Foraging for Calories (long)

I get a lot of emails from people asking advice on how to live in the wilds. Most have little or no bushcraft experience, they just think they can grab a knife and a book and head off into the woods to live free and easy.

I get a lot of nice knives that way.

Let's talk about finding calories in the woods for a bit. Most vitamins and minerals are actually easy to come by from edible wild plants but calories are a whole different ball of wax (tallow?). There's a basic rule of thumb that states that while at rest your body will consume calories equal to ten times your body weight. If you are working hard this can jump up to twenty times your weight (find your requirements here ).

I'm a hair under 200lbs but lets use that number to keep the math simple. To meet my body's energy needs to make it through a hard day backpacking I'll need 20 x 200 = 4,000 calories. Food-wise how much is this?

Snickers Bar...........136 calories per oz
Peanut butter..........168 calories per oz
Whole wheat flour......97 calories per oz
Baked potato (plain)...26 calories per oz

A regular Snickers Bar is 2oz, so I'ld need to eat FOURTEEN of them to fuel myself. I kind of like the sound of that, though the resulting dentistry bills would suck. What if I eat something healthier like potatoes? A large, plain baked potato weighs about 10oz, so I'd need to eat FIFTEEN of them.

I don't want to carry fifteen potatoes per day when I'm out in the woods.

So, what about Mother Nature's free gifts?

Acorns................112 calories per oz
Pecans................197 calories per oz
Apple..................15 calories per oz
Cattail tuber..........19 calories per oz
Blackberries...........12 calories per oz

Nuts are definitely the main source of non-animal-based calories in the wild. I would need to eat 35oz (2.2 lbs) of acorn nut meat, which means collecting somewhat more than that weight of acorns as I need to shell, crush, then extract the tanin from them before eating. Pecans do much better, I'd only need to eat 20oz of shelled pecan nut meat.

Hmmm, but nuts are only available for a short time. What about berries or some sort of tuber? Unfortunately, these have approximately 1/5 the calories of nuts. One of most common sources of calories in the woods are greenbrier roots. They have slightly fewer calories than potatoes so I'm going to have to dig up around ten pounds of them which is time consuming and hard. Plus they don't taste very well. Berries give even fewer calories, I'd need to find twenty pounds of them to maintain my body!

You've probably figured out that a) it wouldn't take long to clean out a place of every available calorie and b)meat is great, as long as it has some fat on it.

Just some food for thought ( sorry, I couldn't resist ).

-Blast

Interesting stats. And a good advert for carrying a few clif bars - which weight 2.4 oz. each and average 240-250 calories/bar. If you believe the wrapper.

AND if the average hiker/canoer/bushperson is 10 lbs. overweight - not much really - that's 35,000 calories.

I don't think too many people starve to death in the wild.

It's not so much the matter of a casual hiker starving to death on a short trip but you have to take into consideration that not getting enough food will make you tired, dizzy and that much more liable to doing something dumb. Like maybe slipping on a wet rock and breaking your neck. It happens all the time - what starts as a minor inconvenience might, with a little bad luck, eventually lead to something more serious. That's why food is an important factor, though it may be relatively low on the survival priority list.

IME food becomes much more critical in a cold climate. Carrying a heavy pack, walking and climbing long distance plus the effort required to set up a decent shelter and gather firewood, it adds up quickly. You could easily burn 5-6.000 calories per day and that is a lot, probably a fair bit more than you are physically capable of eating. I know I couldn't eat that much on a trek even if I had plenty of food. It just feels too much for the stomach to handle but not eating enough will wear you down quickly in the cold. I hear some armies that operate regularly in the Arctic get around that problem by issuing special extra-caloric rations so you don't have to stuff yourself with ungodly amounts of food but still get enough energy to keep you going.

While not practical for summer treks I always pack some smoked bacon in the winter. A pound usually lasts me 2 or 3 days and it doesn't go bad when it's cold enough. The energy boost is amazing and lasts a long time. Plus wholewheat biscuits, nuts, canned tuna and some chocolate and dried fruit and I'm good to go. I suppose it would give some touchy-feely dietician a heart attack but it really works and after all, it's tried and true.

As for getting enough food in the bush, I don't think it would work in my environment. Gathering anything close to a decent amount of wild edibles would only be feasible in the summer. Realistically, to get enough food in the longer term you'd have to hunt bigger game, which on the other hand would require an effective long range weapon and a proper set of skills.

Your post is also area specific. You won't find what you just mentioned in the artic, or the desert for that matter

Sling Shot, and get a squirrel, or a rabbit or both. Also bird eggs They are not that hard to find in the wild.

I often find myself doing this arithmetic in reverse, as I'm working out at the gym. You watch that calorie counter on the exercise machine and you realize how easy it is to eat excess calories, way in excess of how much we burn off each day in our typically sedentary lives. Thinking about how many minutes I need to work out (a LOT) to burn off an extra candy bar is one of those mental tricks that helps me hold that resolve to avoid unnecessary snacking with junk food or to eat out sparingly.

That take out order from your favorite fast food or quick service restaurant could be over a 1,000 calories. Is it any wonder that we have so many obese folks? It's cheap, it tastes good, it's convenient--we're just addicted.

Then think about a show like The Alaska Experiment. The cast members are all weak, shaky, nauseous, light headed, passing out after switching from their typical American diets to a situation with limited food. Gee, sounds almost like withdrawal symptoms, don't you think???

Blast, are you thinking more long term for this particular post, or short term? Foraging could be considered less crucial in a shorter term situation, like getting lost. Although any food would be helpful and would help spare your body from consuming lean tissue over time and hopefully take the edge off the low blood sugar symptoms I mentioned above, unless you're actually using up a lot of energy trying to forage in the first place.

These are very important things for someone like me. I am Hypoglycemic (discovered after the military) and get into real trouble without the correct foods on time.

As such, I keep a ready stash for three days in each vehicle and anywhere else I might be. (one MRE is enough for one day) Nuts, beef jerky,cliff bars, and other "healthy" snacks are a much better idea than say a candy bar for someone like me.

I know that the guiding principal is food won't be a problem in a short term survival situation, but short term for some may be measured in hours not days.

Edit:

Blast,

Someday if Houston is a destination and not a waypoint (or blur according to the hour), I am really going to have to get in on the classes.

Last trip to Houston was only a daytrip to kick a little corporate tail.

This is a good discussion.
Arnie i agree with you 1,000%. I also do the reverse counting in the gym - it's pathetic how quick and easy it is to eat yourself out of the benefits - calorie-wise - of 50 minutes of cardio.

As an aside - I understand the calorie counters on gym machines are VERY rough. Plus or minus 25%.

Your calorie counts are pretty good, Blast.

The native peoples often faced famine in the winter, even resorting to cannibalism in some areas.
That is a point worth mentioning.

Considering that almost all native tribes worked hard to store up enough food in the harvest seasons to last them through the hungry seasons, and if the aboriginals could have a bad harvesting season and end up facing starvation, then how good are the chances for somebody without their experience and knowledge of local foods?


Another thing to keep in mind is that all the really good food producing areas are heavily settled and under cultivation. They have been for a long time too.
The only exceptions to this might be a few isolated areas of coastline.This means that a person stranded today would likely face the prospect of foraging in areas that were always marginal at best.

They had better not be fussy eaters, and had better be prepared to do a lot of chewing to get those needed calories.

I am not saying it can not be done or that a person is doomed to starve in the wilderness, but it is not easy to hunt and gather enough in the off seasons to get by and you need more skills than most people are ready with.

Couldn't agree more, Scafool. Those are all excellent points. There is a good reason why mankind has progressed from hunter-gatherers to sedentary agricultural civilizations.

Also, re: hunting squirrels and rabbits with a slingshot. It sure sounds a lot of fun but, a) it's way easier said than done, b) where the heck are all the rabbits and squirrels when you need them?

So i'm to only guy here, thinking of eating enough calories before working out...? I eat whatever i want and i'm still loosing weight. But than again if sport somewhere between 7 to 10 times a week.

I wasn't sure if this topic belonged in long-term or just survival so I stuck it in survival. I was hoping to stir thoughts about this subject not only in regards to wilderness survival but also normal emergency food storage. People often don't have enough calories in their piles of canned foods.

Yes, most of us have emergency fat reserves convinently tucked away in not-so-secret compartments in our bodies but as some others have already mentioned, it takes a bit for that metabolic pathway to kick in and even when it's running we are not going to be feeling or working anywhere near the top of our game. A few days without food isn't going to kill us but it'll certainly make us miserable.

Desperado, your classroom awaits your arrival!

-Blast

I read once that a person can starve to death eating rabbits (and squirrels??). Apparently there isn't enough fat in their meat. Anyone know the answer?

Well, there goes my excuse for my spare tire.

Great topic!

According to this article linked from the wikipedia article, there is an absolute upper limit of how much protein your body can process into "burnable" glucose each day. This is around 1600 calories a day, which is a starvation ration.

So don't bother eating more than 1600 calories worth of lean meat per day and try to make up the rest with plants, fat or snickers bars.

But here's the question: Is it better to glean a few calories from plants each day or just fast completely?

Over the short term of a day or two, I'd think that any calories at all will be helpful in keeping your glucose level up. Over the medium term (days to weeks), does eating a little bit disrupt the "fasting mode" your body uses to draw from your fat reserves? Over the long term (month+), of course, you will eventually run out of reserves, so every little bit helps.

Just an educated guess, but I would think that any supplemental carbs would be beneficial because it helps slow down your body from cannibalizing its own protein and lean tissues to convert into glucose.

I forgot where I read that even emaciated people who die of starvation still have some fat stores in their bodies. If you haven't succumbed to disease or infection by then, I think your body simply has basically digested so much of its own "machinery" that it finally shuts down rather than completely running out calories. But that's the uber extreme case there.

The transition from having a metabolism that uses primarily ketones to glucose probably requires a good amount of carbs at one time to shift significantly. But I would think that if your body is already adapted to ketosis, it's going to be easier to transition back even after a significant hit of sugary berries anyway. I suppose that a devoted adherent to something like the Atkins diet would have better firsthand comments on how this transition back and forth actually feels to a person and how quickly it can happen once you're adapted.

When all we had to eat were the soft shoots from stalks of grass we collected, we ate them. When hungry in survival mode, eat whatever you can, no matter the quantity. There are damned few people in this world that are proficient enough at foraging that they can collect enough protein or any other foodstuff that would hit the limits of what they should consume. Putting anything edible in that big cavern that was my empty stomach was better than abstaining. Besides, watching someone else eat something when you are ravenous makes it impossible to control. I wouldn't worry one whit about transitioning from carbs to proteins to nothing, not in a survival mode. You eat what you can find, and be damned glad you have something to give the beast in your belly.

I believe Benjammin got that right. I'm not sure how all the facets of metabolism work, but if you look at stories of people who were in gulags or PoW camps where starving to death was a deliberate strategy employed by the captors... It becomes pretty clear that getting any amount of food in any form is extremely important if you want to last. Every little bit helps, even if it means collecting bread crumbs or gathering insects, at least as long as it doesn't make you sick.

Excellent to put a realistic perspective on foraging and energy consumption. I think lots of people believe that in a severe crises they can just head out to the wilderness in an SUV and live off the land once their MRE's run out. To me that seems awfully unrealistic.

I was thinking... if we could find Jamba Juice in the woods then my one Peanut Butter Moo'd would be able to deliver me 1272 per 32-oz drink! I sometimes wonder how I can drink one of those and then an hour or so later have a huge meal if they contains 1300 calories!

And for the record I have a very low amount of body fat :P <7%

Okay, we're all likely to die of starvation in a long term survival situation, but I would like to be one of the last to go.

Assuming other humans are not lethal obstacles, or that those obstacles have been survived, in addition to exploiting all human-produced food I could get my hands on:

My first thought is to create passive calorie gathering: gill net fish, mist- or cloud- net birds, snare and trap mammals. Anybody have additional ideas along these lines?

I would try to exploit animal caches of food: squirrel and woodpecker nut caches, and bee hives. Anybody know of others?

Hunt the largest and fattest animals, the biggest return on your energy expenditure. In a survival situation there might be both domestic, or formerly domestic, and wild animals from which to choose. Large caliber firearms and very stout archery equipment probably called for.

Longer term, with the chance of human depredation reduced, try to: [1] domesticate, or capture or "liberate" domestic animals, and [2] cultivate and propagate edible and useful plants, wild or otherwise.

Sounds like a lot of work.

thoughts?

Thanks.

Last night during supper my 6yr old daughter asks, "How do we taste?"
"Kind of like pork." was my response. The look on her face was pricelss as she figured out what I meant. The wife's glare...eh, I'm used to it.

I think the main thing is to be aware that you are going to get hungry even if you do exactly as you stated:
A) be able to suck every last calorie out of your surroundings by trapping, netting, shooting everything from minnows to songbirds.
B) bring high-calorie-dense foods with you.
C) minimize energy expenditures.

Pre-planning/being prepared is always the best choice. Honestly, I posted this in response to a lot of e-mails I get from people asking me how to survive indefinately in the woods on JUST wild edible plants. They never like my answer: "you can't".

-Blast

Priceless!