Do you have any bushcraft skills? If you were to become lost in the wild do you have the skills necessary to erect a shelter, start a fire, locate some water and find some nutritious food? And would you know what is safe to eat? Would you know how to stop insect bites?
>> Find a natural mosquito bite prevention alternative here
Living in our modern, convenience food world we have all lost touch with the sources of our food. Today, children grow up in cities and many have no idea where their food comes from. I once taught a young guy who didn’t know that burgers were made from beef. I don’t know what he thought they were made out of.
If you are lost in the wild, without bushcraft skills you might be surprised to find that there are no all night supermarkets. You really need to be able to identify what is safe to eat and what is potentially harmful. If you have ever seen Bear Grylls surviving in various inhospitable parts of the world he always catches and eats whatever he can find. Something you may have noticed is that Bear is never without his bushcraft knife, an essential survival tool.
Wild berries could be a valuable form of food and nutrition. Our ancestors would have gathered nuts, berries and grain when in season and either eaten these raw or prepared them in some way. But some berries can be deadly poisonous.
Yew berries are very poisonous causing many poisonings every year. They are bright scarlet in color, about 8 to 10mm in diameter with an indentation at the base. The berries look deceptively appetising leading many young children to eat then.
Deadly Nightshade is another berry that results in many visits to the emergency room each year. The clue is in the name, not in the appearance. This plant is also commonly known as Belladonna, producing sweet berries that can be irresistibly attractive to young children.
Insects can be a valuable source of energy, but many find the thought of eating them distasteful. Most insects are actually edible, but some taste better than others. Many species are actually very low in fat and high in protein.Crickets, grasshoppers, mealworms and wood grubs are all a safe bet. You will find that most insects taste better when barbecued and you can even grind them up to make an insect flour.
To stop them biting you can eat things rich in vitamin B, use lemon juice on your skin and clothes and use smoke as a natural insect screen. There are several types of plants that naturally repel mosquitoes so if they are around you can make use of them. Some of these are horsemint, marigolds, catnip and rosemary. You can also use lemon eucalyptus oil as a mosquito repellent.
Birds, rabbits and other small animals are all generally good to eat, but not so easy to catch. This is particularly true if you find yourself lost without a weapon. In these circumstances some form of trap will possibly provide the best chance of catching an animal.
You may be thinking that this will never happen to you and you will never be forced to eat grasshoppers for dinner. But this really could happen to you. All you have to do is stray from the main path through a forest, as I once did, and before you know it you are disoriented and lost. That’s when you’ll wish you’d paid more attention to Ray Mears Extreme Survival.
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