Mark Vorderbruggen started one of the top foraging sites on the internet in 2008, but he has been a forager all his life. Both his parents' families used foraged foods to survive during the Great Depression, and they passed their knowledge on to him. Knowing how to harvest nature's free food fed him through the poverty years of his childhood and while getting a master's degree in medicinal chemistry and a PhD in physical organic chemistry. For the last 18 years, he has worked as a research chemist in the oil industry, using his knowledge of natural products to develop environmentally friendly replacements for traditional oil field chemicals. However, his evenings and weekends are spent guiding people back to nature's bounty, not only teaching them which plants are edible and/or medicinal, but also proselytizing how foraging heals the body, mind, and soul … and prepares them for the zombie apocalypse!
