Obtaining water and food in autonomous conditions. Searching and obtaining food in extreme conditions. In difficult natural conditions

Man has been obtaining food in the wild since time immemorial. If earlier this was the first necessity and condition for survival, then with the advent of civilization many hunter-gatherer skills were lost. Finding yourself in the unusual environment of a wild forest, you can get confused and not immediately notice that food in the forest surrounds us on all sides. Nature offers man a lot of options for survival. It takes very little effort to not die of hunger in extreme conditions, while being able to get food for yourself. Knowing how to get food in the forest, you can go on a journey without fear.

Finding food in the wild

Much of what you can see while walking through the forest can be used to nourish and maintain strength. Therefore, when looking for food, you must first of all carefully look around you and at your feet. Food can even be found on tree trunks and under their bark. And an ordinary plant can not only be edible in itself, but also hide useful prey in its shadow.

How to get food when you are alone with wild nature? It’s easy to deal with plant food – you don’t need any special equipment to collect it, other than knowledge of edibility and toxicity. A strong stick is enough to dig out roots and worms.

Obtaining food that can fly, run and jump will require some skill and the availability of available tools or the manufacture of devices. It’s good if you have a rope or lace - they make snares or loops with which you can catch birds and hares. If you get used to it, you can catch fish using a homemade harpoon.

Methods of obtaining food are varied and depend on who or what is being hunted, where and at what time of year. So, in spring and summer it is easy to collect bird eggs. In winter, it is logical to track mammals by trail.

Methods of obtaining food and nutrition in the forest

Depending on the time of year, the quantity, quality and range of pasture in the forest changes. But you can be alone with nature at any time - you need to be able to find food for yourself both in the heat and in the cold. Winter is the most difficult time for survival in the wild. Finding food in winter is a severe test for a civilized person. However, the nature of the middle zone offers enough options for both winter and summer food:

• trees: the thin layer under the bark is edible - sapwood;
• mushrooms on tree trunks: oyster mushrooms, winter honey fungus;
• berries: rose hips, hawthorn, rowan;
• horse sorrel seeds, acorns, cones;
• plants: burdock roots, Icelandic moss;
• edible insects: grasshoppers, ants;
• birds and animals: hares, squirrels, mice.

Nature waking up in the spring gives much more chances for getting food. Young shoots are especially valuable for nutrition, and the ability to dig up underground parts of plants increases the nutritional value of the diet. Most of the herbs that are edible in the spring and summer are considered malicious weeds in civilized life and are mercilessly exterminated, but as food in the forest they will give a person a chance to survive.

The riot of vegetation and diversity of animal life in summer will not leave even the most inexperienced lost traveler hungry. Food in the forest in autumn is no less varied than in summer: even more berries ripen, nuts ripen, and the number of edible mushrooms increases.

A summary of the use of various plants depending on the season is shown in the table.

Expand the table of flora depending on the season

Necessary substances in pasture

To live, you need good nutrition with foods that contain proteins, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. It is worth considering in what finds around us these or those elements of nutritious nutrition are hidden.

Carbohydrates

Plant foods in the forest, which can most easily be collected in the wild, contain mainly carbohydrates - a source of energy, fiber and vitamins. Parts of plants rich in starch will help you get enough: root tubers and rhizomes. When searching for food, you should not neglect anything: many herbs that are inconspicuous at first glance are edible. They have enough energy value to maintain and strengthen the vitality of the body.

Vegetable protein

The main source of vegetable protein is mushrooms, containing up to 40% protein in dry matter. In their composition they are close to meat. “Silent hunting,” or searching for food in the form of mushrooms, is usually fun and not difficult. But it’s important to be able to recognize which mushrooms you can eat and which ones you should avoid. If you are not sure that “plant-based meat” is edible, then it is better not to experiment.

Animal protein and fats

Most people prefer to eat not only plant foods, but also animal foods, which provide the body with proteins and fats. All small rodents are suitable for food in the forest: moles, mice, squirrels, hares, hedgehogs. Birds and fish will delight anyone who is hungry. In addition, do not disdain frogs, lizards, snakes, and snails.

The easiest way to start searching for food is with frogs and snails. This forest “meat” is a frequent guest in restaurants serving French cuisine. The frog tastes like chicken with fishy notes. The edible part of the snail is the head and leg, which contains more protein than a chicken egg. Large grape snails are no less successful than frogs in becoming affordable food in the forest. It is somewhat more difficult to obtain mice, shrews and moles for food, but it is also possible. The entire carcass of a field mouse contains a full range of substances necessary for the life of the body.

Edible insects are quite suitable for food in extreme situations and not only: in many countries they are eaten with pleasure at every opportunity. Pasture in the form of grasshoppers and locusts is a gastronomic delight that is often found in the wild. You should not bypass anthills: ants and larvae are a source of complete protein and phosphorus. Ants can be eaten at all stages of development and in any form.

Another available protein food is right under your feet, or rather, crawling in the ground. In this case, to get food, a stick is enough to dig up protein-rich earthworms - they will become a valuable help in an extreme situation.

Food in the forest: to cook or not

If it is not possible to light a fire, then you will have to master a raw food diet, which will somewhat reduce the variety and nutritional value of the forest menu. Food in the forest that can be consumed without heat treatment - mainly above-ground parts of plants, berries, nuts - you just need to find and collect them. The underground parts of the plants will require preliminary digging and cleaning. It is advisable to wash any pasture before eating. The food in the forest that is animal will require heat treatment - it is better to fry or boil it for better digestion.

Life is such an unpredictable thing that as a result of a catastrophe, cataclysm, war or other extreme situation, even you will have to earn your own food. In such situations, the ability to search for and obtain additional food will come to the rescue.

A person can live without food for a long time, but in a combat situation, when a huge amount of energy is expended, a fighter needs food of increased calorie content. As is known, combat missions take the maximum possible ammunition to the detriment of food, but history has left many examples when such missions were delayed indefinitely, forcing fighters to forced starvation, which led to a loss of strength and loss of combat effectiveness. In such situations, the ability to search for and obtain additional food will come to the rescue.

Animal hunting.

The best time to hunt animals is early morning and twilight. It is better to hunt in lowlands, on lawns (feeding areas), near ponds and on trails.

A sign of an animal trail can be numerous paw and hoof prints on the soil, abundant droppings, branches of bushes and trees with tufts of fur hanging over the trail and constantly lashing the face and chest. Bear trails are characterized by dense, trampled soil devoid of herbaceous vegetation, often in the form of deep ruts up to 0.5 m wide. On some trees, deep furrows of torn bark are visible.

When hunting large animals with a weapon, you need to aim for the neck, chest or head. A wounded animal must be followed in the wake of blood no earlier than 30 minutes after the injury. You can approach a fallen animal with full confidence in its death.

You can catch small animals using traps, traps, and snares.

When installing devices you must:

place snares, traps and snares on paths that can be easily identified by fresh tracks of animals, in feeding areas, watering places, and near shelters;

approach the snare installation site from the side of natural barriers (bush, tree, etc.);

make traps simple in design and easy to camouflage on the ground;

cover fresh cuts of wood with earth, fumigate the trap with smoke, mask snares with branches and leaves;

place devices in the narrowest places without changing the environment;

use bait (offal of caught animals, fish).

To catch small animals hiding in burrows, they use a loop placed around the entrance to the burrow. The size of the loop should be smaller than the opening of the hole. You can also use a horizontal hole in the ground with a diameter of 6–7 cm and a length of 65–70 cm, into which the bait is lowered.

The animal can be pulled out of a shallow hole or hollow of a tree with a long branch with a split end (if the branch is rotated, it clings to the animal’s skin and becomes tightly entangled in it), smoked out using fires, smoke torches, or doused with water.

Snares and impact traps are used to catch small animals (squirrels, hares, foxes, badgers, gophers, etc.). To catch large animals (elk, deer, roe deer, zebra, etc.), piercing traps are used.

To catch animals such as wild boar, bear, etc., you can use pit traps of sizes corresponding to the animals for which they are intended. It is advisable to provoke such animals to attack in order to drive the animal into a trap previously set along its route.

Bats can be caught using a makeshift net. To do this, the large spear is intertwined with rope or vines, like the net of a tennis racket. A lit, smoky torch is then thrown into a cave inhabited by a colony of bats. After this, with active swings of the net, the alarmed animals flying out of the cave are knocked to the ground, stunned by the blow, and killed with a stone or knife.

In polar latitudes and on glaciers, if you have the appropriate weapons, you can hunt seals, elephant seals, and polar bears.

Fresh carrion is also edible. In southern latitudes, vultures circling in the sky are a sure sign of a fallen animal. If the vultures do not fly away when approaching them, it means that they have overfed and cannot take off, and the prey, accordingly, is somewhere very close. As a rule, vultures eat fresh meat.

The fact that the animal died several hours ago may also be indicated by a small number of flies and the absence of a specific smell of decomposition of the flesh. This meat is quite suitable for consumption when cooked.

Processing of animal meat.

Predators and omnivores cannot be eaten raw; their meat must be boiled in small pieces for at least two hours.

All ungulates, except wild boar, can be used for planing. Stroganina is also made from the breasts of hazel grouse, wood grouse, and black grouse.

Fresh carrion is edible. In this case, the dead animal is examined, if it does not show signs of decomposition, and the most edible pieces of meat that belong to large muscles are selected. The meat is cut into cubes with a side of 2.5–3 cm, thoroughly washed in running water and cooked for a long time.

An animal is considered sick if the lymph nodes (on the cheeks and in the groin) are hardened, enlarged or discolored, the hair in the head and back area is worn out, comes out or is discolored.

Before preparing food from the meat of hares, squirrels, rabbits, as well as from the kidneys and tongue of large animals, it must be washed well and kept in cold water for at least an hour.

Boiled brown bear meat has a bitter taste, so it is better to fry or stew it. The meat of seal, walrus, and seal must be separated from the fat, soaked in cold salt water for 8–9 hours, then rinsed 2–3 times and scalded with boiling water.

For quick cooking, the meat is seared over a high flame and then cooked over coals. Fresh meat can be eaten half raw.

Cooking in water. Before cooking, the meat must be thoroughly washed and kept in cold water for at least an hour, and cooked for 50–60 minutes. The meat of polar animals must be cut into slices no thicker than 2.5 cm and thoroughly boiled for 2.5–3 hours. Tough meat can be made more tender by beating it with a mallet (wooden mallet) or a smooth stone.

You can cook meat and other animal organs in a geothermal spring by stringing it on a string or stick and lowering it into boiling water.

Water for cooking in mountainous areas can be boiled in stone pits. To do this, water is poured into the recess and stones heated over a fire are placed. As they cool, the stones are taken out and heated, replacing them with other hot stones. This process continues until the water boils and can last as long as necessary for cooking.

Frying. Any metal sheet that can be bent to prevent grease from leaking out will do. In some places, you can use large leaves (banana leaves), which are juicy enough to not dry out when grilling over coals or flat stones. Eggs can be fried on a hot, flat stone of suitable size.

Cooking on a spit. The animal (pieces of meat) is skewered and constantly turned over the coals or next to a burning fire so that the fat moistens the surface of the carcass; a vessel is installed below to collect the fat. During the cooking process, the meat is cut off layer by layer with a knife. Small animals and poultry are roasted on a spit without removing the skin or plucking. After cooking, the charred skin is removed and the carcass is cleaned of its entrails.

Cooking in the ground. For cooking, a hole 30–40 cm deep is dug and lined with fresh leaves or grass. Meat or roots are placed at the bottom of the pit, covered with a 1.5–2 centimeter layer of sand, and a fire is built on top. After 40–60 minutes, the food is ready to eat.

Cooking in ash. Meat, roots and other products are wrapped in the skins of killed animals or in thick leaves and placed on coals. The top of the fire is covered with leaves. After 1–2 hours, the meat is ready to eat.

Cooking in clay. Fish, poultry and small animals can be cooked on coals, previously coated with clay. The tail and head are removed from the carcasses of small animals (birds). The carcass is covered with clay 1.5–2 cm thick, placed in a fire and covered with a layer of coals. Cooking food in clay takes up to one and a half hours, depending on the size of the carcass. When the clay is removed, the skin (feathers) comes off along with it. The finished meat should be easily pierced with a sharp wooden stick without bleeding.

Hot smoking. To smoke meat (fish), three stakes about 1.5 meters high are driven over a burning fire, and their ends are tied at the top. At half the height of the tripod, a platform is made in the form of a lattice. To do this, three longitudinal poles are placed on the forks of the stakes, and across them are twigs (not coniferous wood). Meat (without fat) is cut into strips about 30 cm long, 6 cm wide, 0.5 cm thick (the fish is gutted, but not washed, butchered, and the bones are removed).

Before hanging, the meat must be heavily salted, mixing it with salt, or sprinkled on top of the rods; the fat is trimmed in advance, as it will melt and flow into the fire. 13–15 grams of salt per 1 kg of meat is enough. The salting itself can also be done first in a hole lined with a piece of polyethylene, which also covers the meat from flies.

The duration of salting is at least 4 hours in warm weather, a little longer in cool weather. Then the meat is removed and hung until the juice drains. The top of the tripod is covered with fabric, branches and turf or the bark of a non-coniferous tree. The cracks are sealed tightly. Wood dust from old stumps and trunks, leaves of hardwood trees, pine cones, juniper with the addition of oak bark, fragrant grass, and bay leaves are placed in a burnt-out fire.

The duration of hot smoking of mammalian meat is 6–8 hours, fish – up to 3 hours, at a temperature of 60–70 °C. First, it is dried over high heat for an hour, then the fire is covered with sawdust. You must constantly ensure that the meat does not burn, rake the fire away from areas where the meat is cooked, and move the rods with the cooked meat along the poles.

When the meat is well cooked, light the fire and let it cool. A smokehouse for hot smoking can be made in a coastal cliff or small ravine. To do this, two niches are dug. One for the fire is located at the base of the cliff. Another niche is located at the top of the cliff.

The dimensions of the niches must correspond to the volume of intended smoking of meat (fish). The niches are connected to each other by a tunnel, which first goes deep into the cliff from the fire, and then rises vertically to the second niche. The prepared meat (fish) is placed or hung on sticks fixed in the upper niche and covered. A fire is built in the lower niche, into which the above fuel is added to create smoke.

Based on materials from Gray Volkov “In the wild - survive at any cost”

Mikhailov L.A.

It should be noted that a person can go without eating food for a long time while maintaining working capacity. Thus, safe fasting is possible for up to three weeks. You can safely live for up to 16 days without food (but not without water), and it is better not to eat at all than to use fractional meals. However, many days of fasting, and especially with a lack of water, reduces resistance to cold, pain, etc.

When switching to fasting with small food reserves, you should set aside supplies for a “rainy day” for 2-3 days (at least 500 kcal per day), keeping all the genuine leather products you have with you, which can be used for food if necessary , pre-crushed and boiled.

For the first 2-3 days, you can abstain from eating food altogether, drinking only water. This time is usually enough to provide oneself with at least minimal supplies of food from the gifts of nature, hunting, and fishing.

Animal products

Many consider grasshoppers (locusts), hairless caterpillars, larvae and pupae of wood beetles, spiders and termites to be delicacies. There may come a time when you will have no choice but to eat these kinds of insects.

Frogs, newts and salamanders. These small amphibians live throughout warm water and temperate climates. Frogs must be caught at night, when they are carried away by their croaking. The frog must be eaten whole, skinned and first fried over a fire or boiled.

Newts and salamanders can be caught under rotten logs or under rocks in frog-infested ponds.

Reptiles. Don't neglect snakes, lizards and turtles as possible food options. Skin them and boil or fry the meat. Before cooking, cut off their head.

Plant food

Experts have counted approximately 300 thousand plants on the planet, including those that grow in mountains, swamps, and the ocean. There are 120 thousand of them that are edible. Over 2000 edible plants grow in our country. Some of them can be eaten raw, others should first be subjected to heat treatment, as well as drying or soaking.

Most plants in the northern region are edible.

Mountain berry. A low creeping shrub with evergreen, leather-like leaves. Its red berries are rich in vitamins.

Alpine bearberry. It grows on a creeping stem with shreds of bark and rounded leaves that have a reddish tint and are not tasty. Dry the leaves, grind them into powder and thus get a good tobacco substitute.

Wild Rose. The berries, nicknamed rose hips, ripen from mid-summer to fall (they can often be found in winter and early spring). Wild rose grows in dry soils, especially along rivers and steep slopes. It can be identified by its spiny stem. The fruits are red and orange in color and are hard and dry in winter and spring, but they are edible and very nutritious.

Of the poisonous plants, water hemlock should be mentioned first of all. It can be identified by the places where it grows (always in moist soil) and by the following characteristics: a hollow bulb that thickens at the base, elongated, pear-shaped roots and a strong unpleasant odor, especially in the root and bulb area. These plants are especially abundant in swamps, near southern bays and around marshy lakes in river valleys. Hemlock never grows on mountain slopes or dry soil.

Plants used against scurvy

Scurvy can be prevented by eating plants and meat raw. There are many plants that contain large amounts of vitamin C, including scurvy grass and spruce.

Many plants are good substitutes for leafy vegetables typically eaten as part of the daily diet.

Dandelion. This plant is a potential life saver in polar regions. Both the leaves and roots can be eaten raw, but they taste better when lightly boiled. Dandelion root can be used as a coffee substitute. To prepare the roots, peel them, cut them lengthwise, then cut them into small pieces. Roast them and grind the roasted pieces with stones. Brew the powder like coffee.

Swamp marigolds. This plant is found in swamps and along stream banks and appears in early spring. The leaves and stems, especially of young plants, are tasty when boiled.

Seaweed. This is a good addition to the fish diet.

Willow. These shrubs or trees are quite common. They have young, tender shoots that are edible in the spring. Old plants have bitter and hard shoots. Willow can be identified by clusters of flowers or fruits that develop into sharp, caterpillar-like needles 2.5 cm or more in length. Willow is one of the richest sources of vitamin C.

Dwarf fire grass. Young foliage, stems and flowers are edible in the spring, becoming bitter in the summer and dying in the fall. It can be found along streams, rifts, on the shores of lakes and on alpine and arctic slopes. The flowers are lilac-pink, large and bright, with four petals.

Tall fiery grass. Young foliage, stems and flowers are edible in spring, but become hard and bitter in summer. This plant is found in clearings, forests, hillsides and stream banks, and near sea beaches. It looks like a dwarf fire grass. The flowers are bright pink.

Coltsfoot. The leaves and flowering shoots are edible in spring and summer. The plant can be found in humid forests and damp tundra. Its thick leaves, dark green above and fluffy white below, rise from the ground only in spring. The stem is fleshy, entangled in a “web” 30 cm high, at the top of the stem there is a bunch of yellow flowers.

It is believed that in total about 7 thousand species of cap mushrooms are found on the globe, about 3 thousand of them are found in the territory of the former USSR, including about 200 species of edible ones. However, only about 60 species are eaten, in some areas - 1520 or less, and more often - only 4-5 species. This is explained by the fact that many mushroom pickers know a small number of mushrooms, and treat the rest as inedible and poisonous and do not collect them, although such mushrooms are often edible and have high taste and nutritional properties.

In terms of mushroom yield, our country ranks first in the world; according to rough estimates, our reserves of mushroom raw materials reach 3-5 million tons.

Mushrooms are very rich in proteins. In addition, they contain fats, carbohydrates, minerals, microelements (phosphorus, potassium, calcium, manganese, copper, sulfur, zinc, etc.) and vitamins A, B, B2, C, PP&B.

Information on the nutritional value of mushrooms is presented in table. 2.3.

Table 2.3. Nutritional value of mushrooms

Mushrooms are most rich in B vitamins and, above all, vitamins B1, B2 and PP (Table 2.4). Thus, yellow chanterelles contain almost as much vitamin B1 as beef liver.

Table 2.4. Content of some vitamins in mushrooms (mg per 100 g wet weight)

Of the mineral substances, mushrooms are especially rich in potassium, phosphorus and iron, which are so necessary for the human body and are often absent in other products (Table 2.5).

Table 2.5. Mineral content in mushrooms and some other foods (mg per 100 g dry weight)

All mushrooms are usually divided into edible, conditionally edible, inedible, and poisonous.

Edible mushrooms: porcini mushroom, real milk mushroom, puffballs, chanterelles (yellow chanterelle), gray chanterelle, boletus, moss mushrooms, dung beetles, honey mushrooms, boletus, boletus, saffron milk caps, radoviki, russula (yellow, green, golden-red, etc. .), Champignon.

Conditionally edible mushrooms: valui, volnushki, smoothies, bitter mushrooms, milk mushrooms (oak, yellow, parchment, blue, black), sulfur, morels, autumn line, russula (beautiful, brittle, inconspicuous).

Inedible mushrooms: They are not poisonous, but have an unpleasant taste or odor and are low in nutrients. These include: false boletus, false valui, gall mushroom, false chanterelle, false honey fungus, brown dung beetle, satanic mushroom.

Poisonous mushrooms: there are about 200 species of them in European territory. Among them: toadstool (the most poisonous mushroom), fly agarics (parterre, gray, toadstool, red).

Wild plants

In the taiga and tundra, in the desert and jungle, you can find many edible wild plants. With their help, the body is provided with the necessary nutrients and vitamins.

Fruits, roots, bulbs, young shoots, stems, leaves, buds, flowers, and nuts are used as food. Some of them, such as berries and fruits, can be eaten raw, while others - rhizomes, bulbs, tubers - require cooking. It is not recommended to eat fruit pits and seeds, bulbs without a characteristic onion or garlic odor, and plants that secrete milky juice when broken.

Whether a particular fruit is edible can sometimes be determined by indirect signs: bird droppings, scraps of peel and numerous seeds lying at the foot of the tree, pecked fruits, etc. However, when using plants for food, you should strictly adhere to certain rules, because, By mistakenly mistaking this or that plant for edible, you can get seriously poisoned.

It is known that a person can live much longer without food than without water. However, protein foods are necessary to maintain energy levels and normal functioning of the human body. Therefore, in survival conditions, the ability to obtain animal food is important.

The easiest option is to find bird nests with eggs. Eggs are rich in protein, which will give you the strength you need to survive. It must be taken into account that birds will try to protect their future offspring, so you need to be careful, protect your eyes, and also try to take a stable position. You should not miss the chance to eat bird eggs, because it is not known when another opportunity to get animal food will arise.

The second option to get food is to find an animal that has already been killed by someone. If vultures are circling over a place, it means there is an animal carcass there. You also need to inspect it carefully - there should be no smell of rotten meat and a large number of flies and their larvae. Otherwise, it is better not to eat such meat, as there is a high risk of poisoning. Cut meat must be cooked for a couple of hours or well-fried; it cannot be eaten raw.

In small shallow rivers or ponds you can easily catch fish with your hands. You should lower your hands into the water and begin to slowly move them closer to the bottom. When you feel a fish, you need to grab it by the gills. If the water is cloudy, then you can simply lift it from the bottom either with a stick or with your feet, and the fish will swim to the surface in search of clean water, from where it will immediately fall into your hands. You can also hunt fish with a sharpened stick, using it instead of a spear. For long-term storage, fish must be dried in the sun or frozen if you have to survive in frosty conditions.

Another way of obtaining food is hunting.

If there is no weapon, then you can hide near the place where animals are (reservoirs, pastures, dens), and wait for the appearance of the animal, setting traps, snares or traps in advance, into which the prey falls itself. It is better to focus your attention on medium and small game.

The main way to catch such game is to set a snare. Typically this is a loop attached to a branch and connected to a tripwire strung along the animal's path.

As soon as the animal gets into the loop and touches the tripwire, the loop tightens. You can also use the option without stretching - in this case, the animal pulls itself into the loop, trying to get out of it.

It is very easy to get small animals, such as squirrels, moles, hamsters, badgers, from holes or hollows - just fill the housing with water or smoke the animals out of their housing using a torch or fire. You can also use insects and larvae as food.

Plant foods are not as tasty, high in calories and filling as animal foods, but they are more accessible. Different parts of plants are eaten as food: fruits, roots, young shoots, leaves, buds, flowers. Plants that birds and animals eat are generally safe to eat.

Traditionally, berries are used as food, which are a source rich in vitamins. It is necessary to take only edible berries.

Hazelnuts are a delicacy that just needs to be peeled. In order to consume the grains of spruce and pine cones, the cones are thrown into the fire. The cleaned grains are then soaked in water and then fried or boiled. Acorns are edible and very nutritious when properly prepared.

Water lilies (white lilies) grow in ponds. Their roots, like the roots of reeds, reeds, and arrowheads, are edible. To prevent the flour obtained from them from becoming bitter, they should first be soaked and washed in water.

If it is impossible to find other food, then brown (gray) lichen is also suitable. If you dry it and crush it, you can cook porridge, although it will turn out sticky. In spring, the buds of birch, linden, and aspen are edible; they can be eaten raw or cooked in limited quantities. The buds of spruce and pine are also edible, but they must be soaked and boiled.

In the fall, rhizomes can serve as food, and in the spring, young shoots of coastal cattail, which are edible boiled and baked. In the autumn, from not yet old plants and in the spring, when new leaves appear, boiled and stewed, you can eat felt burdock root. The roots of the field bell are also edible. Dandelion leaves, which have a bitter taste, are edible raw.

I welcome everyone to the site and today we continue the topic of getting food in the forest. was devoted to specific edible examples from flora and fauna. Today I will tell you about some of the nuances and dangers that lie in wait when obtaining food.

Foraging for food in winter

A separate topic for an article, I’ll go into brief – hawthorn, rose hips, rowan, lemongrass, bark larvae, oyster mushrooms. The simplest options are the bark of trees and shrubs, buds, and the outer part of the trunk. The most nutritious of them are pine and birch. You need to remove the top, red bark from a young pine tree, exposing the green part of the trunk. This part is cut into strips and chewed.

It’s hard in the forest without a pot

Getting salt

You must maintain an average balance of proteins, fats and carbohydrates, as well as water-salt balance in the body, which is very important. Without salt, the body literally loses water before it reaches its outlet. Desalting leads to dehydration and, as a consequence, to cramps and decreased performance. It is possible to obtain salt in the forest, but it is difficult. I will also focus on her prey.

The simplest, albeit rather time-consuming, method is to extract salt from the ash. For this we need deciduous trees. Ideal if you find hazel (hazel). We burn the wood until we get ash, then pour the ash into a container and fill it with hot boiled water and leave it to settle overnight. During this process, a leaching reaction occurs and the mass disintegrates. As a result, salt is released.

In the morning, carefully pour the top layer into another container. The solution tastes salty, you can either season ready-made dishes, or if you have a lot of time, then evaporate the water and get a brown powder at the bottom, which will contain salt.

Possible dangers when foraging in the forest

I also want to dwell on some of the dangers that may await you in the process of obtaining food.

First of all, this is competition - in a raspberry garden you can be side by side with a bear who also came for raspberries.

Be careful when removing eggs from the nest

In the process of obtaining eggs from bird nests, you may be attacked by the owners of the nest.

In the process of catching frogs and mice, you can stumble upon a snake or a viper and, at best, earn local suppuration from the snake or general intoxication from a viper or other snake, which leads to more global consequences.

You can also easily get poisoned from poorly washed food. Even a simple rinsing of the spoils reduces the risk of dysentery significantly.

It is also worth mentioning SEPARATELY about the need for boiling water, filtration and disinfection. Boiling water kills most bacteria. After which it can be consumed. Water can be filtered from impurities in different ways. We even have an article dedicated to water filtration

Fish on the fire

As a preventive measure, I would like to say the same about coal. Activated carbon. if you feel that your insides are reacting hostilely to what has gotten inside, then an ember from a fire (extinguished) can help. This is not pharmaceutical charcoal, but nevertheless very close to it.

In my biography, there were many cases when it was possible to minimize the consequences of poisoning an ENTIRE group of people and myself, who greedily drank raw water from the river and ate unwashed food.

Conclusion

As a rescuer I will also say the following thing. There are a couple of important factors. The first is stress. In a stressful situation, the body switches to internal reserves and under stress, the feeling of hunger is weak for the first day, but it goes away as you become accustomed to the situation. The second is internal reserves. Using internal reserves, a person is able to go without food for 3 days without consequences for himself. Without water for a day. During this time, it is quite possible to go out to people or somehow find something to eat or establish production.

There are very few places in nature that cannot feed us. Everything is limited by your imagination and ingenuity, as well as the desire to eat... and as they say... If something floats in a pot of food - these are vitamins, if it sinks - minerals, and if it moves - then proteins ©