What Do Aborigines Eat?

Great question. What do Aborigines eat now? Just the same food as all the other Australians eat.

But the answer would not be the same if the questions were:

  • what did they eat back in time

  • how did they survive in a harsh environment?

Australian Aboriginals learnt to take advantage of everything the environment was offering in terms of food: fruit, plants, animals, insects, fish.

What Do Aborigines Eat - The Animal Food

Aborigines people adapted to their environment. They hunted kangaroos and emus. You can find kangaroo meat in the supermarket these days. It is very nutritious and also very healthy.

But other native foods are not quite to today's tastes: wichetty grubs, snakes, moths.

In the past the wichetty grubs formed an important part in the diet of Aboriginal Australians living in the desert. The grubs were cooked on coals or eaten raw.

The grub looks like a white large worm. It is a larvae of a moth. The adult lays eggs near the wichetty bush, which is a type of wattle tree. When they come out of the eggs, the grubs get into the roots of the tree and feed on them.

Wichetty bush

There is plenty of food in coastal areas. Seafood and fish formed part of the diet of the groups living there.

But, for those living in remote areas inland, finding food was a hard daily task.

What do Aborigines Eat - The Plant Food

Aboriginal Australians ate roots, seeds and berries, yams, honey. Just food that is easily available in the bush.


Aborigines did not raise cattle and did not cultivate the land. But they had a strong knowledge of the environment and how to benefit from it.

They developed the knowledge to survive and passed it down from one generation to the other.

They knew how to find water in the desert. They knew which plants and what parts of them were edible. They knew what was the right time to harvest them and how to prepare them.

Not all plants are good to eat and some of them are toxic. And among those poisonous some can still be eaten if you know when to pick them and how to prepare them, how to keep the good and remove the bad.


Here are some more interesting pages about Indigenous Australians:

A story of survival

Native food

Continue reading here: Australian Foods - Flavours and Textures

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Readers' Questions

  • erkki kononen
    What do the aborigines eat?
    12 months ago
  • Aborigines have a varied diet which includes locally available fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, insects, fish, reptiles, and small mammals. They also hunt and gather a variety of animal foods, such as kangaroo, emu, wallaby, wild pig, goanna, and crocodile. They may also eat different types of fruits and vegetables, such as bush bananas, kurrajong nuts, yams, and various types of bush herbs and grasses.
    • frank
      What do aboriginees chew on?
      12 months ago
    • Aboriginal people traditionally chewed on the leaves of certain plants, sometimes also stems, to obtain the natural benefits of the plants, such as enhanced oral health and nutrition. Some of the plants used were eucalyptus, acacia, cypress and pandanus leaves, which can provide important medicinal benefits.
      • Lempi
        What should ausrralian aboriginals eat?
        12 months ago
      • Australian Aborigines have traditionally eaten a variety of native plants and animals, such as kangaroo, emu, yams, snakes, lizards, and eggs. They also hunt for grubs, small reptiles, and insects, and gather fruits and nuts. Recent studies have demonstrated that the diets of many indigenous Australians have been influenced by the introduction of foreign foods such as dairy products, wheat, and sugar.
        • Ethan
          What do aboriginals eat?
          1 year ago
        • Aboriginals eat a wide variety of traditional foods, such as fish, kangaroo, shellfish, emu, wild greens, fruit, nuts, and grains. Many also enjoy a variety of non-traditional foods.