Daniel Vitalis is the host of WildFed.For ten years he lectured around North America and abroad, offering workshops that helped others lead healthier, more nature-integrated lives. A successful entrepreneur, he founded the nutrition company SurThriv…

Daniel Vitalis is the host of WildFed.

For ten years he lectured around North America and abroad, offering workshops that helped others lead healthier, more nature-integrated lives. A successful entrepreneur, he founded the nutrition company SurThrival.com in 2008. Most recently, he hosted the popular podcast ReWild Yourself.

He’s a Registered Maine Guide, writer, public speaker, interviewer, and lifestyle pioneer who’s especially interested in helping people reconnect with wildness, both inside and outside of themselves.

After learning to hunt, fish, and forage as an adult, Daniel created WildFed to inspire others to start a wild-food journey of their own.

Headquartered in the Lakes Region of Maine, he lives with his beautiful wife Avani and their Plott Hound Ellie.


Connect with him at Wild-Fed.com, as well as on Instagram and Facebook.

We’re heading deep into the wild with one of the best possible tour guides: Daniel Vitalis, a modern-day hunter-gatherer, a great friend, the founder of the nutrition company Surthrival, and the person who taught me so much of what I know about living a nature-integrated life (without moving into a bunker in the middle of the woods forever).

Daniel’s newest endeavor is WildFed, a show, podcast, and lifestyle brand inspiring others to live a wild-food journey of their own and participate in much-needed conversations on sustainably harvesting, cooking, and eating wild foods. I’m lucky enough to have seen some of season one already and you are not going to want to miss this.

Because WildFed is not about traveling to exotic locales and it’s definitely not about doing it for the ‘Gram. it’s about the wild food that’s freely available in your local landscape, at the edges of your town or city, and sometimes just outside your door. It’s an endeavor to undomesticate yourself and experience the physical, emotional, and spiritual benefits of reacquainting yourself with nature and the bounty it provides.

I’m so grateful for Daniel helping me get this podcast off the ground (he was my first guest back in episode two!) and for teaching me so much in this episode — and we really get into it. This interview went some places I didn’t quite expect, but man, I’m so happy it did.

Warning: if you live a plant-based or vegan lifestyle, this might be a hard episode to listen to. But, regardless of what your food and lifestyle choices are, I encourage everyone to keep their hearts and minds open and give this epic conversation a chance. I think that WildFed and the information that Daniel is sharing will be transformative for a lot of people, especially if they take part in the interactive season one experience.

Get prepared. We’re about to go deep into the wilds with Daniel Vitalis.

 TOPICS DISCUSSED ON THIS EPISODE:

  • What you can expect from ReWild season one

  • Why even the highest-quality grocery stores in the U.S. are nutritionally lacking and, at times, facilitating the decline of our health

  • Why Daniel quit veganism after 10 years and started eating meat (and the cognitive dissonance between what many vegan communities espouse and how they live)

  • The sad fact that some people receive death threats from people 'opposed to killing' when they go back to animal foods

  • Did you know that there has never been a civilization of vegan humans?

  • Lifelong vegans: a mythical creature (as are lifelong carnivores)

  • Why the vegan diet requires supplementation to work

  • How hunting-gathering connects every living human, regardless of where they live, to their ancestors

  • Why do some people who oppose hunting give a blanket pass to native indigenous people while casting condemnation on Caucasian, rural folk?

  • The Kingdom Hierarchy: Why humans value the lives of certain animals over others, and all animals over insects, plants, etc.

  • Why it might be abusive to force carnivorous pets — and perhaps even children — to eat a vegan diet

  • A whole lot of BS around apples

  • Do cartoons and stuffed animals help disconnect us from our hunter-gatherer roots?

  • How animals suffer a more painful death at the hands of wild predators than by hunters

  • How to deal with the potential risk of eating contaminated wild game

  • Why Daniel begin foraging wild plants and fungi

  • The surprising lack of species variety in supermarket fruits and vegetables

  • Why wild game and plants are far more nutritious than farmed foods, and even wild game isn’t all made equal

  • How the ego of hunting sometimes gets in the way of sustainability and nutrition

  • The devastating environmental impact of factory farmed animals and plants & how regenerative farming might just save us

  • The wild game that Daniel hunts and eats, from deer to pigeons to iguanas

  • How hunters and gatherers help thin out invasive species of plants and animals

  • Why Daniel believes that, in many cases, hunters understand and protect the environment more than city-dwelling tree huggers

  • The US has the most effective wildlife management and conservation program in the world — but it’s still falling short when it comes to protecting plants and fungi

  • How ocean fish stock can be protected and why it’s the safest fish to eat

  • Some of the culinary masterpieces Daniel has created from foraged and hunted foods

  • What’s new at his outstanding supplement company, Surthrival, and what my go-to products from them are

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