Full video

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it makes perfect sense for us to be

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eating invasive species because invasive

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species are an endless

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resource for

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food this great big story was made

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possible by

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[Music]

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my name is bun lai i'm the chef at mia's

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sushi in new haven 33 years ago my

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mother started mia's reimagining sushi

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as something that is restorative of the

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environment

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this is part of the regimen that happens

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every day in the morning foraging

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one of the things that we're really

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focused on is invasive species what if

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we start focusing on ingredients that

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nobody else wants to eat that are

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abundant and even destructive of the

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environment and by pulling them out of

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the environment will help rebalance that

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habitat

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this is wild lettuce

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and we're going to serve them with bug

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holes in them it's like swiss cheese

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that means that they're they're healthy

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to eat and that they're pesticide

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herbicide free

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here's a big one

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really can't hesitate have to be fully

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committed to catch him see if i am

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gotcha you're a lot stronger than you

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think he's really pushing off my hand

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yeah we're set to go let's rock and roll

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[Music]

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great

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these snails from europe they're called

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european snails

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came over

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stuck on ships

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i feel like you're like a big kid just

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crawling around looking under rocks

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when i'm collecting it's always

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incredibly exciting it's very thrilling

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for me

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well all right

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but when i'm trying to figure out new

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ways of working with an ingredient that

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i've never worked with before or an

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ingredient that actually grosses me out

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i like the fact that i'm forcing myself

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to

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confront my own prejudices

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today we went foraging for dandelion

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amaranth

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wild lettuce mugwort

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butterbur

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grasshopper invasive european snails a

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whole bunch of asian shore crabs and

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guacama seaweed and gracileera seaweed

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[Music]

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are you gonna be mad if we show the

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whole world that you can make gourmet

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sushi just using stuff in your backyard

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that's what we want the whole world to

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do or consider doing or think about

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doing and not only that this isn't an

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original idea people have been doing

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this for tens of thousands hundreds of

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thousands of years way before before me

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is and it's delicious and it's

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absolutely delicious and nutritious

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and great for the environment

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[Music]

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you