Foraging for food
I think as a whole we all have an interest in foraging as it becomes hand in hand with our basic bushcraft skills and whilst out at a bushcraft meet on the weekend we had several discussions on the limits we go to to test our level of skill and one comment in particular struck a cord with me which was
"I do not believe it is possible to realistically or sustainably forage for our food in this part of the world in this day and age "
Well this got me thinking as my first reaction was that the very pleasant guy sat next to me was being very close minded ,but upon reflection I realised that he did in fact have a valid argument on a certain level and I have over the last few days asked several similar minded people of there views on the same subject( bushcrafters) .
My conclusion was that although the people whom I was having the discussions with we're effectively seasoned foragers none of them indeed had the needed skill/ knowledge to actively sustain themselves so I be decided to put down a few of what I believe to be the basics of which the modern take on foraging has neglected to portray
Firstly , our seemed to be preferred forage is the edible greens 'bush salad'of which I have no doubt we all regard as foraging and with this skill we will then be able to live of the land and its my opinion that commercialisation of foraging has made us believe that this is the case and here In lies the danger of over confidence
Although greens are a good part of the sustainability they are far from the needed intake we require to live and if we are honest with ourselves as singe people we are only able to identify a small handful of edible plants and flowers from the thousands available in our immediate vicinity and this is generally down to our natural instinct of self preservation and knowing that there is a veritable minefield of poisonous goodies out there
Some of which are in fact edible in one season but poisonous in others and if like me you do not have an encyclopaedia for a brain it is at this level things come to a crashing stand still and it is at that point we start to question if we have the skill to survive independently in that situation well I'm hopefully going to share some average mans pointers to help .
We get our energy from carbohydrates so your salad which has just used up your energy to replenish isn't going to get close to replacing it we need more
And unless you are foraging from a bin at the back of your local supermarket you need to know where to find them . As you live now your energy comes from things like pasta , bread , potatoes and your not likely to find those in a foraging situation so here are my easy spot carb givers
A, burdock ( dig the root good reward for your efforts ) please remember when ever you dig for root follow the plant down from the stem to prevent eating the wrong tuber
B ,acorns these need to be prepared ie leeched to remove as much tannic acid as possible and then crushed and cooked ( very labor intensive and results can variety in taste from tree to tree in my experience
C,pignuts although small rewards high in carbs ( note more nutritional value cooked )
D cattail , starch rich rhizomes highest return for work available in the uk
We also have a lot of seasonal wild foods which make our sustainability easier in certain times of the year in the uk that's obviously our native fruits and nuts these give us wider scope to stock foods for the periods that foraging is difficult my favourite way to preserve my fruit harvests are to make pattys along side the jerky when the effort has been made to make a dryer I have found that you need a greater amount of solid type berries such as hawthorn or rose hipp to the amount of more palatable berries such as blackberries ,strawberries but a mix is defiantly needed as the pattys are far to tort for my taste
Protein is the second subject and although we can forage some protein from plants inevitably meat is needed and this is where most of us will fail due to short thinking or our inability to see past what we deem as acceptable
So in the uk we have the obvious small game but unless we are secure and have the factor of time to find suitable grounds to hunt this can be almost impossible so we would turn to road kill every year in the UK,(158) 3 million pheasants, 800,000 rabbits, 50,000 deer, squirrel and badgers, as well as 25,000 foxes are killed on our roads that's a lot of food but how many of us would regard this as food ?
Then we have fish and not are perception of fishing either to make this work the sport element of fishing needs to be removed or your output will outweigh your return and render the exercise pointless ,nets and traditional traps are the best as if working give results for a small return remembering trout and salmon although very nice are probably not within reach but in the uk we have no poisonous fish so a very effective 2ltr bottle trap is going to catch fish which are very small and best eaten in numbers but will give you a very wholesome boost
Learning that the parts that in a normal situation are discarded are some of the most nutritious bits is also important remember eat first Heart,kidneys,liver they hold great nutritional value and deteriorate the quickest
Also a fact to keep in mind is that rabbit and other critters which are easily hunted are lean meat and our body is unable to process the meat quick enough to be of sole value so the innards are needed to sustain us as stuffing on lean meat will not satisfy us for long in fact it will lead to protein poisoning giving you severe headaches ,fatigue and diarrhoea this is because our kidneys can not process urea in large amounts leading to urea and ammonia in the bloodstream this is commonly known as rabbit starvation or fat hunger
So the real lesson is small quantities of each group trying to cook them as often as possible and common sense will enable you to put in place a routine it is the short term which is difficult but with planning and strict discipline you will become acclimatised to any surrounding and with each passing day you will gather the knowledge and skills to improve your standing as our ancestors did thousands of years ago
I think as a whole we all have an interest in foraging as it becomes hand in hand with our basic bushcraft skills and whilst out at a bushcraft meet on the weekend we had several discussions on the limits we go to to test our level of skill and one comment in particular struck a cord with me which was
"I do not believe it is possible to realistically or sustainably forage for our food in this part of the world in this day and age "
Well this got me thinking as my first reaction was that the very pleasant guy sat next to me was being very close minded ,but upon reflection I realised that he did in fact have a valid argument on a certain level and I have over the last few days asked several similar minded people of there views on the same subject( bushcrafters) .
My conclusion was that although the people whom I was having the discussions with we're effectively seasoned foragers none of them indeed had the needed skill/ knowledge to actively sustain themselves so I be decided to put down a few of what I believe to be the basics of which the modern take on foraging has neglected to portray
Firstly , our seemed to be preferred forage is the edible greens 'bush salad'of which I have no doubt we all regard as foraging and with this skill we will then be able to live of the land and its my opinion that commercialisation of foraging has made us believe that this is the case and here In lies the danger of over confidence
Although greens are a good part of the sustainability they are far from the needed intake we require to live and if we are honest with ourselves as singe people we are only able to identify a small handful of edible plants and flowers from the thousands available in our immediate vicinity and this is generally down to our natural instinct of self preservation and knowing that there is a veritable minefield of poisonous goodies out there
Some of which are in fact edible in one season but poisonous in others and if like me you do not have an encyclopaedia for a brain it is at this level things come to a crashing stand still and it is at that point we start to question if we have the skill to survive independently in that situation well I'm hopefully going to share some average mans pointers to help .
We get our energy from carbohydrates so your salad which has just used up your energy to replenish isn't going to get close to replacing it we need more
And unless you are foraging from a bin at the back of your local supermarket you need to know where to find them . As you live now your energy comes from things like pasta , bread , potatoes and your not likely to find those in a foraging situation so here are my easy spot carb givers
A, burdock ( dig the root good reward for your efforts ) please remember when ever you dig for root follow the plant down from the stem to prevent eating the wrong tuber
B ,acorns these need to be prepared ie leeched to remove as much tannic acid as possible and then crushed and cooked ( very labor intensive and results can variety in taste from tree to tree in my experience
C,pignuts although small rewards high in carbs ( note more nutritional value cooked )
D cattail , starch rich rhizomes highest return for work available in the uk
We also have a lot of seasonal wild foods which make our sustainability easier in certain times of the year in the uk that's obviously our native fruits and nuts these give us wider scope to stock foods for the periods that foraging is difficult my favourite way to preserve my fruit harvests are to make pattys along side the jerky when the effort has been made to make a dryer I have found that you need a greater amount of solid type berries such as hawthorn or rose hipp to the amount of more palatable berries such as blackberries ,strawberries but a mix is defiantly needed as the pattys are far to tort for my taste
Protein is the second subject and although we can forage some protein from plants inevitably meat is needed and this is where most of us will fail due to short thinking or our inability to see past what we deem as acceptable
So in the uk we have the obvious small game but unless we are secure and have the factor of time to find suitable grounds to hunt this can be almost impossible so we would turn to road kill every year in the UK,(158) 3 million pheasants, 800,000 rabbits, 50,000 deer, squirrel and badgers, as well as 25,000 foxes are killed on our roads that's a lot of food but how many of us would regard this as food ?
Then we have fish and not are perception of fishing either to make this work the sport element of fishing needs to be removed or your output will outweigh your return and render the exercise pointless ,nets and traditional traps are the best as if working give results for a small return remembering trout and salmon although very nice are probably not within reach but in the uk we have no poisonous fish so a very effective 2ltr bottle trap is going to catch fish which are very small and best eaten in numbers but will give you a very wholesome boost
Learning that the parts that in a normal situation are discarded are some of the most nutritious bits is also important remember eat first Heart,kidneys,liver they hold great nutritional value and deteriorate the quickest
Also a fact to keep in mind is that rabbit and other critters which are easily hunted are lean meat and our body is unable to process the meat quick enough to be of sole value so the innards are needed to sustain us as stuffing on lean meat will not satisfy us for long in fact it will lead to protein poisoning giving you severe headaches ,fatigue and diarrhoea this is because our kidneys can not process urea in large amounts leading to urea and ammonia in the bloodstream this is commonly known as rabbit starvation or fat hunger
So the real lesson is small quantities of each group trying to cook them as often as possible and common sense will enable you to put in place a routine it is the short term which is difficult but with planning and strict discipline you will become acclimatised to any surrounding and with each passing day you will gather the knowledge and skills to improve your standing as our ancestors did thousands of years ago
. Looking fwd to more ...
