Feasibility of Long-Term foraging

[GreatUsername]

I'm curious about how realistic it is to think of someone like me (6' 4", 220 lbs, young male) with a high caloric intake can feed himself at length via foraging or hunting. Does anyone know what sort of things you need to eat to maintain the rarer nutrients that we often find artificially in our food nowadays? Will seasonality be an issue? (Geographic area, pacific northwest) How much time will have to be spent finding food? I know there is a reason that humans graduated to farming long before civilizations could form, but I'm curious to see if anyone can comment to the doability of rummaging up food for one individual out of what you find in the woods?

[crashdive123]

I lived in your area for a number of years. With the abundant food resources in the water (fish, crab, shrimp) and the reasonably long growing season.....It might be worthwhile to explore gardening in addition to wild foraging.

[gryffynklm]

I would agree with crash.

I think it is doable HOWEVER..............

It would be best to work on some foraging skills and knowledge before put into that situation.

Your body will take some time to adjust to a new extreme diet. It will think you are starving. It sounds like you are speaking of a quick abrupt change to foraging such as a bug out, emergency, quick change in life style. There are both physical emotional and cognitive effects of extreme dieting. It will take time for your body to adjust and accept the change.

There is a lot of information on the effects of extreme dieting that will help you understand the effects on your body. If you know and understand these effects, it may help with keeping your head straight. You will still go through anger, depression, changes in concentration etc. Knowing that it's the result of the diet change may help in not allowing the effects negatively influence judgement. Be careful that is a fine balance. Its your body's survival instinct.

For instance, with everything going on you decide to eat a plant you think you recognize but aren't sure and don't check your filed guide. Wild carrot and water hemlock can be trouble if you don't know them.

Do a search on "The Physiological effects of an extreme diet"

"How does an extreme diet effect your body"

Things like that.

Just my 2 cents. I haven't researched this fully.

[kyratshooter]

What do you mean is it possible?

First, you seem to think you would havwe a choice of foraging r not foraging? Even the well prepared will have to forage eventually even if it is only to supliment their supplies.

Second, There was a well developed culture of hunter gatherers in your area living off the rescources available.

Your real poblem would not be presence of rescources but overpopulation stripping those rescources.

The native people ate very part of the animal in order to exploit th rescource fully, including the liver, brains and internal organs, in order to procure the vitimins and nutrients we now inject into our food. I believe one has to skip the liver in polar bear and seal since the vitimin content is extremely concentrated to the point of being toxic.

They also ate a more varried selection of plant rescources than we do as each plant came into season.

Your present meat and carb diet will end, your calorie intake will also be reduced. Your body would adjust to a new normal and you would live or die based on nutrients in/nutriants out.

[hunter63]

The knowledge of the Native Americans has allowed them to live there for many thousands of years.

Forgings and gathering is a year round endeavor, sprouts and young plants in the spring, stalks, leaves, roots in the summer, fruits, nuts, crops in the fall, all stored for winter.
Hunting and fishing, and of course storing these resources for future use when out of season.

Keep in mind that groups were small, somewhat nomadic, with different location being used for gathering, fishing and hunting.moving around alot.

They seemed to be doing reasonable well, before the the Europeans came along and kinda changed things.....

Of course you either worked at it, learned fro your family members the what, when,who, where and how....or you just took your self out of the population...insuring necessary supplies for those that did the work and had the knowledge.

[Cast-Iron]

Hunter makes an excellent reference to the nomadic lifestyle of many Native American tribes. They didn't do it beacuase of their love for travel, they did it to survive. If you don't have livestock or a garden to meet your needs, chances are you will eventually need to move on just to find enough to eat. Knowledge of what you can eat doesn't help much if you don't understand when you should be harvesting it or how to handle it once you've found it. Acorns are widely available food in the fall in much of the US. If you attempt to consume them without removing/diluting the tannic acids, you could cause serious kidney damage. Nuts are also an excellent source of calories from their high fat content. Pecans were a preferred food for the Commanche and Apache tribes which inhabited this part of central Texas. Unfortunately, Pecan trees tend to produce good crops every other year so they can't be relied upon half the time. Yucca flower spikes are edible, but only when young and tender. The yucca flower is also edible, but the leaves and root are not. Mesquite trees produce a bean which was also a staple of Native Americans. Persimmons also offer a welcome bounty in fruit but you'll have to beat a lot wildlife to them cause nearly every animal eats persimmons it seems. Agarita berries in the spring, wild grapes. and cactus nopals and pears offer yet more choices throughout the Edwards Plateau.
I know these plants because they are abundant where I live. What works in the Pacific Northwest likely varies greatly from what works here but you don't have to re-invent the wheel. Likely there are a number of experts in your area from native plant societies to historians, outdoorsman and the like who can provide you with information better suited to your location. I'd start with a little research on some of the Native American cultures who thrived there before the arrival of the Anglo settlers like Nez Perce, Snohomish or Tlingit to name a few.
Finally if you could research the caloric and nutritional values of the bounty in your area you'd know how much you'd need to consume to sustain yourself for each food choice.

[kyratshooter]

It all depnds on where you were! North America is a big place and things were as different in Washington, Kentucky and Texas as they are now, Probably more-so.

In some areas the groups were nomadic, but most were traveling a circuit, going to known points of rescource even in the palio period. Even the plains tribes stayed in specific areas unless the rescources played out or climate changed. Then there was major warfare.

During the woodland period in the east, the villiages were established, or there was a summer location on a hill with a winter location down by the water. Villiages were spaced at distinct intervils (usually ever 2-3 miles) along waterways with hunting areas reaching out behind the village into the woods. These people were engaged in agriculture with hunting as a protien producing operation.

The Cherokee had towns that had been in place with large populations for centuries. The other mound builder cultures also sometimes remained static for generations. Some of the pueblos were used for centuries before climate change forced their abandonment.

There is no blanket rule of operation for the NA tribes.

[Rick]

Chief's Wife: "Here have you been?!"
Chief: "Piggly Wiggly. Me gottum pork and beef. Good day hunting."

(sorry for the obviously stereotypical dialogue)

Of course you can forage. It's been down for thousands of years.

[KrisDeagle]

Just remember, if you sustain a lower calorie diet, you lose fat. So if you want to keep your current weight, you need to eat maintenance calories. If you eat under, you lose fat. Once you are at a low enough body fat level without getting adequate calori, your body uses protein (it burns muscle) to use as fuel. In essence, you won't die for a while...and onc you gt lighter, your maintenance calories lower too.

[ElevenBravo]

I dont see why not. Like the other pointed out, food from the water and garden are a good mainstay. Id suggest hunts too, rabbit and the like, to keep variety of food. From time to time, it would be good to have some fatty meat to balance the system's needs. Also, from reading a rookie trapper's notes while in Alaska, Vitiman C would need to be supplemented. Unless you got orange trees Id suggest having some source of it stock piled... whether it is pill form or a bunch of Tang bottles.

I have not foraged as you propose so I only speak from what I know and not 1st hand experience.

Take care,
Andrew

[kyratshooter]

We may also be suffering a misunderstading of terms.

Foraging has several definitions and we may be looking at one word thinking about totally different activities.

Foraging is the same thing as "hunting" to many people. To the hunter gatherer foraging is a 24/7 lifestylye, not something you go out and do for a few minutes and then pop a beer, play cards and watch TV.

Our pioneer ancestors were said to never leave their cabin without knife, hawk and rfle, not specifically as defenseive tools but in case they ran across something to eat! The racoon they killed in the cornfield, and the possom they killed in the chicken house were considered food as much as the rabbits, squirrels and big game they were out to get on purpose or by chance meeting. The wild greens, roots and plants they gathered were counted as food just like the corn, beans and potatoes they planted and harvested.

The rifle was hung over the door long after the indian scares stopped, just so it would be handy to everyone, granny included, if one saw food ambling around

The true primitive cultures, still in or just out of the stone age, eat anything they can kill. Even the kids supply a good portion of the animal protien using nothing but sticks and rocks. They begin their foraging as they walk out the door or roll out of their sleeping gear and do not stop foraging until they close their eyes that night.

Their continuious and unending work is to find more calories than they burn up in the search. There is a whole branch of anthropology devoted to that economic system.

[WolfVanZandt]

Rose hips, currents, tea made from evergreens, and peppers are rich in Vitamin C and many other plants also provide useful amounts. Visceral meats like liver are also an important source. The reason the seafarers had such a problem with scurvy was their considerable lack of diversity in their diet and regular consumption of alcohol which reduces the uptake of nutrients. Again, I've never noticed that native populations in America had a particular problem with diet deficiencies, and I don't think there would be a problem finding the foods needed, especially in areas of high biodiversity like the Southeast and the Pacific Northwest. It may actually help to study the Native American diet. That's what the French did when they were dying of scurvy in North America.

There's just way too many people and way too much pollution.

By the way, humans are not a good source of vitamin C so exclusive cannabalism will get you into trouble in more ways than one.

[Bushman]

I'm curious about how realistic it is to think of someone like me (6' 4", 220 lbs, young male) with a high caloric intake can feed himself at length via foraging or hunting. Does anyone know what sort of things you need to eat to maintain the rarer nutrients that we often find artificially in our food nowadays? Will seasonality be an issue? (Geographic area, pacific northwest) How much time will have to be spent finding food? I know there is a reason that humans graduated to farming long before civilizations could form, but I'm curious to see if anyone can comment to the doability of rummaging up food for one individual out of what you find in the woods?

I've done this for extended periods of time here in Australia at both the North end and the South. One is tropical, tother 'moderate'. Both ends have their tucker. Up North there is more in the way of wild edible fruits and berries and such things as water lilys. There are water buffalo, kangaroos, Emu, wild cattle, goats, feral pigs, deer, massive amounts of birdlife, fish,snakes, goannas etc .......its what the Blackfellas there, call 'good tucker country'....

Down south, not so much....still plenty of wildlife, rabbits, roos, deer, pigs, goats,snakes, lizards, but the foraging is harder. Still edible berries about (seasonal) yam daisies, fern fiddleheads, grass seeds (flour) etc. Because it is much drier (i.e. less rain down south) the soil is much poorer and less fertile than the monsoonal Northern Australia. And following that, 'living off the land' is that much harder...not 'impossible', but you haveto 'work' moreto get enough tucker for the day.

Some years back when running Survival Courses I told people that if they thought they could survive in Southern Australia eating 'vegetarian' they were seriously deluding themselves ! Neither is this entirely feasible up North !!

Basically if you're 'living off the land' downunder, in a Nomadic sort of way, your main source of food will always be 'MEAT'....and 'more-meat'..........whether fish or fowl or four legged..........

A caveat, most 'wild meat' downunder, is pretty damn lean, i.e. 'not much fat' Kangaroo, rabbit, goat, deer.......none of them have very much body fat, and this can seriously affect your ability to survive in the wild. As we need fat to keep us warm and to provide essential fatty acids in our diet. There have been cases in the past of 'rabbit starvation' whereat people living off a diet largely of rabbit for protien, got seriously ill, due to lack of essential fats.


You can extrapolate from this experience that wherever you are in the world, conditions will vary, as will the wildlife and the available bush tucker. Living off the land you will find yourself eating 'seasonal'.....and 'what-is-available...NOW'. In the Territory the women folk do the 'foraging' bit in groups, with a mob of kids tagging along. They gather berries,fruits, dig up wild yams........wade the swamps and rivers and catch snakes and goannas and some fish and anything else that looks edible. However they eat as much,if not more than they carry back to camp. Thisis what I call 'opportunistic-foraging'....eating on the move. It 'works' and keeps you alive !! The menfolk do the 'traditional hunting'...usually these days with a shotgun or rifle, but many still use spearchuckers and various types of spear. kangaroo, scrub cattle, buffalo, emu, whatever they can get. Their hunt lasts as long as it takes.....usually not long, and then they head back to camp, and the beast gets chucked on a pile of red hot embers to scorch the skin, rotated, the hauled out and eaten, dripping blood. Scarcely cooked meat contains almost ALL of its nutrients........the longer you cook it, the less return you get, health-wise.

So, 'yes', it IS possible to live off the land........you can certainly do it alone, but it is MUCH EASIER in groups....(spreads the workload, and gives a larger number of 'kill opportunities' to acquire meat or other protein) The only 'downside' I found after months of solitude, was certain degree of 'cabin fever'.........a man DOES need company, even if its just a dog or a horse..........(or in MY case, a donkey )

[coastal wanderer]

There some gems of wisdom in the thread above. I would agree that foraging on any scale is a lifestyle choice and an endless moving feast of knowledge and discovery. The key attributes of the successful forager is to aware and of your possibilities and more importantly your limitations in a given area or a given season. Being able to eat the edible as opposed eating the very narrow band of food stuffs that we have been accustomed to, get over that hill and you will well on the way to success. Knowledge is King experience is queen.

[Daniel Nighteyes]

When foraging, the slogan is "the more the merrier -- up to a point." It can be very difficult for one or two people to survive in this way -- day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year.

You see, the size of human "communities", until only fairly recently in human history, was determined primarily by the "balance" between the minimum number it took to truly thrive in this way, and the maximum number that could be regularly fed by one group. As a general rule, specific hunter-gatherer communities were pretty small. The American Plains Indian nations will serve as a few examples. The "black-feller" communities of Australia also serve well as examples.

Now, once agriculture becomes a factor, the communities grow much larger. Examples here would include the so-called Five Civilized Tribes (Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, Cherokee, "Seminole").

Wishing all of you, and all of yours, the very best of the Season - no matter how you observe/celebrate it.

-- Nighteyes

[WildJeff]

I'm new here, not particularly advanced in my skills and certainly cannot live off the land, but I do notice how different parts of my daily grocery store based diet can indeed be found in the wilderness.

For instance, all the vitamins and minerals that I'd count on getting from Broccoli, I can easily get from one of it's wild mustard cousins growing wherever there's a mound of topsoil. It is laughably easy to spot and collect. It has a very long growing season, and the leaves can endure the frosts of late fall up here in Quebec. This means that if I find the broccoli sold in stores a bit too expensive (or out of season), I could say, "well I can do better for free".

Regarding eating nuts or seeds as a staple, I would advise against doing so unless proper preparation is made, which can often be overlooked. Nuts, seeds and grains can be high in toxic lectins, and for sensitive individuals can lead to inflammation in the gut. They are significantly reduced by soaking in water for a day and draining off the liquid, and by cooking. They are high in calories, but their fat content is mostly polyunsaturated (omega 6), which if not balanced with omega 3 fatty acids can lead to inflammatory diseases. This article (http://chriskresser.com/how-too-much...making-us-sick) points out these things, and mentions that hunter gatherers tended to include a lot of seafood (rich in omega 3) in their diets, leading to a 1:1 ratio between omega 3 and omega 6. So if you want to have a healthy time in your self sustenance, I'd advise finding a clean source of wild seafood (not as straightforward to find in my area as it must've been 200 years ago).

There are likely many more issues to consider that I haven't really learned about yet, but I think the average forager in modern times who is quite removed from the cultural upbringing of a traditional hunter gatherer needs to pay attention to the context of the present time and how it affects the landscape today, carefully adapting these considerations towards a more direct relationship with nature. If we do this, maybe we will understand why our ancestors used the methods of preparation they used to, and how their diets were balanced.