37 Survival Foods to Stock For Any Disaster

Every prepper needs to be familiar with the best foods to stock up on in preparation for a disaster. Here is a detailed list from the source to help you get started

Survival Foods For Hikers

 

Survival foods are not the most important thing in most emergency situations in the wilderness.  You survive weeks without eating if you have to, so it is usually more important to find shelter, water, and stay dry and uninjured. On the other hand, just knowing you can find food out there, and having something in your stomach, can do wonders for your state of mind, which CAN be crucial to your survival.

What then, do you need to know about survival foods? First forget the idea that you need to learn every last edible wild plant. I love learning about new edible plants, but very few of them provide enough calories to be worth the effort in a survival situation. What you need s to know a few basic categories of animals you can eat, and some of the most abundant and calorie-rich plants.

Survival Foods – The Animals

Mammals in North America can all be eaten (except for the livers of some arctic mammals). Since many carry parasites, wash your hands after handling them, and cook the meat if possible.

North American birds are all edible, and there eggs are too. I’ve even eaten seagull eggs cooked on a hot rock, and they tasted fine.

Fresh water fish in North America are all edible. Catching the fish is the difficult part, but they can be quickly and easily cooked over a fire.

Amphibians and reptiles are usually safe to eat – if you remove the skin. I have cooked snake in a stew and over a fire, and I recommend the latter.

Survival Foods – The Plants

Cattail is one of the most abundant and calorie-rich foods in the wilderness. The white part of the stalk at the bottom, and the new shoots, can be eaten raw or cooked. Flower spikes can be cooked like corn-on-the-cob when green. Roots can be mashed in water to release the starch, which can be added to soups. Pollen from the flower spike can be shaken into a bag and used in soups. Cattails grow in swamps or wet soil, and you really should get to know this plant.

The inner bark of pine trees is edible. It’s a good survival food to remember, because it is available year-round. That white spongy layer between the outer bark and the wood is what you want. Although it is mostly fiber, it contains enough carbohydrates to be worth boiling into a soup if nothing else is available.

Edible berries can be a delicious and filling survival food in the right season. Strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, cranberries, and blackberries all have their wild forms. If it looks like the domestic one (usually smaller) and smells and tastes like it, it’s safe to eat.

Of course it’s fun to know which mushrooms you can eat, and even which flowers are edible, but both of these have almost no calories. To quickly learn what you need to survive, concentrate first on the common animals and the most abundant and calorie-rich edible plants. Those are the survival foods that will most likely save your life.

3 Ways to Make Survival Bread (Without an Oven)

homemade bread

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Tim MacWelch

Ash cakes cooked on campfire coals.

The coals of your camp fire can bake up some tasty bread (if you have the secret ingredient to make your dough). When I started experimenting with camp breads years ago, I turned to old outdoor texts to find the recipes for bannock, damper, hard tack and every other kind of camp bread and trail biscuits you’ve heard about. The recipes themselves were simple enough: some flour here, some lard there, maybe some baking powder in more modern incarnations of this ancient, oven-free bread. But those simple ingredients didn’t leave much room for error, and usually yielded something closer to ceramics than biscuits. I finally stumbled upon the “only add water” complete pancake mix for camp bread, and I’ve never turned back. Next time you’re out there, try these simple techniques to make camp bread.
Ash Cakes on the Coals
First take one cup of complete pancake mix, and some extra water on your next primitive cookout or camping trip. Build up a medium-sized camp fire, and then let it die down into ashes and coals. Better yet, take advantage of the drying coals from a fire you used for another purpose.

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When your coals are ash covered, but still very hot - pour 1/3 cup of the pancake mix into a container (or a clean hand). Start adding water, one spoonful at a time, and stirring the mix around with a stick or your clean finger, until the mix forms a ball of dough. You’re looking for a soft bread dough texture, a little softer than Playdough. If it’s too sticky, add more dry mix. The real test of consistency is that you can pat it into a ¼ inch thick pancake. Use some of the dry mix on your hands before patting the bread flat, to avoid gluing your hands together.

Next, toss the flat cake into the bed of coals and watch it closely as it starts to fluff up. You’ll cook it about one or two minutes on one side, depending on the heat of the coals. When it becomes rigid (like a little flat biscuit), and the very bottom edge begins to brown – use a stick to flip the cake over and cook it for 30 to 60 more seconds.
Use a stick to move the cooked cake out of the bed of coals, wait a few seconds for it to cool, then blow on it briskly to remove any lingering ash. A little ash won’t hurt you, a lot will taste nasty. Top your finished ash cake with butter, jam, honey, or maple syrup. Or, just eat it plain.
Bread On A Stick
Remember that ashcake dough? Instead of patting it out as a cake to drop in the coals of your campfire, roll it into a long roll (like a bread-stick) on a flat surface. Once you have your dough roll, spiral wrap it around a stick that you can stab into the ground near your fire. Rotate the stick once it browns on the side, to cook your dough evenly. When all parts have a bread-like consistency, enjoy your bread-on-a-stick.
Tin Can Baker Get a food can with the lid still slightly attached. Burn it in the fire to “clean” it out and to remove any possible plastic lining in the can. Then make your bread dough into a roll that fills less than half of the can. Fold the lid closed, and set it on its side on the ground. Place a few scoops of embers from a fire around the can, and turn the can every 10 minutes. Add more embers as they burn down, and periodically check your dough. Once the “roll” looks finished, allow it to finish baking in the dying embers. Remove the roll from the can when you think it’s done (about 30-45 minutes), and enjoy while warm. Have you ever made bread with a campfire? Please share your tricks and tips by leaving a comment.



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How to Prepare Acorns for Food and Medicinal Uses

Acorn

Acorns represent one of the biggest (and most widespread) calorie jackpots in the annual wild plant food harvest, if you can beat the squirrels to them. These high calorie nuts were a staple crop to many of our ancestors around the Northern Hemisphere and we can still rely on them for food today. Coming in at 2,000 calories per pound, this abundant of a food crop is too valuable to ignore. You can even use them to make medicine. Here’s how.

dehydrating meat

How To Dry Meats, Fruits & Vegetables In A Car

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Drying is one of the oldest techniques used by man to preserve food. Native Americans would dry strips of elk, buffalo and rabbit in the sun. Later, the American pioneers dried their meat by draping it on the side of their wagons on their days-long trips. Today we have access to ovens and dehydrators, which saves time and effort…but it’s still important to know and learn the skills of harnessing the sun’s heat for our advantage, especially when it comes to food.
Unfortunately (but fortunately for other reasons), temperatures reach above 100 degrees only in few places across the United States, making it tough to use the sun alone to dry meats, fruits and vegetables. Without high temperatures, what’s there to do?

Using A Car As A Dehydrator

Even on a relatively cool day, the temperature of the inside of a car can swell to over 100 degrees. At 70 degrees, after about half an hour, the inside of a car can reach an average of 104 degrees. After an hour, it can go up to 113 degrees. That’s 40+ degrees of added heat, which is crucial when you’re trying to dry meats, fruits or vegetables outdoors…especially with a limited amount of time. If temperatures outside of the car reach up in the 90’s, the inside can produce some sweltering heat perfect for dehydrating.

All you gotta do is thinly slice your meats, fruits and vegetables and place them in your car…more specifically on the dashboard, where the sun hits directly. After a few hours or days, you should have nicely dehydrated food, ready for storage or consumption! Not only is it easy—it’s cheap, saves energy and money and is a great skill to know.

Check out below for more info.

Dry Meats, Fruits & Vegetables In A Car

Drying Meat In The Car

1. Thinly slice your meat and season it with salt, which helps the preservation process.
2. Arrange the meat on a few cooling racks and place them across the car’s dashboard. Make sure the front window of the car is in direct sunlight for the majority of the day.
3. Close the car doors but open the windows just a tiny bit so that moisture can escape the car.
4. Let the meat sit in the car for 5 to 6 hours, flipping it over every couple of hours or so.
5. Remove and place in an airtight bag.

image via Driven Dotty

Drying Fruits In The Car

1. Pick fruits and vegetables that are at peak ripeness. Apricots, plums, strawberries, tomatoes, peaches, berries, pumpkin, corn, celery and greens are just some of the better options. Really though, you can dehydrate pretty much anything.
2. Wash and then either quarter or slice the fruits/vegetables into 1/6 inch thick pieces.
3. Place the fruits/vegetables in a cardboard box or on a flat baking sheet and put it on the car’s dashboard.
4. Let the fruits/vegetables dry for a day or two. How long it takes all depends on the temperature. Check on it every few hours to make sure the fruit doesn’t get cooked.
5. When done, store the dried fruits/vegetables in an airtight container and keep them somewhere cool.

image via The Tangled Nest

Bonus: Drying Herbs In The Car

1. Remove the leaves from the stems and toss them all over a baking sheet or piece of cardboard.
2. Place the herbs on the car dashboard and let them sit for anywhere between an hour to a couple of days.
3. Preferably you want the car temperature to be at 105 degrees or lower so that the herbs don’t lose their nutritional content. Be vigilant and check on the herbs every few hours.
4. Once they’re done, remove them and store them in a ziplock bag.

image via Up Pastured Farms

Source:

https://survivallife.com/drying-meats-fruits-vegetables-car/

HOW TO MAKE BILTONG

 

Biltong

Survival Foods 

HOW TO MAKE BILTONG, THE BEST SURVIVAL FOOD

     

Biltong  is a great survival food that has his origins in Southern Africa and it’s a variety of dried and cured meat. You can use a big variety of meats to produce biltong like beef , game meats, chicken, fish or even ostrich. First you have to cut out the fillets of meat.

The fillets must be cut into strips or flat pieces following the grain of the muscle. Biltong is similar to beef jerky in a certain way because both are cured-dried meats. The difference between biltong and beef jerky is that biltong is sliced after the drying  process  not  before like the beef jerky.
Ingredients for biltong

          Meat

         Black pepper

• Coriander
• Salt
• Sugar or brown sugar
• Vinegar

The modern day recipe may include:

• Balsamic vinegar or malt vinegar
• Bicarbonate of soda
• Dry ground chili peppers
• Onion powder

Preparation
The best way to prepare biltong is by marinating the meat in a vinegar solution (balsamic or cider vinegar work very well too) for a few hours. After soaking the meat must be drained of excess liquid. Meanwhile prepare the spice mixture that consists of equal amounts of :

• Whole slightly roasted and roughly grounded coriander
• Black pepper
• Rock salt
• Barbecue spice

Mix all the ingredients then ground roughly together. Sprinkle the mix all over the

Biltong

meat fillets and rub well to obtain an evenly distributed layer. After this process the meat must rest for a few hours or refrigerate overnight in order to absorb the flavors.
The next step is to pour off any excess of liquid.
The drying process
The drying process can be achieved in three ways:

1. You can dry out the meat in cold air.
2. On a cardboard or in a wooden box
3. In a climate-controlled dry room

In colder climates biltong can be dried with the help of an electric lamp but care must be taken to ventilate as mold can form on the meat spoiling it.

A traditional slow dry will take 4 to 6 days but you can dry the biltong in an electric fan-assisted oven too. Set the oven to 100-160 degrees F and leave the door open in order to eliminate the moist air. You’ll have the same result as the traditional drying after 4-5 hours. The point is to eliminate as much moisture as possible. A longer drying process will prolong the shelf life from 2 to 3-4 years. Biltong can be eaten as a snack, added to stews for the great taste, sandwiches or make biltong-flavored potato chips.



If you have any other tip about biltong please write a comment in the section bellow.

Saving our forefathers ways starts with people like you and me actually relearning these skills and putting them to use to live better lives through good times and bad. Our answers on these lost skills comes straight from the source, from old forgotten classic books written by past generations, and from first hand witness accounts from the past few hundred years. Aside from a precious few who have gone out of their way to learn basic survival skills, most of us today would be utterly hopeless if we were plopped in the middle of a forest or jungle and suddenly forced to fend for ourselves using only the resources around us. To our ancient ancestors, we’d appear as helpless as babies. In short, our forefathers lived more simply than most people today are willing to live and that is why they survived with no grocery store, no cheap oil, no cars, no electricity, and no running water. Just like our forefathers used to do, The Lost Ways Book teaches you how you can survive in the worst-case scenario with the minimum resources available. It comes as a step-by-step guide accompanied by pictures and teaches you how to use basic ingredients to make super-food for your loved ones.

Source:
http://www.preparefordepressionnow.com/make-biltong-best-survival-food/

The 5 Most Important Crops You Need For Survival

Americans garden for many reasons. For some, it’s pleasant to get some fresh air after a long day in the office. Others do it for aesthetic pleasure. However, for those striving for self-reliance on their off-the-grid homestead, gardening is an essential component in the family’s food production operation. In many cases, both time and space limit the size of a garden.
To address those seeking to grow a large portion of their own food on limited resources, author and organic plant breeder Carol Deppe has written an informative book, The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times.
Deppe’s book covers food storage and how to barter with other like-minded people to supplement your food supply. Nevertheless, Deppe’s advice on growing five important crops is of particular use. Her selections are based on calories, nutrients, storage and resiliency during the variable and unpredictable weather patterns. Her selections also are such that they may be grown in many regions of the United States’ diverse climates. Finally, all of her choices rely on using heirloom varieties, so that seed-saving helps in self-reliance. Read more from the source

Books Of Interest: