[Straight Razor]

As some of you may know I have a wild edible site and nearly 60 videos on You Tube about foraging. You Tube provides statistics on who is watching, what and when. So, what would you guess to be the average foraging viewer? The following stats have been very consistent over the last nine months.

First, predominantly male, averaging 70%. Every week between two thirds and three quarters of my foraging viewers are male. Next is age... these ain't young greenies. The largest group is 45 to 55 which is 40% of the viewers male and female. If you add 55 to 65 you get some 70% of the viewers and if you go 35 to 65 you get almost 90 of the viewers. Said another way, younger people may be green but they are not watching edible wild plant videos. The videos are usually watched Wednesday or Friday.

All of this lets me make a few good arguments to advertisers but it is interesting that my typical viewer is also the largest part of the baby boom, and they ain't mainstream green. Mainstream green are those in their 20s and they outnumber the baby boomers. Yet they are my smallest viewer profile. It's not the college kids who's interested in foraging. It's his grandfather, sometimes his grandmother. It kind of makes you wonder what the profile is of the typical average survivalist.

I would guess male, and a lot younger than foragers. What's the average age here?

 

[azurevirus]

54 yo here and to be honest ..I hardly watch anything to do on foraging..I should, but I have to locate me a book on the plant life for my area so I can identify what I come across..wonder where I could get a book on plant lif in the southeastern US..Ive picked green onions out of the yard and cooked them as they grow wild and are plentiful and easily identified..then theres pine trees a plenty for pine needle tea..but thats about the extent of my knowlege of foraging for food..I have yet to munch on any bugs..I see Bear grylls and the other guy eat them but those critters aint in tis local that I know of

 

[Perkolady]

I'm a 49 year old female. I'm VERY interested in foraging. I just starting watching your videos- so, count me in! Good stuff!

Perkolady

 

[Straight Razor]

54 yo here and to be honest ..I hardly watch anything to do on foraging..I should, but I have to locate me a book on the plant life for my area so I can identify what I come across..wonder where I could get a book on plant lif in the southeastern US..Ive picked green onions out of the yard and cooked them as they grow wild and are plentiful and easily identified..then theres pine trees a plenty for pine needle tea..but thats about the extent of my knowlege of foraging for food..I have yet to munch on any bugs..I see Bear grylls and the other guy eat them but those critters aint in tis local that I know of

I'm in the southeast so my website and videos pertain to your area. That said, there isn't a good book for the southeast like there is one for Texas. One reason for that is the mountains. As you go up in elevation you go north in plants that will grow there and how they will grow there. So in the "South" you can have a northern plant at high elevations. It makes things complicated.

 

[Straight Razor]

I'm a 49 year old female. I'm VERY interested in foraging. I just starting watching your videos- so, count me in! Good stuff!

Perkolady

Thanks... so you're the one who changed that statistics. I've been rather amazed that it has been consistently middle age men who watch the videos. I thought sure it would be women and younger folks.

That said, it just might be that I am middle aged and male and that is what I get for viewers. Maybe Sunny Savage gets young women, I don't know.I'll have to send her an email and ask.

 

[TrapperJohn]

I'm an 18 year old ,male,just started learning survivalism.I've watched a few of your videos and have been meaning to try out the spurge nettle, as I usually have a few of the little b***rds in my yard.

 

[Swamp Shuck]

The internet as a whole has more men on it than women. More older men spend time on the internet than older women. Many older women don't even have computers. Men tend to be more gadget orientated.

At the Wild Food Summit there are more women then men. The Driftless Folk School offers women classes for foraging because they have more of a demand for them than they do men classes. They also offer joint classes too, but the women classes fill up faster. At most of the foraging classes only, not wilderness skills, but foraging classes, there is almost always more women then men at them. Primitive skills classes tend to be more men, but even RabbitStick is getting closer to a half and half mix.

In RL women tend to out number the men. Online men tend to out number the women. It is interesting to see the difference.

blt

 

[FlungPup]

I like your vids SR but I'd like them more if you lived in the Pacific North West.

I'm going to try and get a master herbalist and a forager extrodinaire that I know, together with a bushcraft fellow and do some vids. Start at the shoreline and work our way up to the mountaintop. That's my '09 project.

Books are helpful but I'm often left looking at a small picture in a book, then a plant, then the picture and back and forth. I need someone to point at something and tell me to put it in my mouth. lol

 

[crunchyconmama]

Thanks... so you're the one who changed that statistics. I've been rather amazed that it has been consistently middle age men who watch the videos. I thought sure it would be women and younger folks.

I'm 34 in April; definitely interested in foraging. I always think worst case scenario for TEOTWAWKI so foraging and eating bugs are on my mind.

 

[Straight Razor]

I'm an 18 year old ,male,just started learning survivalism.I've watched a few of your videos and have been meaning to try out the spurge nettle, as I usually have a few of the little b***rds in my yard.

The roots are tasty.

 

[Straight Razor]

The internet as a whole has more men on it than women.

Actually that is not accurate, more women log on every day than men.

More older men spend time on the internet than older women. Many older women don't even have computers. Men tend to be more gadget orientated.

I think a good answer is men do more of the things that can include wild foods than, hunting, fishing, camping et cetera.

At the Wild Food Summit there are more women then men. The Driftless Folk School offers women classes for foraging because they have more of a demand for them than they do men classes.

How is a wild edible class sex bias to require one for men and one for women?

They also offer joint classes too, but the women classes fill up faster. At most of the foraging classes only, not wilderness skills, but foraging classes, there is almost always more women then men at them. Primitive skills classes tend to be more men, but even RabbitStick is getting closer to a half and half mix.

In RL women tend to out number the men. Online men tend to out number the women. It is interesting to see the difference.

blt

Oddly, most of my private students are college age men.

I get four times more visits to the videos than the site.

 

[Straight Razor]

I like your vids SR but I'd like them more if you lived in the Pacific North West.

I'm going to try and get a master herbalist and a forager extrodinaire that I know, together with a bushcraft fellow and do some vids. Start at the shoreline and work our way up to the mountaintop. That's my '09 project.

Books are helpful but I'm often left looking at a small picture in a book, then a plant, then the picture and back and forth. I need someone to point at something and tell me to put it in my mouth. lol

The majority of my plants are found in your area, but it is always better to study with someone local. More important than someone telling you to put this plant in your mouth it is more important that you come to know what it looks like AND they are willing to put it in THEIR mouth.

 

[jdawg]

21. Just trying to figure it all out.

 

[Straight Razor]

21. Just trying to figure it all out.

One never figures it out, one just get better at handling the unknown.

 

[Foxer]

To be honest, like flungpup i kind of pass over any vids that are 'south east', living in british columbia canada. (which is even more north than the american northwest ). But i'll probably get around to watching them anyway, and if I WERE in your area i'd have been very interested, so i figure at least i fit your 'preferred viewing' demographic. (you should do a 'plants around the continent' episode and point out which ones you're familar with that grow in our climate Hell - i'd put you up for a week or so if you wanted to poke around our woods to see what there is )

I'm in my 40's and male. And i guess the simple fact is the older you get, the more you realize you're not indestructable, and the more you kind of relax and want to get back to the simple things you loved as a kid, like learning about the wild, getting out hunting and hiking and fishing, learning, and passing information on to the next generation. When you're twenty you know nothing bad could POSSIBLY happen to YOU - so you don't need to know this stuff, right?

 

[Straight Razor]

To be honest, like flungpup i kind of pass over any vids that are 'south east', living in british columbia canada. (which is even more north than the american northwest ). But i'll probably get around to watching them anyway, and if I WERE in your area i'd have been very interested, so i figure at least i fit your 'preferred viewing' demographic. (you should do a 'plants around the continent' episode and point out which ones you're familar with that grow in our climate Hell - i'd put you up for a week or so if you wanted to poke around our woods to see what there is )

I'm in my 40's and male. And i guess the simple fact is the older you get, the more you realize you're not indestructable, and the more you kind of relax and want to get back to the simple things you loved as a kid, like learning about the wild, getting out hunting and hiking and fishing, learning, and passing information on to the next generation. When you're twenty you know nothing bad could POSSIBLY happen to YOU - so you don't need to know this stuff, right?

The majority of my plants on the site and in the videos are found in your area. I do have a tropical spin but a lot of plants live in both places because you have mild winters.