Be certain to consult a professional (or a really good field guide) in order to positively identify this plant before trying this for yourself. The owners of this site will not be held responsible for any lapses in judgment or stupidity when handling or consuming wild plants.

The daylily (hemerocallis fulva) is a very common ornamental plant that has found a home in many yards and gardens throughout the United States. Despite its common occurrence, few realize the year-round food potential of this plant.

In this article I’ll go into detail about how to identify, process and eat these delicious plants.

How to Identify Daylilies

Before you attempt to eat any wild edible you need to be absolutely certain you can identify it with 100% certainty. Luckily, daylilies, when in flower, have no poisonous look-a-likes. But to those that only see a “wall of green” out there, everything looks alike. In that case here are the 4 key things to look out for when properly identifying daylilies:

	6-petaled flower that faces upwards. These are typically orange but some have been bred to be different colors. In all daylilies the flower only lasts a single day (hence the name )
	Leafless flower stalk that is about 3 feet tall. The stalk that supports the flower head will have no leaves on it. This is a good comparison to the Blue Flag Iris which is poisonous and has leaves on its flower stalk.
	Light-green basal leaves that are long and sword-like with pointed tips.
	Root is a tangle of small tubers. The tubers are around pea size to about the size of a large almond.

If you can positively identify each of these 4 attributes above, it’s pretty certain that your looking at a daylily.

How to Eat a Daylily

Eating in the Different Seasons

The great thing about daylilies is that there is always something to eat from this plant all year round. In the late Fall and Winter (as well as all year round) you can eat the tubers (root nodules), in the Spring the young shoots are edible and delicious as a stir fry, and in the Summer you can eat the flower buds and the flowers.

I would recommend waiting until Summer to eat these as it will have all of the attributes available to make for an accurate identification. Since it’s a perennial plant (lives longer than two years) you can then come back to the stand during the following springtime to get the young shoots.

If you do decide to gather them in the Spring, care must be taken not to mistake them with some of the poisonous irises and lilies that emerge around the same time. One of the best ways to identify them is to unearth the young shoot, roots and all. You’re looking to find small potato-like tubers with tiny hair-like roots attached to them (see the picture I took in the section above). If you unearth one long, thick rhizome without tubers or a single bulb, then you’ve got the wrong plant.

What Parts to Eat

The edible portions of the plant (tubers, young shoots, flower buds and flowers) can all be eaten raw. However, there have been reports that some people react with nausea, vomiting, or diarrhea — especially if they eat a bunch of it). Cooking it is supposed to help reduce these effects. Just try out a small amount and see if you have any symptoms. All my friends and family who try this plant have never experienced this.

	Tubers: You’ll want to remove the hair-like roots and thick rhizomes. Wash and clean them and boil them in water for about 15 minutes for best taste (you can eat them raw). Some people like to peel them like potatoes, however I find the skin is just fine to eat along with the starchy centers — without the hassle. In this picture I’ve peeled some and left others with the skin.
	Flowers: The flower have a pleasant sweet taste when eaten raw and also can be dipped in batter and fried. Day-old Flowers: The wilted flowers (above-left in the picture) can be reconstituted in soups. Flowers Buds: Both the flower buds about to bloom (bottom left) and those that still have a while (bottom right) are excellent in your favorite stir fry recipe.
	Young Shoots: The young shoots are excellent raw, in salads or with dip. They are also great in stir fry.
	The benefit of learning wild edibles is that it can greatly improve and extend your long-term food storage. Here’s an example of using some of my stored rice with some fresh daylily flowers, stir-fried buds, and boiled daylily tubers. Yumm!

Daylily Nutrition Information

Daylily flowers and tubers are high in protein and oils. The flower buds are good sources of beta carotene and vitamin C.

Other Notes

Although daylilies are an excellent food source, you should be aware that research done in Chinese laboratories have reported that there are potentially toxic substances in the roots which may be cumulative. Keep in mind that people have been eating these plants for centuries without being poisoned so use them with respect and in moderation.

Related posts:

1. The Fantastic Four – 4 Essential Wild Edible Plants that May Just Save Your Life
2. How to Eat Dandelion Flowers
3. Dandelion Greens – The Perfect Spring Survival Food

If you’ve already tried preparing the dandelion greens from the prior article than you know how delicious this wild plant can be.

In this article I wanted to quickly present you with another pair of delicious recipes using a different part of this common every-day plant: the flowers.

Pickled Dandelion Flower Buds

I’d like to thank Rosalee de la Foret for this recipe!

For this recipe, you’ll want to harvest the flower buds when they are still tightly closed — before they ever opened.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup onions
• 3 tablespoons fresh minced ginger
• 4-5 garlic cloves
• 1 cup dandelion flower buds
• apple cider vinegar
• tamari sauce

The Process:

Rinse the flower buds well and place into a pint jar with the onions, garlic, and ginger. Fill halfway with the apple-cider vinegar and then fill halfway with the tamari. Cover with a plastic lid or a metal lid with a buffer (vinegar will corrode the metal lid). Let sit for three weeks and then enjoy on salads, as a snack, or on tuna fish sandwiches.

Dandelion Fritters

Ingredients for the Batter:

• 1/2 cup of flour
• 1/2 cup of milk
• one teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 cup cornmeal
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon of honey

The Process:

There are different ways of making this recipe.

One is to combine all of the above ingredients, dip the flower heads in the batter and then fry on a greased pan as I demonstrate in the following picture:
The other is to combine all of the above ingredients, mix the flower heads in the batter and then fry on a greased pan like a pancake as I demonstrate in this picture:
You’ll end up with them looking like this (very tasty!):
While the above recipe is good, my favorite recipe however, is to take a 1/4 cup cornmeal and 1/2 cup flour and put that in a bowl. Then put an egg with a dash of salt in another bowl and finally heat up some olive oil in a small pot or wok:
Then just take a flower head, dip it first in the egg then the flour mixture and then just drop it into the oil:
When it’s done you should have the best tasting flower fritters that are super light and fluffy (sort of like tempura), that look something like this (unfortunately the picture doesn’t do it much justice):

As I mention throughout this site, the more you can practice these skills — whether it be learning to identify and prepare wild edibles to learning different off-the-grid medical treatments — during tranquil times, the better off you’ll be if you are faced with serious hardships during times of trial.

How’s that saying go? “The more we sweat in times of peace the less we bleed in times of war.” There’s a lot of wisdom to that quote. Now get out there and practice!

Related posts:

1. Dandelion Greens – The Perfect Spring Survival Food
2. Wild Edibles: The Daylily

One of my favorite wild edibles during the early Spring happens to be the bane of all lawn owners: The Common Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale).

This article details how to identify and prepare this commonplace but excellent tasting and nutritious wild plant — knowledge that is an excellent addition to your survival info store.

How to Identify Dandelion

Dandelion is a perennial, herbaceous plant with long, lance-shaped leaves. The leaves are deeply toothed and resemble it’s namesake (dandelion comes from the Old French “Dent-de-lion” meaning lion’s tooth). Here are the key components of dandelion that you’ll want to look for:

deeply toothed, lance-shaped leaves (3 to 12 inches long) leaves grow in a basal rosette leaves are hairless leaves and flower stalks exude a white milky sap when injured yellow, composite flowers (1 to 2 inches wide) flowers turn into round white seed heads that float in the wind

Dandelion Greens – How to Prepare Them

Instead of waging backyard chemical warfare on dandelions why not eat them instead?

The best time to gather and eat dandelion greens is in the early Spring before the flowers emerge. At this time of year they are only minimally bitter when eaten raw. When added to a stir fry (as I show you below) even finicky eaters will like them.

Here’s one of my favorite ways to prepare and eat dandelion greens:

You’ll notice the first shoots appear as a basal rosette
Gather around 3 cups of dandelion greens
With some olive oil, cook around 2 cups of onions until soft
Add the dandelion greens some chopped garlic and 2 tablespoons of soy sauce and cook for around 15 minutes
viola! some awesome tasting dandelion green stir fry!

Dandelion greens can also be added raw to salads and are excellent in sandwiches. If you eat the greens after the flowers emerge, they will be noticeably more bitter. However, you can still eat these. Just boil them in two changes of water (be sure to bring the water to a boil before adding the greens) and they’ll taste just fine.

Dandelion Greens Nutrition Information

Dandelion greens (leaves) are more nutritious than most anything you can purchase in your produce section.

They’re higher in beta carotene than carrots and the iron, vitamin K, and calcium content is far greater than spinach and brocolli. And for the price of pulling them out of your (and your neighbor’s lawn ) you get vitamins B1, B2, B5, B6, B12, C, E, P (bioflavonoids) and D, biotin, mositol, potassium, phosphorus, magnesium, and zinc.

Still think this is a bothersome weed? Think again.

Related posts:

1. How to Eat Dandelion Flowers
2. Wild Edibles: The Daylily
3. The Fantastic Four – 4 Essential Wild Edible Plants that May Just Save Your Life

22 CB Cap long (left), 22 CB Cap short (right)

Well short of using a suppressor (silencer) which may not be legal in your area, there is a super quiet round available for your rifle that you may not be aware of. It’s called the 22 CB Cap (short for “conical ball cap”).

While not as powerful or accurate over long range as the 22LR round, it is still powerful enough to take small game such as rabbit or squirrel and provides the added advantage of being no louder than a pellet gun (and perhaps even less so). The reason for its silence is due to its minute propellant charge (in many cases it’s just the primer with no gunpowder) which results in a low muzzle velocity of around 700 ft/s (subsonic).

The advantages of this kind of round in a serious survival situation (urban or wilderness) are obvious. With a report no louder than a pellet gun, the .22 CB Cap round gives you the benefit of being able to easily take smaller game — even in a congested urban area — without anyone the wiser (Pigeon anyone? yummy…). It also allows for target practice without bothering the pesky neighbors.

One of the main disadvantages of the .22 CB Cap is that it won’t cycle most semi-automatic firearms. Since the round doesn’t provide enough power to cycle the bolt, each round must be fed manually, one at a time. Despite this major disadvantage I still highly recommend adding a box or two of .22 CB Cap to your store (and some for your second tier kit while your at it) when silence is of primary importance.

Related posts:

1. The Ultimate Survival Firearm
2. Howto: Fresh Vegetables Year Round without a Garden or Grocery Store

When you look at your average pine tree, rarely does one think that it has the ability to sustain you in a survival situation if the need ever arose. It’s sharp needles and gnarly bark give off the impression that it’s a less-than-friendly flora. On the contrary, pine provides some of the most readily available food sources in nature.

Pine Nuts

All pines contain edible seeds in the late season cones. The only issue is the quality and size of those seeds are highly dependent upon the species of pine.

As someone who lives in the Northeast, species of pine available here do not offer up seeds big enough to warrant the effort required in gathering and processing them. However, if you live in the Great Basin areas where Pinyon pine grows, you have an excellent source of food in the fall time.

Gathering and Processing Pine Nuts

The best time to gather pine nuts is in September and October. Look for the round open cones. Simply gather the cones, remove the seeds and shell before eating raw or roasting.

Notice the seeds w/in the cones

Pine Needle Tea

The needles of all pine make an excellent mild tea (not at all pitchy tasting as you’d expect) that is loaded with Vitamin C.

To make the tea, simply gather a good handful of fresh green pine needles. With a knife or sharp stone, dice the needles as fine as possible. Next, take these needles and put them directly into a cup of boiling water, letting it boil for a minute or two. The water should turn a light yellow color. Add some honey, drink and enjoy!

Male Pine Cone Flour

In the spring time, the pollen from the small male pine cones (as pictured below) can easily be shaken from the cone into a container and used as a stew thickener, or flour substitute that is a great source of protein.

Edible Pine Bark

You can eat bark? Absolutely! When first learning about wild edibles this comes as the biggest surprise to most people. But when I make it for them at home they’re actually amazed at how good it actually tastes.

Keep this in mind. When you cut off the bark of any tree be sure never to completely girdle the tree or you will kill it. The best option is to cut a small strip at most 1/10th the circumference of the tree. This will allow the tree to easily heal itself. Pine should be plentiful, so a small strip from each tree is more than sufficient to make a survival meal.

Choosing your tree

The first thing you’ll want to do is to choose a large, mature pine tree since it provides the most inner bark without harming the tree. If you have white pine in your area, consider yourself lucky since it’s one of the biggest and tastiest of all the pines.

Collecting out inner bark

With a heavy duty knife, drive the tip of the knife through the outer bark with a strong stick (this is where a good survival knife comes in handy).

Then begin to pound the back of the blade with a strong stick to drive the edge of the knife down the bark. Continue doing this until you’ve made a decent size rectangle.

Peel away the outer bark making sure to peel off the tender cambium layer (the inner bark) that comes with it.

Continue peeling the larger sections of the inner bark.

With a knife or other sharp object, scrape away the remaining inner bark stuck to the tree (this is the most tender and sweetest part of the inner bark).

Cooking the inner bark

There are three ways to eat the inner bark:

1. Boiling
2. Frying
3. Drying and Pounding into Flour

I’ll be covering the first two.

Boiling

I find this the least palatable of all the options. Just peel the inner bark collected from the last step into thin pieces and boil them. The end result is a softer, less chewy version of the raw inner bark. Only slightly better than peeling it off the tree and stuffing it in your mouth.

Frying

This is by far the best tasting way to prepare pine bark (even my wife likes it ). Like in the boiling step, peel the the inner bark into thin strips and simply fry them in some butter or oil until medium brown and crispy. Add a little bit of salt and it tastes like potato chips.

Related posts:

1. The Fantastic Four – 4 Essential Wild Edible Plants that May Just Save Your Life
2. How to Eat Cattail
3. How to Make Acorn Flour

Since I want to demonstrate it to you guys, I can only show you what’s available from the cattail in the fall/winter time (since right now it’s the fall/winter time…duh). I plan on adding to this article in the upcoming seasons to fully complete the food availability of this marvelous plant.

While there are a few other edible parts of the cattail in the fall and winter, the cattail’s best source of food during this time is the nutritious and calorie-dense starch found in the rhizomes (roots) underground. In today’s post I’ll be demonstrating how you collect, process, and consume the nutritious parts of this readily available wild plant.

Collecting the Cattail

Cattail is found throughout all of North America and much of the western hemisphere worldwide. It prefers to grow in wetland areas but you may as likely find it on the side of the road in a moist ditch. As I mentioned in the Fantastic Four: 4 Plants that can save your life article, it is often referred to as the supermarket of the swamp — and for good reason — as it provides nutritious (and may I add tasty) food through all four seasons.

During the colder seasons, be prepared to get a bit wet and cold. If you don’t mind the cold like me, you can go in barefoot, however it’s just as acceptable to strap on a pair of large waterproof boots and gloves and trudge through the muck to collect the cattail. Here’s the process:

1. Correctly identify cattail: In the late seasons, cattail is pretty easy to identify. You’ll want to look for what looks like a hotdog on a stick. Sometimes that ‘hotdog’ or seed head will begin breaking apart looking like a bunch of fuzz at the end of a stick. Here’s some pictures for examples:
   

   Notice the hotdog on a stick

   cattail fuzz starting to form

   Loosen up and pull out the rhizomes: Now that you’ve identified cattail, it’s time to march out into the muck to pull out the food. Most of the time you can’t just simply pull at the base of the cattail and out pops out a perfect rhizome. Instead, your best bet is to first loosen up the rhizomes before pulling the plant out.

   To do this, follow your hand down the stalk of the cattail until you reach the base. Then begin to guide your hand down from the base into the mud until you can feel one of the rhizome branches shooting out to one side. Here’s where you’ll pull and push the rhizome until it loosens up a bit. Do this with the other side and then grab the base of the stalk and puuullll. You should be able to pull out a good length of rhizome on each side of the base.

   Separate the rhizomes from the stalk: his is simply just cutting off the stalk so you’re only left with the rhizomes. Keep in mind that there are edible corms (the beginnings of next year’s growth) growing on the rhizomes and near the base. You’ll want to make sure to keep these as well since they are a good food source.

   

   Rhizomes (shown w/ cut stalk)

   
   

   

   Edible corm

   
   

   

   Another example of the corms after the base of the stalk is clean

   Clean the rhizomes: After remove the rhizomes, try to clean them as best as possible before bringing them home (or to camp), since they are covered in mud. Most areas where you collect the cattail will have a body of water nearby. Just take the muddy rhizomes and clean them as best as possible in the water (you don’t have to be perfect here).

   Preparing the Cattail

   Now that you have a bunch of cattail rhizomes in hand, it’s time to process them into something that you can eat. Here are the steps:

   1. Clean thoroughly: You’ll want to do a thorough cleaning job making sure all the mud is off of the cattails. If the rhizomes look dirty even after the mud is off, it’s alright since they will be peeled in an upcoming step.
      

      Looks like giant insect legs huh?

   2. Remove and peel the corms: The corms are the small shoots and stubs that are near the base of the cattail and on the rhizomes. These should be removed and peeled by hand to reveal the tender centers. If you want you can eat these raw at this stage or cook them.
      

      Fried in a little butter or olive oil, the corms taste great

      
      
      

      Here's a picture of the rhizomes (right), corms (lower left) and older corms/new shoots (upper left) - all edible an all very tasty

   3. Peel the rhizomes: I like to use a sharp knife or a potato peeler. Peel it just like you would a potato to reveal the starchy center.

   Removing the Starch and Making the Flour

   The next step is to extract the starch from the peeled rhizomes. There are two ways of doing this:

   Rhizome breaking method

   The first and most common way is to break apart the rhizome in a big bowl of water, working it in your hands until the starch is removed.

   The water will soon turn a milky white and when left to settle for around 3 hours, you’ll be left with the thick saturated starch at the bottom and the light debris floating on the top.
   

   
   

   Milky water

   Starch settled to the bottom (after pouring off some water)

   
   After pouring off the water and debris, take the white ‘pasty’ starch and lay it out on a flat surface to dry outside or in your oven (at the lowest temp) or in a dehydrator.

   Knife/Rock scraping method

   The second way (my favorite) is to scrape a sharp rock or a knife along the rhizome in a similar manner to squeezing a toothpaste tube from the bottom up. This will force the starch to be drawn out and it will collect on the knife or rock.

   You can either take this starch and lay it out to dry or stir it in a container of water so that the small fibrous ‘threads’ from the rhizomes float and separate from the starch.

   In the same manner as the previous method, after a few hours you can pour the water and debris off and lay out the remaining starch to be dried.

   Making the flour

   After the starch has dried sufficiently you can now grind it in a mortar and pestle or put it through a wheat grinder to get a finer flour-like consistency. This flour can be used in place of wheat or used in conjunction with wheat and other flours. See one of my favorite recipes below.
   

   

   Cattail flour after grinding and sifting

   Cattail Acorn Bread

   One of my favorite recipes is cattail/acorn bread. The cattail flour combined with the acorn flour from the How to Make Acorn Flour article make a tasty combination with a typical bread recipe:

   
   

   Water	1/2 cup
   Milk	1 cup
   Unsalted butter or vegetable oil	2 tablespoons
   Salt	1 1/2 teaspoons
   Sugar	2 tablespoons
   Wheat flour	2 cups
   Acorn flour	1 cup
   Cattail flour	1 cup
   Dry yeast	2 1/4 teaspoon

   To make the bread pictured below I used the above ingredients and threw it in a bread machine, set it to ‘basic bread’ mode and voila! 3 hours later I had some great tasting cattail/acorn bread.

   In a survival/primitive situation it’s a simple matter of taking the dough and throwing it on some hot coals from your fire for ash cakes — also surprisingly tasty!
   

   

   Related posts:

   1. The Fantastic Four – 4 Essential Wild Edible Plants that May Just Save Your Life
   2. Wild Edibles: The Daylily
   3. The Weekly Tactical Touch-Point: Cattail Hunt Edition
   ]]> http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/how-to-eat-cattail.htm/feed 8 http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/how-to-make-acorn-flour.htm http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/how-to-make-acorn-flour.htm#comments Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:00:02 +0000 Tactical Intelligence http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/?p=558 Related posts:
   1. The Fantastic Four – 4 Essential Wild Edible Plants that May Just Save Your Life
   2. How to Eat a Pine Tree
   3. How to Eat Cattail
   ]]> This post is a follow-up to the The Fantastic Four – 4 Essential Wild Edible Plants that May Just Save Your Life article. In this post, I demonstrate how to process and eat one of the core four essential plants: Acorns.

   Turning those bitter tasting nuts that are found all over the place during the fall into something that is not only palatable but rather good tasting is not as difficult as one would think. In this post I’ll be demonstrating how to turn acorns into an awesome food source.

   Step 1: Gather the Acorns

   
   The first step is rather self-explanatory. But for the sake of being thorough I’ll go through it.

   While you can collect them directly from the tree, the best place to gather acorns is right under the tree when they fall. Of course, the earlier you can grab these in the fall the better since you’ll be competing with all the other nut-loving creatures (squirrels, chipmunks, deer, acorn weevils, and other survivors besides you  ).

   Step 2: Shell the Acorns

   
   Similar to other nuts, you’ll need to remove the shell of the acorns before you can consume them. There are different ways to do this: Nutcracker, pounding it with a hammer and removing the nut meat, or my favorite way is a two-step process: first cut them all in half with a large kitchen knife and then work at popping out the nut meat using the sharp point of a smaller knife.
   

   Step 3: Pulverize the Nut Meat

   
   Now that you have all the nut meat out of the shells, you’ll want to grind these down as fine as possible. The old way is to use a big flat rock as your surface (acts as a mortar) and a smaller round rock used to crush and grind the nut (the pestle) into a fine consistency. Since I like to train in the old way but still use technology when possible, I like using my Greenstar juicer or a food processor. The nuts are softer than peanuts and will not damage these appliances.

   Step 4: Leech the Tannins out of the Acorns

   All the acorns that I’ve processed (yes, even white oak) required that I leeched the bitter tannins out of them before gobbling them down.
   
   To do this, bring a pot of water to a boil and pour the acorn meal in it. Let it boil for 5+ minutes making sure to stir the pot so that some of the acorn meal doesn’t stick and burn at the bottom.
   
   As an FYI, you could have skipped step 3 and just continued with this step, however I find that it takes way too long to process and wastes too much fuel. By using the ground up meal, it provides a greater surface area and leeches out the tannins much faster.

   Step 5: Filter out the Acorn Flour from the Water

   After your initial boil, filter out the acorn flour with a cheesecloth or an old t-shirt (even a sock will do in a pinch). I like to place a colander in my sink and then place the t-shirt or cheesecloth over the colander making a bowl-like depression with it.
   
   After pouring the liquid into the cloth depression, be careful with the hot water. It’s best to pour cold water into the slurry until it cools off and you can then pick up the cloth filter to help strain the remaining water out.
   
   After filtering, you’ll want to do a taste test. Is it still bitter? If so, repeat steps 4 and 5 until the bitterness is out.

   Final Steps

   At this point you’re left with essentially a ball of acorn-flour dough. If you want you can use this right away or if you want to save it for later, you can dry it out.
   
   To dry it out, simply spread it out flat onto a cookie sheet and place it in the oven at the lowest temperature until it is completely dry, or do the same thing but instead place it outside (this takes longer). Placing it in a food dehydrator also works great.
   
   After it has dried out you’ll probably notice that it has caked together (this is due to the high fat content). You can store it as is or further process it by crushing it into a powder (by hand or food processor). This acorn flour can then be used to make pancakes, bread, or added to cereals or soup.

   Acorn Nutrition Information

   Acorns are surprisingly nutritious and sustaining. Here’s the general nutrition info for 1 oz of dried acorn meal:
   
   For more details into the protein quality and nutrient balance of acorns see the following link: http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts/nut-and-seed-products/3083/2

   Related posts:

   1. The Fantastic Four – 4 Essential Wild Edible Plants that May Just Save Your Life
   2. How to Eat a Pine Tree
   3. How to Eat Cattail
   ]]> http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/how-to-make-acorn-flour.htm/feed 9 http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/the-fantastic-four-4-essential-wild-edible-plants-that-may-one-day-just-save-your-life.htm http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/the-fantastic-four-4-essential-wild-edible-plants-that-may-one-day-just-save-your-life.htm#comments Tue, 20 Oct 2009 11:49:23 +0000 Tactical Intelligence http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/?p=544 Related posts:
   1. Wild Edibles: The Daylily
   2. How to Eat a Pine Tree
   3. How to Make Acorn Flour
   ]]> Did you realize that knowing just 4 wild edible plants could one day save your life?

   If there were any four categories of plants that I would recommend all people to know how to use and identify it would be these: Grass, Oak, Pine, and Cattail. For the knowledgeable survivor, knowing just these four plants can make the difference between life and death if stranded in the wilds – for each one is an excellent food source which can sustain you until help arrives.

   Throughout this week and part of the next, I’ll be going into details on how you can prepare and eat these plants. For now though, here’s a quick overview into what they have to offer:

   Grass

   Surprising to many is the fact that you can eat grass. Despite there being hundreds of varieties of bladed grass found in the Americas, almost all (99% of them) can be eaten. This ranges from wheat, oats, and bamboo to the wild meadow varieties.

   The young shoots up to 6 inches tall can be eaten raw and the starchy base (usually white and at the bottom when you pluck it) can be eaten as a trail nibble. The more mature the grass plant gets, the more fibrous the plant becomes. For older plants the base can be chewed and spit out — extracting the beneficial juices in the process. Or a tea can be made from the fresh or dried leaves.

   The best part of the grass plant to eat are the seed heads, which can be gathered to make millet for breads or filler for soups & stews. Of the 99% that can be eaten raw, about 1% have toxic seeds and require that you roast or cook the seeds first. As a word of caution, stay away from blackish or purple colored grass seeds. This is a good indication of toxic fungus. Just make sure they are green or brown. Also use common sense when gathering. Don’t gather where there has been recent sprayings of weed killer.

   Oak

   Oak – specifically the acorn – is a great source of food in the fall and early winter time. Like most nuts, acorns contain a good amount of protein and fat which is beneficial in keeping you alive. While White Oak species of acorns can be eaten right after shelling, the remaining oak varieties require processing of the acorns first in order to remove the bitter taste.

   I found that many ‘survival guides’ explain you only need to shell the acorns then boil them in a couple changes of water to remove the bitter taste. However, in my experience, it takes far more than a couple of boilings and on top of that it is a waste of fuel. The best way to do this is to crush the acorns into a course flour then immerse this flour into water and boil it. Depending on how much water used, it can take only one boiling (at most two) to remove the bitter taste.

   After straining the flour into a t-shirt, the resulting acorn ‘dough’ can be eaten as is, set out to dry to be used as flour at a later time, or added to other flours for a great tasting bread – in fact, every Fall I make a killer ‘acorn bread’ that is a family and friend favorite.

   Pine

   “You can eat pine?!” Yes, pine trees are an awesome food source that I’ve eaten throughout the year. “OK…so how do you eat it” Good question, let me explain.

   First of all, if you’ve ever eaten pesto, chances are you’ve eaten pine. ‘Pignoli’ or pine nuts are a common ingredient in pesto and are often served on ice-cream . Every species of pine produces seed (or nuts in this case) and all can be eaten. In the late fall and early winter, the cones can be gathered, opened, and the seeds extracted. The only issue is that most pine don’t produce large seeds like for example the pinion pine does.

   In most other species the seeds are quite small and it takes quite a few to make a decent meal. However, if you’re lucky to live in the Great Basin or other arid areas where pinion pines love to grow you’re in luck, if not and if you don’t feel like spending so much time for a meager meal, read on…

   In the spring, the male pollen anthers can be eaten and are high in protein. The inner bark of the pine can also be eaten and surprisingly makes quite a tasty meal if prepared right. And with some species – like the white pine – it can be surprisingly sweet.

   In addition, pine needles can be gathered year round to make a great tea which contains a ton of Vitamin C (not in the least bit ‘piney’ tasting as you would expect).

   Cattail

   This is my favorite wild edible. Not only is it referred to as the wilderness ‘supermarket’ (because of its many edible parts), but it has some great medicinal and utilitarian purposes as well.

   Cattail provides something to eat year round. And the amount that you can gather is quite substantial. In fact, a study was conducted at the Cattail Research Center of Syracuse University’s Department of Plant Sciences by Leland Marsh. He reported that he could harvest 140 tons of rhizomes per acre near Wolcott, NY. That equates to more than 10 times the average yield per acre of potatoes!

   In the early spring the young shoots and stalks can be eaten raw or cooked. The flower heads in late spring can be husked like corn and boiled — in fact it has an almost corn-like taste. Very yummy. In summer, the brown-orangish pollen heads can be eaten raw or dried into flour. Fall is the best time to gather the horn-shaped corms (the sproutings of next years’ plants) which are eaten raw or roasted. And in winter, the root stalk is full of starch which can be broken up into water, dissolved, strained and dried into flour as good as wheat flour.

   Conclusion

   Even if you can only identify the previous four categories of plants, knowing how to use them can give you enough nutrients to stay alive. Supplement that with some additional plant knowledge and some hunting/trapping skills and you can forget surviving, you’ll be well on your way to thriving out in the wilds!

   For the next week, I’ll be going into detail on how you can process and use each of the above groups of plants for life-sustaining food. Stay tuned!!

   Related posts:

   1. Wild Edibles: The Daylily
   2. How to Eat a Pine Tree
   3. How to Make Acorn Flour
   ]]> http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/the-fantastic-four-4-essential-wild-edible-plants-that-may-one-day-just-save-your-life.htm/feed 32 http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/how-to-make-survival-sumac-lemonade.htm http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/how-to-make-survival-sumac-lemonade.htm#comments Wed, 23 Sep 2009 11:00:41 +0000 Tactical Intelligence http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/?p=406 Related posts:
   1. Dandelion Greens – The Perfect Spring Survival Food
   2. How to Eat Cattail
   3. Wild Edibles: The Daylily
   ]]> To skip to the video instructions go here.

   This is the first in a series of posts/videos dedicated to wild edible and medicinal plants. Each season I will be covering some of the most easily identified and useful plants that you can use for food and medicine.

   Disclaimer: Eating certain wild plants can be deadly!!

   Be certain to consult a professional (or a really good field guide) in order to positively identify this plant before trying this for yourself. The owners of this site will not be held responsible for any lapses in judgment or stupidity when handling or consuming wild plants.

   One of my all-time favorite drinks for the late summer and early fall is Sumac Lemonade. It is made from a plant that is widely distributed throughout most of North America and easily identified. This juice is made from either the staghorn sumac (Rhus typhina) or smooth sumac (Rhus glabra).

   Here’s how you can make it:

   Step 1: Positively Identify Staghorn or Smooth Sumac

   For this step, it’s always best to consult a good field guide or someone who has experience identifying this plant. In general though, here are the four key items to look for in order to positively identify staghorn and smooth sumac:

   1. Compound Toothed Leaves: Both species have pinnately compound leaves with serrated edges.
   2. Unique Stems and Twigs: Staghorn sumac has velvet (hairy) twigs and smooth sumac has no hair but instead a fine white powder that is easily removed when touched.
      

      Staghorn

      Smooth

   3. Red Fruit Clusters: Since poison sumac has white berries (green early in the season), if you see the red one’s you’re safe. See the following pictures of the two varieties.
      

      Staghorn Fruit

      Smooth Sumac Fruit

   4. Milky Sap: Both varieties exude a milky sap when broken

   Just to see the contrast, here’s a picture of poison sumac fruit cluster and leaves (notice they are smooth and not serrated). Stay away from this plant:
   

   Step 2: Collect Fruit Clusters

   The strength of the fruit clusters is highly dependent upon the season it’s collected. Ideally, you’ll want to collect them in the mid to late-summer / early-fall time. While you can collect them in the winter, you’ll just need to gather more. It’s best not to gather them right after a heavy rain, since most of the fruit’s tasty acids will have been leached out by then. I usually grab a few of the berries, put them in my mouth and taste them. If they are nice and sour, they’ll make an excellent juice.

   For a half-gallon of juice, I typically gather enough fruit clusters to fit in a ¼ to ½ gallon container.

   Step 3: Soak the Fruit Clusters in Water for 10 to 15 Minutes

   For this step it’s very important you use cold water and not hot water. Hot water will leach out the tannins and you’ll be left with a bitter medicine and not a tasty refreshing drink. Just grab a big bowl of cold water, throw the berries in there, crush them with your hands and let them sit for a good 10 to 15 minutes.

   After letting them soak for that time, what you can do is filter out a small amount in a glass cup. You should be left with a liquid that looks anywhere between pink lemonade and cranberry juice. Of course the best test is the taste test. Give it a quick taste, if it’s too mild let it soak a bit longer (or get more berries), if it’s too strong, you can always dilute it a bit with some more water.

   Note: If you are making a small amount of the drink, another option is to place as many heads as possible in a clean tube sock, let it soak in the container until the desired strength is achieved, pull out the sock and then you’re done! (You can skip the next step)

   Step 4: Filter out the Berries and Twigs

   For the final step, I’ll first filter out as much of the twigs and berries as I can with my hands. After that just grab some cheesecloth, or an old t-shirt (make sure it’s clean), or even some sturdy paper towels (Bounty) and place it over the container you will end up storing it in and filter out the rest of the stuff. It’s as simple as that! If you’re out in the bush you can always make a improvised filter using a big handful of fresh long grass (not grass from someone’s lawn).

   You can now optionally add sugar or honey to taste or drink it as is (I prefer it this way). What you’re left with is a delicious and healthy drink.

   Nutritional and Medicinal Properties of Sumac

   Not only is sumac juice loaded with Vitamin C but the rest of the plant has amazing medicinal properties. Here’s just some of them:

   Leaf infusion (tea from the leaves) helps with:

   • asthma
   • diarrhea
   • dysentery

   Inner-bark and root-bark decoction (boiling) helps with:

   • astringent (contracts tissue like hydrogen peroxide)
   • diarrhea
   • dysentery
   • fever

   
   

   Video Instructions

   
   
   

   Related posts:

   1. Dandelion Greens – The Perfect Spring Survival Food
   2. How to Eat Cattail
   3. Wild Edibles: The Daylily
   ]]> http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/how-to-make-survival-sumac-lemonade.htm/feed 10 http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/how-to-choose-a-survival-knife.htm http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/how-to-choose-a-survival-knife.htm#comments Mon, 14 Sep 2009 18:09:32 +0000 Tactical Intelligence http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/?p=306 Related posts:
   1. Dandelion Greens – The Perfect Spring Survival Food
   2. How to Put Together the Ultimate Survival Kit
   3. Survival Car Heater – Carbon Monoxide Testing Results
   ]]> Ever wonder how to choose the perfect survival knife? This article will show you how.

   In my opinion, a survival knife is your most important tool when caught in a wilderness survival situation. While it’s true that you can improvise a knife out of stone or bone when out in the wilds, there’s nothing that compares with the steel blade for its strength, versatility, and usefulness. However, not every steel knife will do in a survival situation. Knowing what to look for when choosing a survival knife is just as important as having one. After reading this article, you will know what properties make up the perfect survival knife and you will be able to find one that is tailor made for your needs and situation.

   Key Things to Avoid in a Survival Knife

   While there are many attributes that are less than ideal in a survival blade, here’s a list the main things you should avoid when choosing a survival knife:

   • Narrow Tang: If you were to take off the handle of a knife, the tang would be the part that extends from the base of the blade onward. As you can see in the picture, this tang is relatively narrow. This is fine for the purposes of a kitchen knife, but when put it up to the rigors of survival/outdoor activities (chopping wood, pounding the blade for splitting small logs etc) it is susceptable to breakage.
   • Folding Knives (including multi-tools): While I always keep a folder on me at all times, which more than adequately covers most of the activities I do in a survival situation, it is still less than ideal. Remember, this article isn’t about how to choose just any knife that will do, but about how to choose the “perfect” survival knife.
   • Huge Knives: Hollywood is to blame for filling up our minds with pictures of survival knives being these huge monstrosities (Rambo, Crocodile Dundee etc). Although you could slay a crocodile with one mighty thrust, the larger the knife the more difficult it is to do the intricate work that a survival situation requires. And for that reason, I’d be more worried about getting fire going, making tools for hunting and trapping, and setting up camp than a crocodile attacking me — especially since I live in New England!
   • Hollow-Handled ‘Survival’ Knives: While there are exceptions to this (see some of Chris Reeve’s knives) most hollow-handled survival knives that house a small survival kit in the handle are two-pieced and more for gimmic than they are useful. Their two-piece design — like the narrow tang — can easily break when splitting wood or doing heavy work.

   What to Look for in a Survival Knife

   Similar to the list of ‘dont’s’ above, here’s a list of core requirements that every survival knife should meet:

   • Full Tang: I consider this to be one of the most important attributes of a survival knife. A full-tang knife’s handle is the tang itself and is usually wrapped or covered with some material to make it more comfortable to carry and use. Since the handle and the blade is one integrated piece, the chances of it breaking are very minimal.
   • Fixed Blade: Although there are numerous folding knives which do an excellent job in a survival situation, if there were to be an ideal (and again, this article is about the ideal knife ) you will want to have a fixed blade knife. That basically means that the entire knife is integrated with the handle and cannot be folded shut..
   • Reasonably Sized: I realize that ‘reasonably sized’ is a very relative term. What I mean here is that it should be small enough to do most intricate camp work (trap making, notches for fire boards etc) but large enough to do heavier tasks like splitting small logs. This ideal is obviously different for different people, but in general it falls between a blade that is 4-6 inches.

   Now that the basics covered, if you want to go beyond them then you’ll want to be aware of the following:

   Steel Type

   For the rigors and requirements of survival knives, not all steel is equal. Steel quality determines the strength of the blade, its toughness (ability to take impact), how easy it is to sharpen, and how long it will hold that edge. While I could write pages and pages about the various differences of steel types, for the purposes of this article I’ll briefly cover the most important points.

   Most knives are made from two broad classifications of steel: Carbon Steel and Stainless Steel. As a general rule stainless steel is more rust resistant than carbon steel but can be more brittle (less tough) and more difficult to sharpen compared to the average carbon steel. Carbon steel on the other hand can be made extremely sharp, is tougher when being used for splitting or chopping, is easier to sharpen, but if not maintained it will easily rust.

   It’s important to know that most of these differences disappear as you go up in terms of price and quality of manufacture. Here is a list of steels that I recommend:

   Recommended Stainless Steels

   • S60V
   • BG-42
   • S90V
   • CPM S30V
   • CPM 154 (this is my favorite stainless steel)

   Recommended Carbon Steels

   • D2
   • A2 (this is my favorite carbon steel)
   • O1
   • Carbon V
   • CPM 154

   Blade Geometry

   The way a knife blade is shaped determines its overall functionality. For example, a chef’s knife is shaped in such a way that it is perfect for slicing tomatoes or dicing garlic. That same knife however has no business out in the woods. The same holds true for the double-edged spear point and tanto-style knives. These knives are built for fighting and are perfect for thrusting and stabbing but do not hold out well in a survival situation.

   Instead you’ll want to choose a clip point or a drop point style blade. These blades are suited well for the tasks required in a survival situation.

   A clip-point blade’s tip is formed by a slight concave curve at the top. When slightly curved these tips are perfectly acceptable and strong. Clip points with exaggerated curves are susceptible to breakage if your pounding the spine while chopping wood.

   The drop point blade is the best all-around blade style. It is formed when the back or dull side of the knife slopes downward at a slight angle beginning at around the half-way point and meets the blade edge slightly above center. This blade geometry is best suited for the various tasks required out in the field.

   Blade Edge

   The edge or the sharp side of the blade should be from base to tip one continuous edge. In most cases you’ll want to stay away from serrated edges. While they do have their uses, they are difficult to sharpen out in the field and there is little functionality that they add out in the bush.

   Spine

   In general you’ll want the spine or back of the blade (opposite the blade edge) to be flat (no saw or sharpened edge). This allows it to make a good hitting platform when pounding it with a hard stick to aid in splitting wood. One exception to this rule is Tom Brown Jr.’s “Tracker” knife. Although the knife is a bit cumbersome for my tastes, it’s unique design is suited well for splitting and chopping wood.

   Conclusion

   Although I go into a lot of detail explaining the ‘ideals’ to look for in a wilderness survival knife, it ultimately comes down to your individual preferences. The most important thing, as I mention in many other threads, is to find what works for you. If you have some friends who have different knives, try them out and see if you tend to prefer a smaller or larger version. Take those attributes that I’ve told you to look for and put them to the test.

   Resources

   Here are some excellent resources for learning more about knives and their make up:

   • Steel Guide – This chart gives you a great overview of the various types of steel and their make up.
   • Steel Type Description Great summary of the various steels as well as their positives and negatives.
   • BladeForums.com This is a fantastic forum made up of many professional knife makers. They have great tips and a wealth of knowledge.
   • Equipped to Survive Knife Review In depth review into what makes up a good survival knife.

   Related posts:

   1. Dandelion Greens – The Perfect Spring Survival Food
   2. How to Put Together the Ultimate Survival Kit
   3. Survival Car Heater – Carbon Monoxide Testing Results
   ]]> http://www.tacticalintelligence.net/blog/how-to-choose-a-survival-knife.htm/feed 2