biochem wrote:DDHv wrote:Never hurts to have a hobby of knowing wild foods. Many lives have been saved by knowing that grass, clover, alfalfa can be eaten by humans when green. Not our best foods, but ... .
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Edibility of wild berries. Nature has color coded them for us.
Black -edible
Blue - most edible
Red - 50/50
Yellow - most poisonous
White - poisonous
Nausea and vomiting generally will proceed unconsciousness and death. So if in a survival situation where you need to determine if a berry is edible or not. Eat 1 berry - wait an hour. If you don't feel nauseous, eat 2 berries wait an hour... Double the amount of berries each time, wait at least one hour between levels. Stop at the first sign of nausea and don't eat any more berries of that type.
The above is of course for a survival situation. Under normal conditions, identify the berry first as non-poisonous before attempting to eat it.
All true.
But let's be practical. Yes, you can get needed vitamins and minerals from wild greens etc. That is especially true in Springtime. But... good luck getting remotely enough calories to sustain you. And it is extremely easy to make lethal mistakes in identification. It's just like mushrooms, some of them are wonderful and good for you, some of them will deliver a very nasty death. The differences in appearance can be subtle. and in winter...
I'm sorry, but a lot of my childhood was spent with people who had indeed lived darn near the wild lumber jacking in Alaska and northern Washington and keeping a small farm in northern Washington. These people were of pioneer stock who came to America in the
1600s and moved across the continent over the centuries, farming, ranching, trapping, lumber jacking.
When I was 12 my gr gr uncle took me out to spend the night by myself in the midst of the Hoh rainforest in Washington State's Olympic Peninsula. He was making a point and I got the message. Natura non conundrum.
Loosely, don't even think you can mess with Mother Nature, she will kill you in a blink if you get sloppy.
I'm sure he was actually watching over me the whole time but... I learned the respect and lost the bravado. That was his intent.
I think persons who think in a crisis they could bug out to the woods and make it like Trapper Joe are, most of them, smoking something they shouldn't.
I do not
want to relive Quest For Fire, anyway.
Please be real. Part of that is understanding that there are some things you will not survive. Just are. The reasonable goal is to minimize those without letting any of this take over your life or your bank account.
Thinking you can live off wild greens and berries is not gonna work. Want to learn how to trap and use snares? Fine, but the area would get hunted and trapped out pdq. Just would.
Put your energies into making your home energy efficient and capable of going on 'medieval mode' without electric or running water. Maybe some solar to run some things, maybe not. Power going off does actually happen and sometimes it takes months to get it back. What would you do? People in fact lived without power or indoor plumbing for millennia. Figure out how you would. And what you can reasonably do to mitigate the loss.
We have a woodburning stove which can cover the heat and cooking. We have a large pond and several means of purifying its water. I've already said read The Humanure Handbook or see his website for how to handle the um other end of things without plumbing.
One thing to look into for water purifying is a steam juicer. I have a very good one from Lehman's. I use it for canning juices and making jelly but it also works as a water distiller, the advantage of which is distilling will remove a lot of toxic chemicals as well as killing germs. This can be used atop my woodburning stove. This is the sort of 'useful all the time/ great in a crisis' thing I like.
There will also be practical limits on what can be done in each person's situation and facing them squarely is necessary. You assess what is reasonable and practical for you, then what you do if that is not enough in X situation, then accept there is a point at which it is game over for you. Such is life. There is no point setting goals beyond what your realities can reasonably embrace.
It is not healthy or wise to pretend nothing bad will ever happen. Crap happens, usually with little to no warning. And I think we
all have a responsibility to be able to take care of ourselves and our families and do what we reasonably can to accomplish that.
But it is likewise unhealthy and unwise to go mental and doommongering about it. A person can destroy themselves, their relationships and their finances letting fear of possible yuck rule them.
Thus all my
reasonable caveats.
Those folks were pretty self-sufficient. That was just necessary back then out on the thinly populated edge. but none of them tried to be a hermit or fill the shed with old Sears catalogs in case the apocalypse hit and there was a shortage for the outhouse.
Hey, run out of paper, use leaves. Not a big deal.
Be prepared to handle a nasty bug at home and small accident first aid stuff and to maybe have to stay home for some weeks, maybe three months, tops. We've used that stuff when we had H1N1 in 09. Was glad to have it. Also hit the storage things when Mr Northstar's employer got bought suddenly and he, after 20 years there, was unemployed for a couple months. It was real nice eating out of the stash, and gee it was the things we ate anyway so no big deal food-wise. Though the nice new job was real welcome.
I do have food for longer than that, much of it because we garden and I can and freeze and hit sales, but all of it is the things we use normally. So no money wasted on 'survival' stuff I hope I
never have to use. I admit to a few packages of TP accumulated at sales. But... a
few months' worth, not
years' worth.
Yes, I have a small box of stuff for really bad case bug body handling. It is one small box and also gets used for spray painting attire so fine.
Yes, I have a nice little over the counter pharmacy here to cover the mundane stuff you always seem to need at 2AM or to deal with minor injuries. They get used now and then.
We do not need prescription drugs but if we did I would keep as big a supply on hand as my doctor would allow and is within the use by date of that drug. Just would. Won't hurt, might save a life. eh. I have heard you can sometimes get a cheaper price if you buy more at once, so there is that also.
I keep an Ace bandage and basic first aid stuff and a small sewing kit in my purse...because I've had occasion to need these things with me. Ditto a small radio, a small flashlight and a bit of duct tape wrapped around a Bic lighter, even though I don't smoke. A Leatherman Wave. Some paracord, a couple HeatSheets some clothespins, like 5. This is verging into prepperdom but oh well. My small attack of it. So sue me.
I keep a get home bag in the car because... wait for it... I've had to walk home from a dead car, rural, no phone. So, I know these things can happen and this stuff be needed because... it has.
I've never had to bug out of the house and hopefully never will but it is handy to have all the papers in one place, just in general.
Doubtless more intense prepper types think I'm an amateur. Well. My level worked fine for pioneers on the frontier, those are the folks who taught me, personally. If the stuff gets deeper than that, sayonara baby.
I do not
want to survive the apocalypse, thanks.
But
do want to get through the more minor stuff that happens now and then, without having to depend on the government to save my fanny and keep us fed etc. I have seen no evidence they are remotely competent to do that.
