Feed Us with Trees: Nuts and the Future of Food

by Elspeth Hay

What if the future of food grew on trees—and had been with us all along?

From acorns to chestnuts, hazelnuts, and beyond, discover the ancient staple crops that could nourish people and heal the planet.

What You'll Learn in Feed Us with Trees

In this groundbreaking and hopeful book, food writer Elspeth Hay reveals how nut trees can transform our diets, landscapes, and future. Drawing from Indigenous knowledge, cutting-edge science, and conversations with farmers and foragers, Hay shows how we can reclaim our role as a keystone species by tending perennial food systems that regenerate rather than deplete the Earth.

Inside, you'll

Ancient wisdom, modern solutions — how cultures across the Northern Hemisphere once relied on nut trees as staple foods, and why this matters today.Nutrient-dense, climate-smart foods — nuts are packed with protein, healthy fats, and resilience for a warming world.Practical pathways forward — from agroforestry and permaculture to backyard food forests, learn how you can be part of the shift.New stories for a thriving future — how rethinking what we eat can help us reimagine our place in Earth's ecosystems.Why This Book Matters

Agriculture as we know it is one of the largest drivers of climate change, water depletion, and biodiversity loss. Yet Hay uncovers a forgotten we don't need to choose between feeding ourselves and sustaining the planet. By restoring perennial food systems centered on nut trees, we can build a future that is abundant, equitable, and resilient.

Whether you're an environmentalist, regenerative farmer, permaculture enthusiast, agroforester, locavore, or simply hungry for change, this book will inspire you to imagine food differently—and give you the tools to start.

Whatever are we going to eat on this cramped, ever-hotter planet of ours? …The trees just might have our backs.—Paul Greenberg, author, Four Fish and A Third Term

If you care about food security, climate change, or the health of future generations, this book belongs on your shelf.

Buy Feed Us with Trees today and discover how nut trees can help us rewrite the future of food.

AWARDS

GOLD | 2026 Nautilus Book Restorative Earth Practices SILVER | 2025 Living Now Book Green Living – Alternative Energy, Conservation, Gardening

Genres: Nonfiction, Food, Sustainability

298 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 15, 2025

About the author

Elspeth Hay is the creator and host of the Local Food Report, a weekly feature that has aired on the Cape and Islands NPR station since 2008, and the author of the forthcoming book Feed Us with Trees: Nuts and the Future of Food. Deeply immersed in her own local-food system, she writes and reports for print, radio, and online media with a focus on food, the environment, and the people, places, and ideas that feed us. You can learn more about her work at elspethhay.com.

Reviews

[D Taberner · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book should get more attention.

[Celine Colbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this well-researched book, which blends rigorous ideas with a warm, memoir-style voice that makes complex, brain-altering material engaging rather than dry. Coming to it as a forester, I especially appreciated how it reframed humans not as a blight on the environment, but as an integral part of it. The book challenged some of the foundational principles I had been taught—like the “tragedy of the commons,” a cornerstone of wildlife management, and familiar slogans such as “no farms, no food.” Seeing these ideas unpacked as deeply ingrained propaganda, and replaced with a more hopeful, evidence-based vision for the future, was both surprising and inspiring. This is the kind of book that shifts your perspective—and I’ll be recommending it widely.

[Mel Gillman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Saying this with the caveat that I am the exact target audience for this book: I LOVED this whole book and learned a ton from it. This book makes an extremely convincing case for the importance of tree-crop permaculture, and especially native nuts grown in non-monoculture settings, as being hugely beneficial on a number of fronts: nutrition, indigenous food sovereignty, biodiversity, climate, and farming as a whole. This is a book that’ll leave you wanting to eat and grow more nuts in North America. (Acorns included, for anybody who knows my whole deal!)

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

A compelling examination of how nut trees could transform some of the worst aspects of our current food system. I found Hay's engagement with indigenous thinkers to be especially valuable.

[Kadie Britt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic book!! I was itching to read this for a while after learning about it from the Good Food Jobs newsletter. It was informative, fun, and gives me a lot of hope. I learned so much and my brain gears are still turning. I appreciate Elspeth Hay’s work at educating us about nut trees, commons, and the evolution and steps involved with making so many of our systems the way they are. I will continue to carry the hope and spread kernels of change.

[Jonathan Beckner · Rating 2 out of 5]

The definition of an NPR book. Well researched and sourced, though the author clearly decided their point of view before they started, even if there is interesting information there and it's very hard to get past the writing style, which is best described as "podcast/radio script lite."

[Shane Sater · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow - stupendous! Powerfully written and world-changing. Feed Us With Trees brings together a rich variety of histories, geographies and perspectives to explore where our food comes from. Vast industrial monocultures of a few grains like wheat, rice, and corn are the staples of modern diets, causing great harm to the earth and our health. But it hasn't been this way for very long, and it doesn't have to be now, even with 8 billion people to feed.

In this easy-to-read, inspiring, and thoroughly researched book, Elspeth Hay examines how we got here and what we might do differently, focusing on several perennial nut-bearing trees and shrubs - chestnut, oak, and hazelnut - that have long been the staff of life for various cultures around the world. Delving into traditional tending practices with fire and coppicing; soil-building with biochar; nutrition; and cuisine, this book is a comprehensive introduction to the world of nut trees and their culture. Equally important, Hay examines and questions the myths that tell us that industrial agriculture is the only way we can feed ourselves, from the enclosure of the commons and the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution to the externalized costs of yield increases. This book is revolutionary. I intend to keep returning to it, and am enthused to share and discuss it with my friends and family. For everyone who is a gardener, cook, eater of food, forager, hunter, and/or biologist, this book has something for you.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an unusual book for me to read, since much of it was devoted to topics I am not normally interested in. However, I did enjoy it. The main thrusts of the book are that our diet would be more healthy if we ate more nuts from our local habitat, we should think of our species as a keystone species that has long modified our environment via fire into a food tree-populated savanna, and act on that knowledge. The author spends a lot of time on food preparation, and the main flaw I see in the book is that she is advocating for changes that would be beneficial, but very hard to scale up and are suitable either for very rich or very poor communities, but not as practical for the vast middle. I do like the fact that she accepts that humans have always modified the environment we live in, just as all creatures do. I would like to see humans leave a very large percentage of the world’s habitats untouched and free to evolve without interference. However, I also think we should accept that there is nothing wrong with modifying our local environment in a thoughtful way to be ideal for us.

[Scott Medler · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you didn’t know that acorns are edible, you’re not alone. In Feed Us with Trees, Elspeth Hay invites us along for a journey to learn why most modern people don’t recognize acorns as food. More broadly, she delves into the bigger questions of how our current food systems came about and how they could be changed for the better. Tree nuts like acorns, chestnuts, and hazelnuts are abundant and nutritious, but are not currently major components of our diet. Hay makes a compelling case that incorporating these and other tree foods into our food system can help transform agriculture into something more sustainable for a better environment. She introduces us to sustainable farmers, indigenous traditions that managed ecosystems for acorn production, Appalachian food economies based on chestnuts, and to agricultural commons in England. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and learning to reframe our modern narratives about farms and food.

[Kat Robinson Grieder · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book and have been recommending it to everyone I know. I was aware of the author before reading the book because she is the creator and host of the Local Food Report on WCAI, the Cape and Islands NPR station.

The book is an engaging personal story of her investigation into nut trees as a food source. It starts from a depressing observation as a child, that continued to be born out, that all animals besides humans seem to have a habitat with food sources to which they are uniquely suited. Humans, on the other hand, in an effort to sustain ourselves, cause harm to the environment and the habits of other plants and animals. And even then hunger is a pervasive problem. This book is a journey of discovery in which she find that it IS possible for humans to grow enough food without destroying the environment.

[Ben Caesar · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderful exploration of our past relationship with both the trees that fed us and the landscape that nourished us, and an insightful and eye-opening look at the ways in which we've been (quite intentionally) separated from the natural world which used to sustain us all. Hay's thoughtful analysis of the question of yields (nuts vs. corn) provide much-needed fodder for the argument that we should be incorporating more trees and perennials (and diversity in general) into our agricultural landscapes. And in the end, this book provides a powerful case for cultivating a deeper connection with nature, and with the trees that sustain us along with all life. An essential read for those who want to build a better world.

[Elisabeth Swan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elspeth Hay is a wonderful storyteller, and Feed Us With Trees is packed with revelations. She weaves memoir, history, science, and personal discovery into something that’s entertaining, educating, enlightening, and inspiring. I came away seeing the forests around me differently—and questioning how we lost such a sustainable, nourishing way of feeding ourselves. Hay doesn’t preach; she invites. Through her curiosity and joy, you’ll find yourself rooting for nut trees and wondering what’s edible right outside your door. A beautiful, important book that shifts your mindset in the best way.

[Jill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a remarkable book! Incredibly well researched with a wonderful narrative woven in to keep the reader engaged. I've been reading a lot on sustainability, seeds, etc. and this book took me to a whole new level. A great follow up to Robin Wall Kimmerer's work - especially Braiding Sweetgrass...
Congratulations Elsbeth!

[Harry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has a lot to offer without insisting on providing THE answers. It chronicles a learning process both about the problems we have to day being part of the natural world, its historic methods and transformation, and directions for positive change. Hay offers a lot of information with a healthy dose of humility. While you may not find answers here, you will be given food for thought.

[Deb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating book. For hundreds of years, nut trees in North America were the staple food, sustaining the populations of native americans and settlers in the South for generations, until private landownership began to be enforced, forcing people off the common lands, and making subsistence foraging illegal.

[Phil · Rating 1.5 out of 5]

This really should have been advertised more along the lines of "personal journey". There is nothing new here if reading/doing permaculture is your thing. Nothing.

Big points off for her nutty cultural guilt and shame. None of us are responsible for our ancestor's actions. We can only course correct the timeline we live in.

[Di · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really important book I think would benefit a wide variety of people. Made me rethink what agriculture is, and how fire can be used beneficially on the landscape, among many other belief-challenging thoughts. I am growing nuts, and this book helped me understand even more why this is a good idea.

[Jo Matey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extraordinary and revelatory look at traditional food sources and current food production means. I had no idea acorns (oil!!) were edible by humans. Lots of food for thought in this little nugget.

[Steve Paulson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a good introduction to the idea of turning our food production system from what it is today to one that will make both us and the world we live on healthier.

Eat nuts!

[Kelsey Treat · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book taught me so much I wasn’t expecting to learn. Please read this book!!!

[Dan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrific. Engrossing from start to finish.

[Nats Mag · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing! Well written, thought provoking, paradigm shifting!

[Tom Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful new perspective on food and nature