WILD FOODS

Traditional food

for a sustainable future

ACORN

is A SHARED

HERITAGE of

health and

resilience

Acorns, or oak nuts, have been one of humanity’s essential staple crops since before modern humans.

As climate change causes crop failures around the world, acorns are again attracting notice.

Archaeological sites in the Middle East from 750K years ago include evidence of acorn consumption by early hominids. Some anthropologists claim that the abundance of acorn in California is why there are so few stories of famine and starvation in native Californian cultures prior to colonization.

In legend, the Welsh god of poetry, Taliesin, ascended after accidentally eating a bit of acorn mash from the tree of knowledge and many ancient Celts considered acorns sacred. The ancient Greeks used acorns to symbolize fertility, while the Vikings associated acorns with Thor and imagined Yggdrasil, the world tree, as a mighty oak. In the Karuk story of the Acorn Maidens, the Acorns began as  Ikxareyavs (spirit people) who came into the world to help humanity thrive.

Today, acorns are an important crop in Korea and China and are consumed as specialty foods in Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Morocco; and of course many California Indians still harvest and eat them as a staple food – a tradition dating back thousands of years.

In our time of need, we’ve found an old friend waiting for us - and wondering what took so long.

 

acorn IS A SUPERFOOD

Acorn is one of the most nutritionally dense foods on the planet.

Acorns oils are much higher in unsaturated fat than saturated fat, which can improve cholesterol levels and protect against heart disease.

The low glycemic index makes acorn flour ideal for people with diabetic or pre-diabetic symptoms, or anyone trying to lose weight. Put simply, it does not provoke an insulin response like wheat flour.

Acorns are also a complete protein, and contain a full set of amino acids used by the body to build muscle.

California has the best food-grade acorns in the world, but for more than a century they’ve been inaccessible to most Californians.

We’re changing that.

1 ounce of raw acorn flour contains

  • 110 calories

  • Up to 2 grams of protein

  • Up to 9 grams of fat

  • Up to 4 grams of fiber

  • 0 grams of cholesterol

  • 11.5 grams of carbohydrates

  • 11.62 milligrams of calcium

  • 17.58 milligrams of magnesium

  • 22.40 milligrams of phosphorus

  • 152.81 milligrams of potassium

  • Vitamin A: 44% of the Reference Daily Intake (RDI)

  • Vitamin E: 20% of the RDI

  • Iron: 19% of the RDI

  • Manganese: 19% of the RDI

  • Potassium: 12% of the RDI

  • Vitamin B6: 10% of the RDI

  • Folate: 8% of the RDI

Future Crops

There are a multitude of delicious, climate-adapted Native Californian crops that have never been grown or harvested commercially. We’re eyeing native hazelnuts and pine nuts, currants, gooseberries, coffeeberry, manzanita sugar, and the uniquely delicious California Bay Nut, which we hope to bring to market at scale in 2026.

BAY NUTS: A CALIFORNIAN LUXURY

The California bay laurel (Umbellularia californica) only grows in California, along rivers and streams in oak and redwood forests. It is relative of the cinnamon, avocado, and European bay trees – and no less remarkable than it’s better known cousins!

Roasted bay laurel nuts are packed with nutrition and natural stimulants. They have a deep rich flavor somewhere between chocolate and coffee, and a creamy texture. Native Californians have eaten them since time immemorial, and Spanish and Mexican colonizers in California fell in love with Bay Nuts shortly after arriving. Among working class Californios it was common to replace expensive and hard-to-get chocolate that had to be imported from the south with Bay Nuts, and they were used in mole sauces and more. Chefs since then have incorporated them into everything from truffles to brownies; and the biggest limit on their adoption has been that – up until now – there has been no commercially available supply.

Bay nuts are around 15% protein, very low in carbs, and a good source of essential amino acids like Leucine. Leucine is used by the body to fuel biosynthesis of proteins and build muscle, and is hard to find outside of animal sources like fish and milk. This makes bay nuts a particularly important food for vegetarians and vegans.

To Know a Place, eat its food

California has a rich culinary heritage REaDY TO BE UNLOCKED

From more than a hundred indigenous culinary traditions to Californio cuisine which blends Mexican, Native, Basque, Catalan, and Castilian influences, to the radical diversity of new foods brought by people from every corner of the world since the Gold Rush, California’s food is as diverse as its people.

Unfortunately, many modern Californians have never tasted our native foods. Even among those in the know, acorn flour is expensive and incredibly time consuming to produce by hand.  By making quintessentially Californian ingredients like acorn available to the mass market at affordable prices for the first time, we will spur a renaissance in Californian Cuisine and bring the native flavors of California to restaurants and dinner tables across our State.

For native communities, it is challenging to source acorn flour for tribal food programs. By offering bulk pricing and discounts on purchases by tribes, we can make these important traditional foods a staple crop once again.