Living in the woods we need about 3,300 calories a day to not loose weight. This article (http://woodtrekker.blogspot.com/2013/09/living-off-land-delusions-and.html#disqus_thread)paints a grim picture of how hard it is to survive as a hunter gatherer and illustrates why on TV we see experts like Survivor Man Les Straud go hungry for a week. The table below from the article shows how much plant material you need per day to get the 3,300 calories we need. I can see why we transitioned from hunter-gatherers to farmers many centuries ago.
(http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o170/cockpitbob/Untitled_zpsa2981fb0.jpg)
I'm starting to realize that any long-term survival prepping needs to include seeds and farming equipment as well as hunting and fishing gear. If I recall correctly, in a total SHTF colapse, the time before this country runs out of food is just a few months.
There's no doubt that food is a HUGE concern when it comes to survival. I think it's natural that we like to concentrate on cool gadgets, guns, radios, night vision etc, etc, because that stuff is, well, it's just cool. But it's all useless junk if you starve to death for lack of food. No doubt that mans total domination of the world we live on and all of our advanced technology can be traced back directly to when our ancient ancestors started farming which allowed us to pursue other activities instead of spending every waking moment in the never ending quest for food.
Absolutely. Most people would starve to death. Even those who think they could live off the land probably couldn't, far from it. The problem would be to survive the learning curve and the fact that while the population dwindled, every bit of food would be consumed. The Chinese fleeing Hunan Province in WWII were eating tree bark.. They were so famined, they only walked two miles a day. McCandless almost pulled it off in Alaska and died because he was malnourished and ate the wrong plant. He had killed a moose with a .22 but although he had been told how to conserve the meat, he could not do it fast enough. He wasn't prepared to smoke so much meat. As soon as the supermarket would be empty, every edible and not-so-edible plant would be consumed. All game and pets would be killed, including mice and rats. Then canibalism would appear. It's not a grim outlook, it's reality. You couldn't hunt or fish, because someone would kill you for your catch. Hiding food would be the only way, and in different caches. Storing food in one place would be foolish. Thinking you could defend your food would be foolish. You'd need to be ready to leave, fast. When a gang of a hundred hungry thugs comes for you, it is not the time to fight, but to flee and dig out a cache of supplies later; because you can't carry much.. I'd suggest an all-terrain motorcycle, with long suspensions and knobby tires.. I used to own a Honda 600XL, which was great I wish I hadn't been hit by a car while riding it! One would need to survive long enough for the population to be reduced in order to leave food for everyone. Farming then would be crucial. It would probably take a couple years for game and fish to come back. There would be no point in planting anything early though, as anything growing would be stolen and eaten on the spot. You'd have to wait for when there would be much less people around.
I would say three months worth of food would be the strict minimum, a year would be better. The problem is to survive that long. Only badasses and criminals, the most violent ones, would be left. It wouldn't be the adventurous camping trip some preppers imagine! All the movies and shows I have seen on the subject were way too optimistic. Well, maybe except "The Road" (2009). Some crazy people say they would like it when the SHTF. Not me, I know better.
BTW, how do you process acorns?
Gil.
Well written, Gil! You've clearly been thinking about this for a while and see it with clear vision.
Regarding processing acorns, I need to learn that. I have a lot of oaks on my property. Now is about the time, though the crop is light. You can't count on acorns as a reliable fall food source. Some years the oaks drop almost no acorns and others the ground is covered with them.
You've also got the problem that it may take a year or more before any crops are available for food and that assumes success the first year. I have heard others state that their goal is to stock 30 months of food. Do the math on that for any number of people and you've got a huge problem of both money and storage space. For most this simply becomes impossible.
However, that doesn't mean it isn't smart to prep. If you have say 6 months of food and are able to come up with at least some food post-apocalypse, that 6 month supply might last a year. There are also scenarios that are prolonged but not permanent. For instance, a pandemic may require a 3-6 month quarantine, after which life slowly returns to normal.
Prep the best you can and hope it is enough for whatever actually unfolds.
Interesting that you should bring this up. I used to teach wilderness survival skills, mostly alpine and high desert. We would routinely have irrational students who insisted that they did not want to learn snares and traps but only wanted to live off of plants. It boils down to the math as illustrated in the chart - at BEST! The bottom line is, in North America, food = meat and all else is there to help the meat. This is why even frontier farms, in addition to corn, beans, wheat and etc. had live stock, and hunted to supplement the stew pot.
Domestic cattle have more fat than wild animals and you'll find very quickly that living off the land means little or no fat. In any disruption of normal market activities such as war, & etc. , in the long term, fat often becomes worth it's weight in gold. Domestic crops like beans have been bred to produce more chow per calories of work expended to grow and harvest them. Remember, if it costs you MORE calories to eat than you get from eating, eventually you'll die. This is why hunting is not as productive as snaring. Snares will 'hunt' for you 24/7, virtually silently. You can carry two dozen small game snares in your shirt pocket and still have room for your bandana.
I had a very good friend once who was talking about living off the land. We had a three day camping trip coming up. I suggested that I'd bring MRE's and he could spend the weekend 'living off the land'. He's a very intelligent fellow and saw the problem immediately. I then asked how - if it cannot be done now, it's could be done 'then' when 'the hills' are filled with a few million of his neighbors?
>>> Food storage is best used to allow you to keep away from dangerous areas, like population centers, markets, and etc. while there is major danger. It is to be used to supplement what you can safely gather until your first crops become edible. If you do not have seeds for food, you need some. Do some hobby gardening on your patio in buckets if you have to, but get used to growing at least SOME of your own food. Consider 'guerrilla gardening too - planting unorganised bunches of food plants, which most people will not recognize as food. Oh by the way, because you WILL suddenly be eating 'third world style' make certain that you have a LOT of third world spices. About day three when our survival students finally became hungry enough, and tucked into boiled ground squirrel with boiled greens and boiled roots & etc. I was used the same wild ingredients AND my spices to make a nice 'Squirrel Tika Masala" - Indian spiced dinner... I let the students salivate a few minutes while I explained that I advised bringing spices :o :o :o :o then I would hand out little spice packets for them to use. The difference between thrid world 'delicacies' and slop is a bit of attitude and a lot of spice.
de RadioRay ..._ ._
QuoteWe would routinely have irrational students who insisted that they did not want to learn snares and traps but only wanted to live off of plants.
That's what McCandless tried to do.. He died. There was no visible game for him to shoot except that moose. He did not trap. My grandfather showed me how to make snares and where to put them. How to wipe them with grass to remove your scent from the wire.. At one point in his life, he had to rely on them for food. Yes, even experts have a hard time. Les Stroud starves in most of his shows, except the "marooned on a tropical island" types where seafood is plentiful. Of course he is alone, no competition. On my last camping trip, in one week, I saw one racoon and one rabbit. Enough for me, but for a group? You'd get a couple bites each. All your energy daily is dedicated to food. The more you walk to find it, the more calories you burn too. My next buy is a few Yoyo automatic fishing reels and traps.
My house is in a so-so neighborhood, a few blocks from a three-letter street name... I hear gunshots at least once a month.. So, it might be necessary for me to move away from that area if things go bad. My best bet would be to head for the nearest river and take it from there. Lots of other people would do the same though, and that is a big concern. My house is also much more comfortable than a tent and can shelter a few useful people. Though call... Florida is not a good state to live off the land.. Possible, yes, but not easy. At least you probably wouldn't freeze to death in the winter..
Not many people do go camping, and when they do, it's in a big RV at a campground.. Sorry, but that's not camping. Camping is setting up camp in the wilderness.. What I did in April was borderline camping for me.. The best experiment would be to go for a week with the least amount of food available, and to be used only as a last resort.. Trying to live off the land. It would be a good way to lose some weight!
Gil.
Hence the fifty by fifty foot garden I put in each year. What I don't eat fresh I can, freeze, dry, pickle. Problem is it draws attention and I'd most certainly be one of the first hit. All my neighbors know I have a lot of weapons, none want to find out if I'm willing to use them. And, I have to say, if you're going to buy or build an assault rife, you better have made your mind up that you'll have no issue using it to defend you and yours from someone you don't know and maybe some you do. I also have four PLANO cases of MREs, one in the Blazer, one in the garage, two at separate locations elsewhere. I don't keep all my canned food here either, there's three other locations where it's at. There's also three Baofeng 5Rs scattered plus three of my friends are involved and each has a set of Motarola GMRS radios and a Baofeng 5R. We plan on meeting at a different location then pushing off together to the final destination. We may hook up with a group of five coming from Jersey along the way or just at the final destination. The Colonel and I are more or less in charge and we chat on a every other day basis. We all get together as often as possible, at least every three months. I do medical, sop does the Colonel. His people are together since Afghanistan. My group since the late seventies. Myself and two others in my group have a lot of woods craft skills, hunting, fishing, trapping, rendering hides and the like. Everyone has an M4, a 12G riot shotgun and a sidearm or their choice as a minimum. There are several 7.62 sniper rifles in the bunch with people having the knowledge and ability to use them properly. We even have several black powder big bore hunting rifles. Hey, they work and can knock a deer down. I don't know if we'd want to go much bigger than ten, but eight is a good working number and let's us trade off on things as needed plus we can set up one hell of a guarded perimeter with lots of surprises for interlopers and also operate as three teams if needed.
Medig photog, if the SHTF, I'm walking up to you, just give me about six months ;)
I'll report every night of the trip on 40m CW.
Gil.
Quote from: gil on March 19, 2014, 09:12:03 PM
Medig photog, if the SHTF, I'm walking up to you, just give me about six months ;)
I'll report every night of the trip on 40m CW.
Gil.
Sounds fair enough.
Quote from: medic photog on March 19, 2014, 11:23:33 PM
Quote from: gil on March 19, 2014, 09:12:03 PM
Medig photog, if the SHTF, I'm walking up to you, just give me about six months ;)
I'll report every night of the trip on 40m CW.
Gil.
Sounds fair enough.
Yeah, if he can survive that trip he's definitely the kind you want in the fox hole with you 8)
QuoteYeah, if he can survive that trip he's definitely the kind you want in the fox hole with you
Why don't all you guys come down to Florida, it's warmer 8)
Gil.
Quote from: gil on March 20, 2014, 10:23:15 AM
QuoteYeah, if he can survive that trip he's definitely the kind you want in the fox hole with you
Why don't all you guys come down to Florida, it's warmer 8)
Gil.
Snakes and hurricanes, no way.
Florida is warmer but the land is up here. You never know, if we decide the better avenue is to stay mobile for a longer period of time we may just be in your neck of the woods.
Gil,
Drop by the house on your walk UP. We'll feed you the best that we can, and having you pull some security while you rest would be helpful. I just made a big Saag Paneer - Indian styled farm cheese with vegetables, served in the delightfully spiced creamed spinach, cilantro and celery.. Po'Boy chow that is WORTH your time to come to dinner!
(http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonists/mfl/lowres/food-drink-oven_gloves-extra_hot-spicy_foods-vindaloo-spicy_curries-mfln7397l.jpg)
It's so delicious that I am going back for thirds.
73 de RadioRay ..._ ._
QuotePo'Boy chow that is WORTH your time to come to dinner!
Much appreciated Ray; I'd probably stay there after such a meal ;)
About Florida, the only advantages would be the weather and the sea. Too many people here for comfort, and no way out of the state but through two highways, one near each coast. Not the best state for survival. There is some farming and a long growing season, but the earth probably couldn't feed everyone. Of course, most of the population being very old, that could change quickly. There is however very little game, except for wild pigs and alligators. Fishing would be possible, but only after the population dwindles down, and there wouldn't be many fishes left by then. So again, it would be a matter of surviving the initial shock and famine. I'm talking all out TEOTWAWKI. A boat sailboat owner could do well...
The increase in physical activities in an emergency situation would mean more carb and protein intake. As Ray pointed out, meat would be a necessity. However when thirty people are shooting at the same pig, you have a problem.. I wouldn't want to have to hunt for food in the first few months of a major long term catastrophe. Too many people with guns running around shooting at anything that moves.. Surviving would be very difficult. I don't even personally feel prepared for such a situation. Better than most maybe, but far not enough.
As mentioned, a sailboat would probably be best. I plan on living on one soon or later, and started taking small steps in that direction. There would be no other quick way to evacuate the state if needed, other than getting an airplane (I have my pilot's license). But a plane costs as much as a sailboat and you can't live in it or carry much food. Easy choice. No need for a motor, though it's always a plus; solar panels, fishing gear, storage capacity and a tall mast for an antenna, what's not to like? Living off the sea might be easier than living off the land, though you would still need land produced foods to survive.. I think it is a good plan.. When I get too old for sailing, then maybe I'll be a snowbird and move between Idaho and Florida with the seasons..
Gil.
Since you're talking about a total EOTWAWKI, just steal a boat or plane and come join us up north. There's nothing simpler than hotwiring a C-172. Fuel for the trip would be the only issue.
BTW, bring Doxycycline. We'll have run out and the Lyme disease will be ravaging the New England population.
When you think about the diversity and capability of an area to sustain you we in PA have a good thing going. We're not far from Jersey, Delaware, the coast, New York is next door and we have a lot of deer and streams loaded with fish. Farms are everywhere and hunting camps set back in the woods are a dime a dozen. There are huge tracts of state game lands you can get lost in with little problem. We don't have as big a problem with wild or feral pigs as down south or New York be we have plenty so there is diversity to the meat larder that can also include squirrel and rabbit. Ground hog isn't too bad if you're not picky and it's cooked right. Not many people know it but there are still stands of corn from the Delaware Indians on some of the islands in the middle of the river, it comes up every year and was planted back in the 17 or 18 hundreds..
Good Topic, considering during the 1930's all the deer were hunted out from many counties in Texas. Since I live out in the country my plans are to stay put. I plan to bury some food stocks and ammo too. Figure to use beans and rice for long term food stocks.
There is not one answer to this question, there are many issues that will come into play depending on local and conditions. Yes, a lot of Rambo's will exit the cities and think they can live out in the country, they will be in for some major suprises. After 40+ years of camping I still learn something every time I head out into the bush. Interesting how people think they will be able to use scanners and shortwave radios to find info. I think many hams will revert back to CW for critical communication due to power conserns and portability of equipment.
I was warned that this thread is a bit dated however, I believe this is a timeless discussion and deserves an update periodically.
First, so that this is all in context, we plan to hold down the fort. Joining the refugees in a mass exodus to nowhere just doesn't seem anymore promising than a good bug in plan.
Here are a few things I have discovered in the last 8 or 10 years of pondering the atrocious possibilities of an EOTW scenario;
1, Put some distance between you and your advisory, meaning, 308 or 30:06 battle rifle and learn to use it. All the mall ninjas have fallen into the cool accessory trap of AR-15 variant and do not realize its effective range is only 2-250 yards and the meager 223 will break up in the brush. I much prefer the ability to go through trees! Also, you will not be fighting from your home. A parameter must be set and friends/neighbors included in the defense strategy or you will loose.
2. Water. Here, we are on a well and will not rely on solar and generators for the long term. I'm sure the panels will attract attention and turn the hole domicile into a target. We got a hand pump with 300ft of lift tube that can be dropped into any well around here and I'm sure I will be-able to trade 8hrs of pumping for a sandwich.
3. You need protein. Plant nut trees now! Especially Hazelnuts, they are a favorite of deer, squirrels and other eaters that will be looking for the same thing you are. Plant way more than you need, you will use them.
4. Focus on Cole vegetable family in the garden. We have found that a mere 2 collard plants will just about feed the neighborhood. Basically, the Cole provides the best production and nutrition for the given area. Collard and kale in particular do not seem to attract the worms that cabbage and broccoli does. As a bonus, they will grow right through the snow with little protection and grow in poor soils. You can also plant them outside of the garden proper as a stealthy eatable shrub. Next would be root veggies, potatoes, turnips, beets etc.
4. As mentioned earlier, There was no way to smoke all that meat! This is where salt comes in. You will need lots of it! Right now it is super cheap in a couple hundred pounds is not too much to have around. Get yourself some hersch pickling pots. These are what the old world used to preserve most of their food. Practice now, make yourself some yummy sauerkraut. From what I remember, in the series Jericho, a war was started over salt!
I know this is in no way a complete list but it just may bring some life to this thread and encourage everyone to add a few tidbits to something that should be an ongoing conversation.
Paul
SALT! I hadn't given it any thought, but you're right that it will be critical. In Roman times it was so critical soldiers were paid in salt (their salary).
Since I got such a rapid response, I'll add a few more.
Hydrogen Peroxide. Not the garbage at the store, order the good stuff online. Food grade 35% and make sure you get additional droppers as it tends to eat the rubber squeeze thing. Many uses, especially tooth aches.
Iodine. We beat cancer with this stuff. Look up Lugos solution and start adding it to your diet now. Also get a bunch of the povidone solution as an antiseptic.
Of course we would never do anything illegal, but you can still go to to the store and get a jar of "Spics Islands" poppy seeds. It says right on the label that they are the finest Turkish seeds in the world. Remember, before FDR, they sold the goo from this flower by the pound at the local store. Might come in handy, just saying.
For true....living off the land today aint gonna happen...........I have been to military survival schools........no holds barred........if you can catch it or kill it its yours ......no hunting season.....size.....sex.....etc...........any living critter was up for grabs.....we didn't catch or kill anything..........just went hungry nibbling on cool shit like watercress..........my conclusion.......want to eat in the future store some food today........mother natures supermarket is run by a mean mama.:)
Quote from: NavySEAL on May 10, 2015, 06:46:53 PM
For true....living off the land today aint gonna happen...........I have been to military survival schools........no holds barred........if you can catch it or kill it its yours ......no hunting season.....size.....sex.....etc...........any living critter was up for grabs.....we didn't catch or kill anything..........just went hungry nibbling on cool shit like watercress..........my conclusion.......want to eat in the future store some food today........mother natures supermarket is run by a mean mama.:)
This is true except that I doubt that any of us could fathom the idea of going down in despair. I have often thought it might be better to go out in the initial blast but my luck never results in the best option. So.... I must, at least, try.
Let me tell you my experience. I have a farm and we do a lot of farming and self-reliant living.
Throughout the last couple of years, I managed to buy basic farming equipment (we started farming about 6 years ago when I left Germany). Honestly, if you start from scratch it is very, very difficult and a real financial challenge to start serious farming. And for living of the land, you even have to make your own flour for the bread. Planting wheat or corn, dung it, harvest it, grind it.
To shorten the story... Living 100% off the land is managable but why would you do it? Given the fact that some goods can't be grown you have to produce more to do exchanges of good (find someone who will give you goods for your goods) ergo you have to sell it at the market to get money to buy diesel and all the stuff that you can't grow. Although a lot people do it already, it is very difficult. BUT its doable.
We had a project ongoing one season to see how much we can produce at the max, and its more than enough for my family. We even made some profit by selling goods. And that was in our free time after work. So... The only thing you need is machinery, time and land.
I wrote two articles about homesteading on my blog:
http://cro-prepper.com/2018/03/06/homesteading-for-preparedness-a-way-of-life/
http://cro-prepper.com/2018/03/17/building-your-own-greenhouse/