by Cody Lundin
* * *
WHAT'S FOR DINNER?
While nowhere near exhaustive, the following are examples of what people have eaten in times of need around the world. During the civil war in Liberia in the late 1980s, desperate people ate every animal in the national zoo except for the one-eyed lion. While some of the below "food substitutes" can cause diarrhea, which can kill more quickly than starvation, the more open you are to the possibilities of what can be eaten during times of lack, the greater your chances for survival if things get really rough.
Poisonous mukhet berries. African refugees soak the berries for days to leach out toxins, after which they are ground up. The flour has little nutritional value
Wallpaper
Glue from furniture joints
Rats and mice. In Malawi, children stand on the roadsides selling skewers of roasted mice
Seaweed
Tree bark
Grass and weeds
Obscure plant seeds. In Africa, people excavate anthill and termite mounds to pick out the tiny seeds the insects have gathered and stored
Corn stalks
Dirt and clay. The epitome of "dirt poor," impoverished Haitians bake "dough" in the sun made from salt, butter, water, and dirt to make their stomachs feel full
Dogs and cats
Horses
Bugs, bugs, and more bugs. In times of insect infestation and crop damage, people the world over have eaten the invaders, including locusts, crickets, and grasshoppers, which in parts of Africa are called "flying shrimp"
Poisonous wild cassava. Made edible by pounding and soaking for days
Mammal bones and raw skin
Marula fruit seeds. Long after the tasty fruit is gone, hungry Africans crack open the tough seeds with rocks and the impossibly small seeds are scraped out with thin twigs
Crows, ravens, and vultures
Other people
Rawhide and leather, from shoes, clothing, chairs, tables, drums, backpacks, tack from livestock, etc. ad nauseam
Nearly any living (or dead) creature that flies, crawls, walks, or swims
Your enemy. During World War II, some Japanese soldiers on the move tracked down, killed, and ate unlucky Allied forces
Preserved human organs in jars. Due to severe starvation from the combined insults of combat and extreme cold, some from Napoleon's army were reduced to pillaging local medical schools for their next meal
* * *
Older canned food—provided it's not bulging or leaky, thus indicating toxicity—can be rotated into a fresher food diet to help extend the fresh food. Think of it as filler that's much better than the Haitian filler of dough balls that are composed of water, butter, salt, and dirt. One time, I was given a stored five-gallon bucket of brown rice. Upon opening it, I discovered it was horribly rancid. I decided to experiment with this spoiled food and I ate the rice as a normal part of my diet every day until it was gone. Other than having a slightly sour taste in my mouth and fierce flatulence (I was single at the time), I had no problems and went about my extremely active lifestyle as usual. At the time of this experiment, brown rice comprised half of my daily diet. Another time, I failed to rotate a large amount of canned tuna fish and found that many of the cans had slightly swelled up. They were out of date by two or three years. Being stubbornly cheap and wanting to know what I could get away with, I saved the cans that had the least amount of swelling and ate their contents, one per day for a period of a few weeks. After I finished each can, I noticed that I felt a bit "off" for half an hour, and then I was fine. I contribute this "off" feeling to my body dealing with the mild amount of toxins that were produced from the old tuna fish trapped inside the can.
I don't like wasting resources, and this includes food. I routinely eat rancid tortilla chips and pull, peel, or push mold off bagels, vegetables, cheese, and other food items. For many years I "dumpster dived" to retrieve a bounty of wasted food and have eaten in alleys where generous restaurants and health food stores left their dregs out for the homeless to feast. I eat the majority of trapped mice and rats at my homestead, not wanting to waste their value and wanting to ever know more and keep in practice about how I would react to extreme foods in times of need. On some of my field courses once-finicky students gleefully eat bugs, rodents, weird plants, flowers, crayfish, frogs, snakes, and anything else we can find. The "five-second rule" for dropped food has never applied in the wilderness.
Sometimes while pushing the envelope in my experimentation with food, I've broken through the paper. I once ate a garden squash that was far too old on the inside, but looked fine on the outside. Another time I cooked and ate beans that I had left for several months in the garden after they had cured. In both instances I was deep in the wilderness, miles away from civilization, and in both cases I wound up power puking and with a bad case of the runs. The extremely painful stomach and hamstring cramps ripped through my muscles, jerking and bending my body like a reed in the wind. The cramps made the physics of trying to go to the bathroom in a normal position awkward to say the least. In both cases the food was "cooked."
After those learning curves, I did some research into how heat affects the pathogens that cause food poisoning. I used to think that I could boil virtually anything, including older roadkill, and that the heat would destroy all of the bad bugs that would present a problem. What I learned in the four-inch-thick medical manual that a physician friend lent me was distressing. Heat does destroy the actual critter, some of which are very reluctant to die. What the heat does NOT destroy, however, is the fecal matter created by the critter. Laboratory studies have been conducted with pressure cookers cooking food for long periods of time, and the food still posed a problem due to the long-dead organism's poop. Some varieties of molds can produce toxic substances called mycotoxins which are also unaffected by heat, and those are most likely the culprits that knocked me for a loop in the infamous squash incident. Keep this in mind if you're forced to get creative with really nasty vittles.
I realize pulling a stunt such as eating questionable cans of tuna fish is stupid and potentially deadly, as certain organisms such as botulism and others can kill quickly. What I also realize is many so-called food storage gurus have never had the nerve to experiment in this way. Thus there is very little data about what happens to people when they consume spoiled food. There are too many variables in human physiology and "food physiology" for an experiment such as this to be accurate anyway. Anytime you deal with food that has expired, you risk becoming a victim to food poisoning or at the very least severely reduced nutrition. As my experiments prove, however, there is a gray area when eating some older foods. Use extreme caution when dealing with infants, small children, and the elderly or you could kill a loved one.
Being a survival skills instructor by trade, I'm well versed with how human nature reacts under extreme stress. I decided to include my personal stories above to give you as much information as possible about consuming marginal foods. In summary, I know what you will do if driven by extreme hunger. . .you will open the questionable can.
The Big Four: Whole Wheat, Powdered Milk, Honey, and Salt
Whole wheat, powdered milk, honey, and salt have long been the bare bones "Mormon four" regarding foods that are nutritious and store extremely well. Some authors claim that you can live for very long periods of time on just these four foods. Others say it's bunk. Unfortunately, I can't give you a definitive opinion either way as I have never lived using only these four things for any amount of time, nor do I know anyone who has. Those who scoff at using only whole wheat, honey, powdered milk, and salt for a long-term survival diet ought to have tried to do so. No amount of book research on human nutrition can replace personal experimentation. Even if two people did experiment using the fantastic four as their sole nutrition, whatever result they had does not mean you will experience the same. Many people are allergic to wheat and don't even know it until, of course, they are forced to eat a diet in which half of the grub is whole wheat. Use
common sense in deciding what you will store for your food storage program.
One of the main advantages of the four, especially salt, honey, and even whole wheat if stored properly, is that they will last indefinitely, or at least for as long as you'll keep your body. Salt might clump up over time but it can simply be unclumped and used as is. In time, honey will crystallize, especially raw honey, but it can be easily heated to turn itself back into liquid gold. Even nonfat powdered milk, under the authority of actual experience, has been recorded as lasting as long as fifteen years when stored properly in a dry, cool location. Long storage times are important, especially for the insanely busy average American family who doesn't want to dink around with rotating stored foods. Although rotating your food is key to making sure it's loaded with nutrition and doesn't go bad, many of you won't do it. So why not have on hand something to eat besides dirt that has a super-long storage life.
In her book Passport to Survival author and kitchen magician Esther Dickey takes the fantastic four to unbelievable levels of culinary creativity. She shows the reader how to separate the gluten from whole-wheat flour to make substitute meat dishes from tacos and burgers to sausage and meat loaf. Esther takes the multiuse magic of whole wheat to new heights as she cracks it, cooks it, sprouts it, steams it, and juices it (wheat grass). The book has dozens of recipes on how to take the four ingredients and first make other elemental ingredients, such as gluten and wild yeast, which can then be used for many other recipes. She even creates all kinds of desserts, from lollipops to cookies and soft ice cream with caramel syrup using only the fantastic four and remedial seasonings. A sample meal in her book reads as follows. For breakfast: waffles with caramel syrup, rolled wheat, and amber tea. For lunch: sausage pizza, gluten cream soup, milk wheat sprouts, and honey taffy. For dinner: wheat "meat" loaf, steamed wheat, pinwheel cookies, and milk. Damn, what a woman! While her book may be out of print, the desire and creativity to do more with less is still available if you have the will.
Whole Wheat
There are several varieties of whole wheat but the hard red or less common hard white variety have superior storage lives and relatively high protein contents, usually 12 percent. Hard wheats have a higher gluten content than soft wheats and are thus superior for making breads. Yet soft wheats excel at making flour for pastas, pastries, and breakfast cereals. Gluten is the protein within the grain that, in dough, traps the gasses produced by the fermentation of yeasts or the reactions of baking soda and powders. These trapped gases cause the dough to rise. The more gluten a grain has, the higher the dough will rise. Not all grains have gluten; rice has virtually none. How much gluten a grain has will dictate to a certain point what you can make with the grain.
Although it's been around for decades, triticale is still not well-known to the masses. Triticale has a very high nutritional value and is a hybrid between wheat and rye. The combination brings together the productivity of wheat with the durability of rye, and it can be used in much the same way as both.
Using whole wheat or whole grains in general will be unusual for many people. Many recipes require it being ground into flour for everyday use. High-quality, manual-crank grain mills are worth their weight in gold for any food storage program that includes whole grains and legumes. Stay away from the electric mills for obvious reasons, unless you have a manual-crank mill as a backup. Unfortunately, grains that are ground into flour will lose much of their nutritional value in less than a week. This is the reasoning behind "enriched" flours at the grocery store. Without the added shot of nutritional value, processed commercial flour would be similar to eating spackling as far as the body's nutritional needs were concerned.
Buying Whole Wheat
Whole wheat usually comes in large sacks and can be purchased from wholesale food companies. I bought some from the local health food store so check around. As with all foods for storage, research whom you're buying from and only buy food from reputable companies.
Storing Whole Wheat
Keep it whole until it's needed, and store it like everything else in opaque, moisture-proof, airproof (if possible) containers in a cool/cold, dry, dark area. Although many claim that when properly stored whole wheat can last indefinitely—at least as long as you'll need it in your current body—it's always a smart bet to rotate your food on a regular basis.
Powdered Milk [nonfat]
Powdered milk is a nutritional powerhouse for the survivor and ranks near the top of the nutritional list (eggs being the highest) because it is packed with protein. While you can buy powdered whole milk, the fat it contains will cause it to spoil long before nonfat or skim milk. Nonfat powdered milk is usually available in two forms, instant and regular. While both are nutritionally the same, the instant variety takes up more space than the regular as the instant is less dense and will more easily mix with water. Preparing the milk a few hours in advance of when it's needed will improve the flavor, and so will aerating the water as suggested in the water disinfection section. But it's not worth the risk if you have no means of refrigeration. Powdered milk can be added to a variety of foods to either thicken them or increase their nutritional value and flavor.
Buying Powdered Milk
Instant powdered milk is available at nearly every grocery store. Wholesale suppliers will have large bags that hold many pounds of the product. If this is the way you wish to go, make sure you store it well and in smaller containers to be used one at a time. When powdered milk is opened, its flavor and nutritional content start to break down. Most brands of instant milk are fortified with vitamins, especially A and D, but double-check to make sure. Look for the fanciest Grade A variety you can find, with no artificial colors or flavors. The higher quality means better processing and will typically pay off with an increased storage life.
Storing Powdered Milk
The fifteen-year-old powdered milk written about earlier is not typical, as powdered milks are very finicky to environmental changes, especially moisture, temperature, and light. Take great care to keep it dry, out of the light, and as cool/cold as possible. Vitamins A and D are particularly sensitive to heat and light and will breakdown rapidly at a rate of 20 percent per year, according to some milk producers. Powdered milk usually comes in paper sacks or cardboard cartons and should be immediately taken out and stored in opaque, moisture- and airproof containers. Glass works great as long as it's painted or taped to make it impervious to light. The use of moisture-absorbing desiccants is recommended, as powdered milk sucks moisture (and surrounding odors) out of the air. Properly stored, most authorities feel that dried milk is viable for about two years before needing to be rotated.
Heavenly Honey
Honey has been utilized on planet Earth for a very long time. Spanish cave paintings dating from 7,000 BC depict people harvesting honey from bee colonies. Although the honeybee is not native to America, transported hives found their way to the eastern coast of America by 1622. Today, Americans consume about 500 million pounds of honey each year, more than half of which is imported.
Honeys vary wildly in quality, taste (there are thousands of flavors), colors, and potential medicinal uses. Much commercial honey available at the grocery store is cut with corn syrup. Beekeepers call low-grade honey "crank case oil." To have all of the benefits of honey, you need to purchase straight quality honey. Many health food stores and independent beekeepers sell pure uncut honey. Although it might be more expensive, you get what you pay for. Look for honey that's labeled U.S. Grade A or U.S. Fancy or find a local bee person who sells his or her own. By purchasing honey directly from the source you eliminate the uncertainty of lower-grade honeys or those that are cut with other stuff.
Sweet Medicine
* * *
AWESOME ASHCAKES!
So you're stuck with 700 pounds of whole wheat, now what? With a hand-crank food mill, a few other ingredients, and the imagination and wisdom of a chef, your whole-wheat stash can produce a startling array of goodies that are truly delicious.
But what if you're a white-trash slob with minimal cooking experience beyond throwing away the boxes from fast-food joints? Fear not; many outdoor survival schools use flour and water to make a simple "cake" in the campfire with a minimum of preparation and cleanup. The end product resembles hard tack from the pioneer days if well cooked. Sometimes after eating the cakes for several days straight my students call them "ass cakes." I remind the precious ones that it's better to have an ass cake than no cake. Anyway, the simplicity of the below recipe can be modified and jazzed up in dozens of ways to please the picky palate.
Ingredients:
Flour
Water
Twig
Coals from a fire