Mr. Rawles,
My Survival Group was having a discussion the other night, and we got to talking about “What if / Worst case” stuff. One of the situations involved the old “Lost in the wilderness with nothing but your knife and your lighter”. (you do carry a pocket knife and a lighter with you, right?) That got us to thinking…what would you eat? Most of us tended to think of ways to snare small game, but then we got to talking about wild plants. Before long, it became clear that not only is foraging for wild plant potentially more efficient than snaring wild game, its also much easier. There are almost always edible plants all around you, no matter where you are. Usually within arms reach! Case in point: The Pine Tree.
Pine needles can be easily brewed into tea which contains many nutrients and vitamins. Pine cones can be roasted over a fire (you did start a fire already, right?) to open the cone and access the seeds inside. In a longer term situation…those same seeds can also be ground into a type of course flour. One can also east the inner bark of Pine trees if nothing else is available. And that’s just the common Pine tree, which grows almost everywhere! Speaking of Tree bark: remember that Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) was originally derived from teas made from the inner bark of the Willow tree.
Anyway, you get the point. A little study on the matter can go a long way toward making you self sufficient as far as food is concerned, by enabling you to supplement your dry-stores (you do have food stores, right?) with fresh greens providing vitamins and nutrients year round. Just remember what Crocodile Dundee said “You can live on it, but it tastes like…”Well, you know what.
Here area couple of web sites I’ve come across that deal with this topic:
Linda Runyon’s “Of the Field” Web Page
WildwoodSurvival.com/
There are, of course lots of other web sites out there, as well as good old fashioned EMP-proof books as well.
Good luck, and KYPD, – Krys in Idaho