Foraging / surviving from the land

[Ecoman]

I did not "rant" and I have never taken "offence" at anything you said. We all have opinions and thankfully they all differ (If we were all the same the world would be a boring place). None of my comments are a personal attack they are merely voicing my opinion on the way you presented your statistics and I do not need them to be clarified. It just seemed like a very blasé and blanketed approach. The data would probably have been better presented be in the form of 3 typical meals that could be eaten over a 24 hour period, their nutritional value and possible calorific cost of obtaining that meal. I can understand where your coming from but the data was very black and white, unfortunately in nature there just seems to be many different shades of grey. It also made me chuckle to think of someone eating 103lbs of burdock!!! I know that wasn't what you were quoting that for its just I got an image in my head and I thought it was funny.

Yes trapping is illegal where I am but I was being hypothetical (as is this scenario) but its not impossible. If it was the difference between life and death I don't think there would be a law in this land that would deter someone from carrying out such an act. Let alone a jury that would convict someone of such a heinous crime of feeding himself because he was hungry.

The "two sides" comment was merely directed at the fact there are obviously 3 faction in this thread(there is not just you and I contributing to this). 1. those who think its is entirely possible, 2 those who think its completely impossible and 3 those who are somewhere in between and sit on the fence. I, my friend are in the third category. While I think it not impossible I still believe it would be highly improbable. I have not taken sides.

I also think you need to chill out a bit mate and not take things too seriously, life is afterall, too short!

 

[Toddy]

I think your figures are wrong rg598.

Instead of trying to do first world science on it, try third world anthropology.

Cattail roots, roasted and sucked straight off the fibres are as nutritious as potatoes.....and you certainly don't need 26.5 lbs of them a day to survive.....Irishmen and Scotmen, to say nothing of south Americans were (are) testimony to that.

"Typha latifolia. The British native REEDMACE is potentially one of the most productive rootcrops that can be grown. Not only that, its native habitat is marshy ground and shallow water where it makes a superb wildlife habitat. Reedmace might therefore be a productive crop in areas prone to flooding which would otherwise be difficult and expensive to protect.

The root can be eaten raw or cooked. It can be boiled and eaten like potatoes or macerated and boiled to yield sweet syrup. The root can also be dried, ground into flour and then used as a thickener in soups etc or added to cereal flours. Rich in protein, this flour is used to make biscuits etc. Yields of 3 tonnes of flour per acre are possible, which compares very favourably with wheat. The plant also has many other edible and non-edible uses that we will not enumerate here. T. angustifolia is a closely related British native plant with the same uses."

http://www.pfaf.org/user/cmspage.aspx?pageid=36

and within a mile of my home alone there's about 40 acres of the stuff; it's prolific in riverine flood plains here.

Similarly burdock root which works out at 72 calories per 100g.....therefore Ikg of the stuff will provide 720 kcals....nowhere near the 50kgs you claim are necessary. Even unprocessed.



Seasonality plays an enormous part of the viability of foraging as a lifestyle. Waterfowl abound in our esturies in Wintertime, and come Springtime and there's not only fresh green growth but the young of many mammals, and eggs too from herried nests.
Summer and it's fruits and thriving, bustling life, and plant rich long days, slowly chills into the glut of seeds, fruits and nuts that are the signs of the oncoming Autumn.
If you pay heed, you soon know just where to go to harvest all year round. Winter still has a lot of fat animals at it's start if one is a meat eater, and then there's the waterfowl and seagreens harvest again...or the roots and nuts and seeds if one is not so inclined.

Can it be done ? of course it can, just not in the population numbers we have now. Humanity has changed the world to suit itself, and we've changed physically as we have done so.

Understanding seasonality is the key.

cheers,
Toddy

 

[Balloonatic]

Without wanting to upset anyone over the 2500 calories a day figure, has it occurred to anyone that there are clear examples of people throughout the world who survive comfortably on less than this. Think about aboriginal peoples and the sheer volume of food they would require. The figure quoted is for 'moderate activity' I.e. Not doing nothing but still being active. To put that in perspective it is the amount recommended daily for soldiers on moderate intensity ops and most training.

 

[rg598]

I also think you need to chill out a bit mate and not take things too seriously, life is afterall, too short!

...said the man who posted up a five paragraph diatribe because I didn't subdivide the daily caloric intake into a three-meal plan which would better suit your fancy. The next time I would try to make my approach to presenting data more flowery and filled with hyperbole so it is more to your liking.

 

[mountainm]

It's all getting rather silly.

 

[Toddy]

rg598 you're today's winner of The Big Wooden Spoon

It's called stirring.

Your figures are seriously wrong, and therefore your argument needs to be adjusted.

Toddy

 

[Ecoman]

...said the man who posted up a five paragraph diatribe because I didn't subdivide the daily caloric intake into a three-meal plan which would better suit your fancy. The next time I would try to make my approach to presenting data more flowery and filled with hyperbole so it is more to your liking.

I'm sorry but at what point in everything that I posted did I personally attack you? Nowhere! So your comments towards me are neither justified or appreciated.

There is healthy debate and there is railroading.....

 

[rg598]

I think your figures are wrong rg598.

Instead of trying to do first world science on it, try third world anthropology.

Cattail roots, roasted and sucked straight off the fibres are as nutritious as potatoes.....and you certainly don't need 26.5 lbs of them a day to survive.....Irishmen and Scotmen, to say nothing of south Americans were (are) testimony to that.

"Typha latifolia. The British native REEDMACE is potentially one of the most productive rootcrops that can be grown. Not only that, its native habitat is marshy ground and shallow water where it makes a superb wildlife habitat. Reedmace might therefore be a productive crop in areas prone to flooding which would otherwise be difficult and expensive to protect.

The root can be eaten raw or cooked. It can be boiled and eaten like potatoes or macerated and boiled to yield sweet syrup. The root can also be dried, ground into flour and then used as a thickener in soups etc or added to cereal flours. Rich in protein, this flour is used to make biscuits etc. Yields of 3 tonnes of flour per acre are possible, which compares very favourably with wheat. The plant also has many other edible and non-edible uses that we will not enumerate here. T. angustifolia is a closely related British native plant with the same uses."

http://www.pfaf.org/user/cmspage.aspx?pageid=36

and within a mile of my home alone there's about 40 acres of the stuff; it's prolific in riverine flood plains here.

Similarly burdock root which works out at 72 calories per 100g.....therefore Ikg of the stuff will provide 720 kcals....nowhere near the 50kgs you claim are necessary. Even unprocessed.



Seasonality plays an enormous part of the viability of foraging as a lifestyle. Waterfowl abound in our esturies in Wintertime, and come Springtime and there's not only fresh green growth but the young of many mammals, and eggs too from herried nests.
Summer and it's fruits and thriving, bustling life, and plant rich long days, slowly chills into the glut of seeds, fruits and nuts that are the signs of the oncoming Autumn.
If you pay heed, you soon know just where to go to harvest all year round. Winter still has a lot of fat animals at it's start if one is a meat eater, and then there's the waterfowl and seagreens harvest again...or the roots and nuts and seeds if one is not so inclined.

Can it be done ? of course it can, just not in the population numbers we have now. Humanity has changed the world to suit itself, and we've changed physically as we have done so.

Understanding seasonality is the key.

cheers,
Toddy

There are several huge problems with your data Toddy.

One, you can suck, roast, swallow, or take any other approach to cattail root, the caloric value will not grow. Or, perhaps I am wrong. I would love to see the source on which you are relying for your representations.

Two, if we are actually going to stick to data rather than wishful thinking, REEDMACE contains about 7 calories per ounce (USDA Nutrients Base). That means that the daily requirements for a person can be met with 29.5 pounds of REEDMACE. That would be 13.4 kilograms by the way.

You seem to be correct on the burdock. Looks like I am a decimal place off. You should only need about 10 pounds of burdock root per day.

 

[Toddy]

rg598, You are still doing it.

You're wrong and seem unable to apologise or change course.

72 calories per 100g for Burdock, while 266kcal per 100g from reedmace flour....read the link I posted, it's from Plants for a Future.
Reedmace is prolific, one stem will yield a root weighing a kilo or so, roasted it's easy to extract the nutritious starch. Roasted dried and ground and that's flour. We have evidence for the grinding of the flour to 30,000 years ago in Europe, so it's not rocket science, iimmc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typha

PFAf is not the only source however, these figures and plants are widely known not just in the archaeological and anthropological record but among the bushcrafters and survivalists here too.
Paul Kirtley's site is a good example. So is Fergus the Forager, or Geoff Dann's site....and those are a tiny part of this wide ranging interest.
Masses of literature out there too.
http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80632e/80632E02.htm

cheers,
Toddy

 

[rg598]

rg598, You are still doing it.

You're wrong and seem unable to apologise or change course.

72 calories per 100g for Burdock, while 266kcal per 100g from reedmace flour....read the link I posted, it's from Plants for a Future.
Reedmace is prolific, one stem will yield a root weighing a kilo or so, roasted it's easy to extract the nutritious starch. Roasted dried and ground and that's flour. We have evidence for the grinding of the flour to 30,000 years ago in Europe, so it's not rocket science, iimmc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typha

PFAf is not the only source however, these figures and plants are widely known not just in the archaeological and anthropological record but among the bushcrafters and survivalists here too.
Paul Kirtley's site is a good example. So is Fergus the Forager, or Geoff Dann's site....and those are a tiny part of this wide ranging interest.
Masses of literature out there too.
http://archive.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80632e/80632E02.htm

cheers,
Toddy

Toddy,

I read the link you provided, and while it gives the description of the plant, it provides no data as to its caloric content (from what i saw). I looked it up, and according to the USDA, the root contains 7 calories per ounce (25kcal/100g), which gives me the figures I posted above.

Both sources I checked, the study I posted on which the wikipedia article you posted most likely relies and the USDA state that for cattail root the caloric value is 25kcal/100g or 7cal/oz. Maybe they are wrong. That's the good thing about data. We can compare, evaluate, and adjust based on new data. Again, I missed the spot in the post you provived where the calories are listed. Perhaps you could point me to it.

If my math is wrong, let me know. I re did it with burdock, and you were right, I was a decimal place off, which I posted above. Granted, you managed to sneak in a snarky remark before I could press "submit".

I checked the other sources you provided and none of them contain any caloric data as to cattail root, reedmace or any other variant. Again I was making an atempt to speak about data rather than th ings we heard from some other guy online. Data we can actually check and confirm. Rumors and conjecture we can not.

Trust me, I would love mothing more than to be wrong on all of my numbers. I spend a lot of time traveling through the woods, and food is heavy!

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

 

[boatman]

Could we be sure just what calories we are referring to 1 calory equals .001 kilocalories. 25 kilocalories per 100g would be useable as a rocket fuel.

 

[rg598]

Could we be sure just what calories we are referring to 1 calory equals .001 kilocalories. 25 kilocalories per 100g would be useable as a rocket fuel.

Annoyingly, when it comes to food, kcal and cal are used to designate the same thing. 1kcal equals 1cal, not 1000cal. Makes no sense to me, but... I had to check the same thing before I started doing the math.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2

 

[General Strike]

The basis for the need for 2500 calories per day for men, was calculated in the early 20th century - I don't think it's safe to assume an inactive, office-based lifestyle as this was a minority lifestyle until the last 30 years or so. I eat less than that and am currently gaining weight as I've recently had to put my 20 mile a day cycling habit on hold. Certainly the Harris-Benedict equation comes out at around and about 2500 at the moderate exercise bracket for maintenance of a healthy weight.

I get the feeling that the issues here are more to do with difficulty in definitions - as illustrated by British Red's comments about acting within the law. Land ownership in the UK is structured in such a way as to prevent all but the lightest foraging activity (didn't stop all the sloes disappearing up my way, grr ) as things stand at the moment. So is this a factor that we intend to account for? Or is the question more along the lines of 'can the environment in the UK sustain hunter-gathering?' in which case the answer is probably again 'no', if one accounts for the population of the UK. In which case are we asking 'is the richness of available foods great enough in the natural(ish) environment of the UK, that individuals could feasibly sustain themselves via hunting and gathering?' I.E. are calories dense enough in the environment, that a person can gather more calories than they expend? Persepectives on that latter question probably differ, and to those who say 'no', I'd ask - are you suggesting that the availability of calories in the environment is that much lower than it was in our prehistory?

 

[Toddy]

Ross, I think you've been looking at the calories from the shoots, not the roots.
"Cattail, narrow leaf shoots
Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
Energy 106 kJ (25 kcal)
Carbohydrates 5.14 g
- Sugars 0.22 g
- Dietary fiber 4.5 g
Fat 0.00 g
Protein 1.18 g
Water 92.65 g
Vitamin A equiv. 1 μg (0%)
- beta-carotene 6 μg (0%)
Thiamine (vit. B1) 0.023 mg (2%)
Riboflavin (vit. B2) 0.025 mg (2%)
Niacin (vit. B3) 0.440 mg (3%)
Pantothenic acid (B5) 0.234 mg (5%)
Vitamin B6 0.123 mg (9%)
Folate (vit. B9) 3 μg (1%)
Choline 23.7 mg (5%)
Vitamin C 0.7 mg (1%)
Vitamin K 22.8 μg (22%)
Calcium 54 mg (5%)
Iron 0.91 mg (7%)
Magnesium 63 mg (18%)
Manganese 0.760 mg (36%)
Phosphorus 45 mg (6%)
Potassium 309 mg (7%)
Sodium 109 mg (7%)
Zinc 0.24 mg (3%)
Percentages are roughly approximated
using US recommendations for adults.
Source: USDA Nutrient Database"

The roots are another thing entirely, and we're human, we pick the best bits

http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/9dm4z045#page-5

http://plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/cs_tyla.pdf

Toddy

 

[Toddy]

While we're on the topic anyway
Fergus the forager has a really good article here

http://fergustheforager.co.uk/recipes-articles/working-on-your-glutes-with-flour-power/

M

 

[British Red]

<snip>

I get the feeling that the issues here are more to do with difficulty in definitions - as illustrated by British Red's comments about acting within the law. Land ownership in the UK is structured in such a way as to prevent all but the lightest foraging activity (didn't stop all the sloes disappearing up my way, grr ) as things stand at the moment. So is this a factor that we intend to account for? Or is the question more along the lines of 'can the environment in the UK sustain hunter-gathering?' in which case the answer is probably again 'no', if one accounts for the population of the UK. In which case are we asking 'is the richness of available foods great enough in the natural(ish) environment of the UK, that individuals could feasibly sustain themselves via hunting and gathering?' I.E. are calories dense enough in the environment, that a person can gather more calories than they expend? Persepectives on that latter question probably differ, and to those who say 'no', I'd ask - are you suggesting that the availability of calories in the environment is that much lower than it was in our prehistory?

Great post.

I think you have removed a lot of ambiguity in phrasing it as three questions - and I agree with your conclusions in all three cases

I would pick up on your question...

I'd ask - are you suggesting that the availability of calories in the environment is that much lower than it was in our prehistory?

I suspect the answer to that is likely to be "yes" in aggregated form. The landscape has changed out of all recognition since that time, with huge losses of trees, species et al. Take a look at an arable field post harvest some time. It is completely sterile. Cities, roads, houses etc are similar. Far less plant an animal life than it would have sustained. That does not mean that a suitably skilled "tribe" would not manage to exist in a remaining suitable habitat (The New Forest sprigs to mind as an example), but I suspect the changing of the country to an agricultural basis will have negatively impacted the prevalence and density of wild flora and fauna across the island in total. Given long enough, I suspect it would revert though.

Red

 

[Toddy]

I was thinking about this earlier; the correlation between the advent of arable farming in these islands, and that virtually all of the 'corn' isn't native. That our ancestors did not develop the indigenous plants into the domesticated forms that we see both in the Fertile Crescent and in MesoAmerica.

One has to wonder, why not ?

My first thought is that the two real advances of grain production are that there is little need for extended wanderings to follow the seasonal rounds, and secondly that it allows a surge of population growth that led to the necessity to spread out and away from the fertile riverine soils, and the subsequent destruction of the woodlands.

Once farming was established, cleared land, (transhumance aside, I reckon there would have been an element of livestock husbandry incorporated into the farming economy) then the travel to the riverine or esturine resources might well have been restricted or curtailed, either by pressure of numbers between the sites or available time) This would then make it more important to secure the lands that were used by particular groups of people for farming.

However, the natural indigenous resouces that could (and were, we have evidences for that) be exploited didn't disappear, and still seem to have been gathered and processed as food.

So how much farming was 'farming' and how much of the economy of the people who did farm was reliant upon their continuing exploitation of the available wild foods ? and when did the land pressure reach the stages that everything was restricted and unavailable unless the rights to it were actively given ?

I think the anthropology is as important as the agriculture and foraging, tbh.

Sometimes not much changes, does it ?

cheers,
M

 

[rg598]

Ross, I think you've been looking at the calories from the shoots, not the roots.
"Cattail, narrow leaf shoots
Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
Energy 106 kJ (25 kcal)
Carbohydrates 5.14 g
- Sugars 0.22 g
- Dietary fiber 4.5 g
Fat 0.00 g
Protein 1.18 g
Water 92.65 g
Vitamin A equiv. 1 &#956;g (0%)
- beta-carotene 6 &#956;g (0%)
Thiamine (vit. B1) 0.023 mg (2%)
Riboflavin (vit. B2) 0.025 mg (2%)
Niacin (vit. B3) 0.440 mg (3%)
Pantothenic acid (B5) 0.234 mg (5%)
Vitamin B6 0.123 mg (9%)
Folate (vit. B9) 3 &#956;g (1%)
Choline 23.7 mg (5%)
Vitamin C 0.7 mg (1%)
Vitamin K 22.8 &#956;g (22%)
Calcium 54 mg (5%)
Iron 0.91 mg (7%)
Magnesium 63 mg (18%)
Manganese 0.760 mg (36%)
Phosphorus 45 mg (6%)
Potassium 309 mg (7%)
Sodium 109 mg (7%)
Zinc 0.24 mg (3%)
Percentages are roughly approximated
using US recommendations for adults.
Source: USDA Nutrient Database"

The roots are another thing entirely, and we're human, we pick the best bits

http://www.escholarship.org/uc/item/9dm4z045#page-5

http://plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/cs_tyla.pdf

Toddy

The article I sited referred to flour, which is typically made from grinding cattail rhizomes. The study was one specifically related to grinding implements in the archaeological record. It matches the numbers provided by the USDA. While wikipedia lists "Cattail, narrow leaf shoots" the USDA actually separates the values for the shoots from "other edible parts". When equating them to 100g weights, both give similar caloric value of about 25kcal/100g. I would be happy to look at any other data which shows different caloric values for the plant, and will amend my post accordingly when such data becomes available.

 

[boatman]

One thing we are becoming clear about is the speed with which farming spread across Britain. We are talkining multiples oa tens of years rather than of hundreds. It obviously offered advantages to become so quickly "popular". Perhaps the taste of processsed grain and dairy products was as addictive as sugar was to newly discovered tribes of the nineteenth and twentieth century. Then there is the concept of owning the land which may have become a principle of subsistence in the Mesololithic that became a major factor in the Neolithic. Even transhumance requires secure ownership or control of both sets of pastures.

It now seems that the monuments of the Neolithic such as long barrows were not the very long-term structures as formerly believed but were used for relatively short periods even by a single family, possibly, which suggests that modern concepts of control of land and resources were developed as fast as agriculture or earlier. There is not and never has been therefore a golden age for foraging in Britain free from constraints.

The above being said does not negate the possibility that individuals could make a living by hunting and foraging in the UK.

 

[General Strike]

I suspect the answer to that is likely to be "yes" in aggregated form. The landscape has changed out of all recognition since that time, with huge losses of trees, species et al. Take a look at an arable field post harvest some time. It is completely sterile. Cities, roads, houses etc are similar. Far less plant an animal life than it would have sustained. That does not mean that a suitably skilled "tribe" would not manage to exist in a remaining suitable habitat (The New Forest sprigs to mind as an example), but I suspect the changing of the country to an agricultural basis will have negatively impacted the prevalence and density of wild flora and fauna across the island in total. Given long enough, I suspect it would revert though.

Red

I agree that the ecological richness of the environment has been adversely affected - one of the most extreme examples being the maintenance of extensive common land areas as pasture by keeping sheep on them. These areas are much better examples of artificially poor environments than arable land after harvest - much as a clearfelled forest, they look devastated, but actually there's still lots going on, lots to exploit in the soil, etc. I do take your point and agree, that monoculture has harmed the rural environment. However I do not think that we have yet managed to deplete the natural environment to the point that hunting and gathering would be futile. Hunter Gatherers such as the San have been pushed by more populous settled tribes to the most inhospitable environments available, generally, and they do all right (in small numbers) in places like the Namib desert where the calories per hectare must be far lower!

Also, in terms of recovery of natural environments, I think that it can happen a lot faster than we think. Obviously there are caveats to that - spotted owls are not likely to move into US forests until there is old growth available, and wolves and bears not likely to populate our countryside unless we put them there - but I'm optimistic that once largescale human interference ends, environments will bounce back and diversity increase quite suddenly. I'm pessimistic, however, that there is the will to make that happen at the moment. In fact it seems to me that currently the forces of darkness have the upper hand on this front.

On urban environments, I'm completely in agreement - there has been considerable research on 'food deserts; using the term in a variety of ways, but there is of course risk involved in packing people together so densely that food produced locally can't sustain them. I could go on but I'm deviating from the topic in hand at this point.