‘It healed me’: the Indigenous forager reconnecting Native Americans with their roots

Twila Cassadore hopes teaching Western Apache traditional foodways can aid mental, emotional and spiritual health

On a warm day in April, Twila Cassadore piloted her pickup truck toward the mountains on the San Carlos Apache Reservation in Arizona to scout for wild edible plants. A wet winter and spring rains had transformed the desert into a sea of color: green creosote bushes topped with small yellow flowers, white mariposa lilies, purple lupines and poppies in full bloom.

Cassadore and I drove up a rough dirt road that used to be an old cattle trail, passing through various ecosystems, moving from Sonoran desert to grasslands and pinon-juniper woodlands. In each area, Cassadore would stop to gather desert chia seeds, cacti flowers and thistles.