave comments below if you’re excited about acorns.