Chefs vs. Wild Season 1 will be broadcast on September 26, 2022. Throughout the adventure, candidates will be hosted by Valerie Segrest, a wild food specialist who also emphasizes the need of following healthy diets. Every episode of Chefs vs. Outdoors will showcase world-renowned chefs searching the wild for the required ingredients for producing delectable meals. To fulfill their culinary challenges, the participant chefs will have to confront numerous risky undertakings throughout their hunt in the wild.
According to the show’s official synopsis:
Chefs and survivalists will compete to please famous chef and explorer Kiran Jethwa and wild foods expert Valerie Segrest, who will assess contestants on their ability to create the greatest five-star dinner using foraged products from British Columbia’s coast.
It goes on to say:
It has never been more difficult to reach the pinnacle of the culinary industry. In each episode of “Chefs vs. Wild,” two separate world-class chefs will be dumped into the wilderness and challenged to survive and gather enough wild items to prepare a restaurant-worthy, five-star dinner.
#NewProfilePic pic.twitter.com/tf4NB7TOuO
— Valerie Segrest (@ValerieSegrest) May 26, 2021
Valerie Segrest from Chefs vs. Wild is a Muckleshoot Indian Tribe member.
Valerie Segrest is a nutritionist who focuses on regional and traditional meals. She is a member of the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, which advocates for environmental preservation and upgrades, educational opportunities, and social services. She works as the coordinator of the Muckleshoot Food Sovereignty Project in her community. Segrest also serves as a nutrition instructor at the Northwest Indian College’s Traditional Plants Program. She leads tribal community members in grassroots initiatives to build culturally relevant and nutritionally adequate sustainable food systems using a community-based participatory research method.
In terms of schooling, the Chefs vs. Wild host earned a Bachelor of Science in Nutrition from Bastyr University. She then earned a Master of Science in Environment and Community from Antioch University. Segrest has also worked at the Institute of Agriculture and Food Trade Policy as a Food and Community Fellow. For more than a decade, she has devoted her expertise in Nutrition and Human Health Science to supporting the food sovereignty movement and igniting food security measures. Her strategy and social contributions are based on educating, raising awareness, and removing obstacles to acquiring traditional foods for tribal populations throughout North America.
She has obtained various qualifications in advanced herbal studies throughout the years. Segrest has also conducted a substantial study on the historical and traditional food and medicine systems of the Coast Salish tribes of Western Washington.
Within 10 years, she co-authored many books, including Feeding the People, Feeding the Spirit: Revitalizing Northwest Coastal Indian Food Culture, and Feeding Seven Generations: A Salish Cookbook. As a Kellogg Food and Community Fellow at the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy, the Chefs vs. Wild host was able to discuss the work of the food sovereignty movement with audiences locally, nationally, and worldwide. In addition, she was featured in Women’s Day Magazine, Food Network Magazine, and J.Jill’s Inspired Women Campaign in 2019.