A hunter-gatherer is a member of a group that lives by hunting animals and looking for plants that can be eaten — fruit, nuts, roots — rather than by keeping animals for food or by growing crops. For most of the time humans have existed, this is how people got food. Later, some groups began to farm. People who study history and anthropology still use the term for that way of life, and for some communities that live mainly this way now. Though actually, the tidy picture is tidier than life. Many such groups also fish, trade, or use some tools from outside. Magazines sometimes joke that a trip to the supermarket is “hunter-gatherer behaviour.” That joke only works because the real meaning is a whole way of getting food, not a weekend hobby.