Why I Barefoot

Are our feet flawed by design, or are we perhaps forgetting something important..

I was recently pottering around the place doing odd jobs with my customary lack of organized process, when a parent pointed out my bare feet and jokingly said “No wonder it’s hard to get the kids to wear shoes”. I laughed along and agreed with the sentiment, having many times struggled with the same phenomenon as a parent of three wild and rambunctious boys.

However, thinking about it further, I decided it may warrant an explanation.

You see, much like permaculture, I’ve been in a deep dive into (human) Rewilding literature and interviews which, like permaculture, covers an umbrella of topics at least as diverse as the human experience.

Certainly, healthy living is a major aspect of the movement. And for many people it is the very gateway into Rewilding, usually through paleo-diets, the benefits of nutrient dense wild-foods, or primal movement related exercise.

I happened upon Rewilding while listening to a sustainability podcast and it has rather consumed my time and thinking since. Not many people know this, but as a child I would dream of running away to live in the wild. In fact, on two occasions, I tried to, but that’s a story for another time.



During a recent podcast binge session, I found a couple of interviews which featured the so called “Barefoot-Podiatrist”, a Dr Ray McClanahan of Portland Oregan USA.

It proved to be very fortuitous timing for me as I had developed several foot and ankle problems over the last year or so and after hearing Dr McClanahan talk, I began to understand why.

This is a babies' foot. You might notice the shape of it is quite different to the shape of a conventional shoe. It's widest at the toes, that's an important clue.

Dr McClanahan had started out his career in podiatry following a love of athletic pursuit and his own early experiences with injury related setbacks.

When he began his practice in podiatry, he fully subscribed to the processes and surgical techniques endemic of his field. It was only later that he would discover the work of Dr William A Rossi (1910-1980) who himself had become tired of the predictability of foot issues with his patients.

Dr Rossi would become to Podiatry, like Weston A. Price was to dentistry and nutrition. That’s to say, something of a revolutionary, but also largely unappreciated or ignored by the industry of his time. 

Dr Rossi (like Weston Price) travelled around parts of the world and observed firsthand the health of indigenous peoples. During his travels, he noticed that these people (who largely lived without footwear) did not suffer the injuries and conditions that are so common within “civilised” society.

In fact, the problems were being caused by shoes, and he went on to write an article titled: Why Shoes Make “Normal” Gait Impossible.  Which is well worth a google search.

Even today, many years after Dr Rossi published his findings, modern shoes, even those that are supposedly designed to help “correct” our feet may in fact be weakening and worsening our foot health.

A good example is arch-support, either built into the shoe or added later via inserts.

To quote Daniel Vitalis, “It’s like giving crutches to someone with already weak legs and expecting their legs to somehow grow stronger”.

If you think about it, our shoes are not really made to fit our feet. Our feet are naturally widest at the toes and yet the more fashionable the shoe, the narrower they are around our toes.

We put shoes on young children with the very best intentions, to protect their little feet, completely unaware that we may be contributing to painful health conditions that won’t start to show for many decades.

Furthermore, if like me you have come around to a holistic point of view, that everything in health and nature is connected, you probably wouldn’t be surprised to find that what starts at the feet can go on to affect other areas of the body. 

I’m certainly not a health professional, but I find myself increasingly becoming someone skeptical of the mainstream narrative. I find myself returning time and again to the idea, that if an industry stands to make or lose a profit, they may not be wholly motivated by what is best for the common people.

I don’t think Dr Ray McClanahan is going to get rich telling people to spend more time barefoot in nature, strengthening what our bodies are naturally meant to do, yet he is doing it any way. Nor did it do much to help Dr Rossi in his lifetime either.

But think that is what leaders do, they move away from or against the herd, not because it’s always the best thing for their own interests. But because it’s the right thing to do.

Permaculture and Rewilding, both as movements, are full of leaders. They might never end up being someone’s boss, or famous, or materially wealthy, but they are still leaders. And while it might sometimes look a little weird at first, we need people like that.

So, if you see me going barefoot, or embracing cold weather, or showing the kids how to crawl like a bear, it’s probably because I’ve spent a lot of time reading from or listening to the iconoclastic leaders concerning their respective fields.  

Oh, and just to clarify, I still wear shoes. I just try to select the appropriate footwear for the job. i.e. boots for heavy labour (usually for as short a time as possible), sandals for general wear, and Barefoot style shoes for whenever I need to wear something more enclosed.

But few things put a smile on my face as surely enjoying the feel of nature under my bare feet and toes.

Anyway, I hope that clarifies some of the thought behind my choices.

I would highly recommend visiting Dr McClanahan’s website; correcttoes.com

or by listening to his interviews.

I’ll share one here but it’s worth noting you may have to skip ahead to 26:45 to get to the interview itself.

https://www.danielvitalis.com/rewild-yourself-podcast/the-barefoot-podiatrist-dr-ray-mcclanahan-140

Until next time, enjoy the wild places wherever you are,

Dallas.