One story on the internet is about food you could find or grow to feed yourself and others after the apocalypse such as a meteor strike or nuclear bomb or nuclear accident destroys crops and farms above ground.
UK
Currently in the UK and many places the gathering of wild fruit and flowers is banned, on private and public land, and landscaped gardens, because wild flowers are disappearing.
One ruling is that you can pick enough for your own use, to eat, but not commercially, to sell. Why? Jealousy? No. Mainly because companies wanting to sell will gather huge amounts, employ armies of recruits, and wipe out the crop.
Mushrooms
In wartime you can grow mushrooms indoors under the stairs. I heard this was done in WWII.
Potatoes
After my father died I found that he had a cupboard full of green plants growing like Jack and the beanstalk. We eventually dragged out the plant which had taken over. It was sprouting potatoes.
He was not growing potatoes. They were simply stored in the dark, but had grown nonetheless. I read somewhere that you should avoid eating any potatoes which have started to grow green.
Beware Of Mouldy Food
Another website told me never to cut mould out of bread because even if you cannot see it the mould has spread throughout the bread. don't take my word for it. Check out what you think you might need to know back to the original scientific sources.
Don't Attract Animals
A further warning in the USA. Beware of bears in some areas. In parts of the USA and Canada you are told not to have sandwiches or food near where you are sleeping, not even in a locked car. Bears and other dangerous animals will smell the food, eat it, get near enough to attack you. Even if you are safe, next time monkeys and bears, having learned that hikers carry food, will come looking for it and grow angry not finding it!
Doesn't everybody know that you can eat apples, pears, oranges, cherries, and wild blackberries? But beware of a few poisonous plants including some red currants and mushrooms, especially those red ones with white dots.
My Favourite Deadly Mushroom Story
I was on a press trip with a woman from a cookery magazines. We were discussing safety and food. I mentioned: "The French gather mushrooms and can get them identified in their local pharmacist in France where a poster or book will identify edible mushrooms and dangerous ones. Did you know that the red mushrooms with white dots which you often see in books are poisonous?"
She replied:
"Yes. We had a problem with illustrations once. We gave a mushroom recipe. The art department's artist decided to use the red mushroom with white dots which is poisonous. Nobody noticed until after it had gone to print!'
"How did you find out?"
"Somebody immediately phoned tha magazine and told us."
"What did you do?"
"We had to ask for the magazines to be withdrawn, which was very costly, but they had all been distributed already and many of them had been sold, sold out. The only thing we could do was to print an apology and warning in the next edition."
"Did anybody die? Or get poisoned? Or complain?"
"No. The only complaints we got were that people had gone around their local supermarkets showing a picture of the mushrooms but nobody stocked them."
Australia
Down under they put up warnings in Australia.
In the USA a sculpture of Alice in Wonderland with a giant mushroom is in Eastern Central Park, New York.
Surviving A Plane Crash
I always wondered how you survived in a plane crash when you had to walk to safety, as one woman once did. You walk downhill hoping to find a stream which gives you drinking water and washes bites and dirty clothes, and then follow the flow towards the sea hoping to pass houses or villages by the water.
On Christmas Eve 1971 Juliane Koepecke was on a plane flying across Peru when the plane was struck by lightning and crashed. She walked down to a river and survived. She followed the advice she had been given by her father.
After all that eating whilst hiking, you might like to know:
How to shit in the Woods.
USA
My family bought this book years ago in a camping gear and clothes shop in the USA. You can now buy a kindle version to read on your laptop or mobile phone.
Romania and Bulgaria
You might also be interested in using an umbrella as a shield when hiking on trails in Romania and Bulgaria where there are no toilets and many groups passing by the paths.
Let's end with the good news. Huge numbers of edible plants you already know and recognize such as dandelions, nettles and don't forget forget me nots.
I like to remember plants which are entirely edible and taste good. In an emergency you might be willing to be careful to eat only part of the plant.
For those of both pessimistic and pragmatic or realistic dispositions, print off the list and keep it in your pocket when travelling. If nothing else, it will provide entertainment and conversation. And who knows, nowhere, some day it could save a life. As the UK road safety advertisement used to say, appealing to the reader's self-interest (probably based on research into motivation), the life you save could be your own.
Useful Websites
French Tourist Board
http://ee.france.fr/
Wild Plants For Hikers
https://matteroftrust.org/62-edible-wild-plants-that-you-didnt-know-you-can-eat/
Edible Plants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Edible_plants
Mushroom Hunting Holidays
https://www.bookculinaryvacations.com/les-pastras/2-days-mushroom-hunting-and-culinary-vacations-in-france
How To Eat In The Woods
https://www.amazon.com/How-Eat-Woods-Complete-Sustenance/dp/1631910124
How To Shit in the woods
https://www.amazon.com/How-Shit-Woods-3rd-Environmentally-ebook/dp/B004OR1KWC/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
If foraging legal in the UK?
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-11584156
Poisonous Plants and mushrooms
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom_poisoning
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_phalloides
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
UK
Currently in the UK and many places the gathering of wild fruit and flowers is banned, on private and public land, and landscaped gardens, because wild flowers are disappearing.
One ruling is that you can pick enough for your own use, to eat, but not commercially, to sell. Why? Jealousy? No. Mainly because companies wanting to sell will gather huge amounts, employ armies of recruits, and wipe out the crop.
Mushrooms
In wartime you can grow mushrooms indoors under the stairs. I heard this was done in WWII.
Potatoes
After my father died I found that he had a cupboard full of green plants growing like Jack and the beanstalk. We eventually dragged out the plant which had taken over. It was sprouting potatoes.
He was not growing potatoes. They were simply stored in the dark, but had grown nonetheless. I read somewhere that you should avoid eating any potatoes which have started to grow green.
Beware Of Mouldy Food
Another website told me never to cut mould out of bread because even if you cannot see it the mould has spread throughout the bread. don't take my word for it. Check out what you think you might need to know back to the original scientific sources.
Don't Attract Animals
A further warning in the USA. Beware of bears in some areas. In parts of the USA and Canada you are told not to have sandwiches or food near where you are sleeping, not even in a locked car. Bears and other dangerous animals will smell the food, eat it, get near enough to attack you. Even if you are safe, next time monkeys and bears, having learned that hikers carry food, will come looking for it and grow angry not finding it!
Doesn't everybody know that you can eat apples, pears, oranges, cherries, and wild blackberries? But beware of a few poisonous plants including some red currants and mushrooms, especially those red ones with white dots.
My Favourite Deadly Mushroom Story
I was on a press trip with a woman from a cookery magazines. We were discussing safety and food. I mentioned: "The French gather mushrooms and can get them identified in their local pharmacist in France where a poster or book will identify edible mushrooms and dangerous ones. Did you know that the red mushrooms with white dots which you often see in books are poisonous?"
She replied:
"Yes. We had a problem with illustrations once. We gave a mushroom recipe. The art department's artist decided to use the red mushroom with white dots which is poisonous. Nobody noticed until after it had gone to print!'
"How did you find out?"
"Somebody immediately phoned tha magazine and told us."
"What did you do?"
"We had to ask for the magazines to be withdrawn, which was very costly, but they had all been distributed already and many of them had been sold, sold out. The only thing we could do was to print an apology and warning in the next edition."
"Did anybody die? Or get poisoned? Or complain?"
"No. The only complaints we got were that people had gone around their local supermarkets showing a picture of the mushrooms but nobody stocked them."
Australia
Down under they put up warnings in Australia.
Australian warning about death cap mushrooms. Wikipedia picture.
USAIn the USA a sculpture of Alice in Wonderland with a giant mushroom is in Eastern Central Park, New York.
Surviving A Plane Crash
I always wondered how you survived in a plane crash when you had to walk to safety, as one woman once did. You walk downhill hoping to find a stream which gives you drinking water and washes bites and dirty clothes, and then follow the flow towards the sea hoping to pass houses or villages by the water.
On Christmas Eve 1971 Juliane Koepecke was on a plane flying across Peru when the plane was struck by lightning and crashed. She walked down to a river and survived. She followed the advice she had been given by her father.
After all that eating whilst hiking, you might like to know:
How to shit in the Woods.
USA
My family bought this book years ago in a camping gear and clothes shop in the USA. You can now buy a kindle version to read on your laptop or mobile phone.
Romania and Bulgaria
You might also be interested in using an umbrella as a shield when hiking on trails in Romania and Bulgaria where there are no toilets and many groups passing by the paths.
Let's end with the good news. Huge numbers of edible plants you already know and recognize such as dandelions, nettles and don't forget forget me nots.
I like to remember plants which are entirely edible and taste good. In an emergency you might be willing to be careful to eat only part of the plant.
For those of both pessimistic and pragmatic or realistic dispositions, print off the list and keep it in your pocket when travelling. If nothing else, it will provide entertainment and conversation. And who knows, nowhere, some day it could save a life. As the UK road safety advertisement used to say, appealing to the reader's self-interest (probably based on research into motivation), the life you save could be your own.
Useful Websites
French Tourist Board
http://ee.france.fr/
Wild Plants For Hikers
https://matteroftrust.org/62-edible-wild-plants-that-you-didnt-know-you-can-eat/
Edible Plants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Edible_plants
Mushroom Hunting Holidays
https://www.bookculinaryvacations.com/les-pastras/2-days-mushroom-hunting-and-culinary-vacations-in-france
How To Eat In The Woods
https://www.amazon.com/How-Eat-Woods-Complete-Sustenance/dp/1631910124
How To Shit in the woods
https://www.amazon.com/How-Shit-Woods-3rd-Environmentally-ebook/dp/B004OR1KWC/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
If foraging legal in the UK?
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-11584156
Poisonous Plants and mushrooms
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mushroom_poisoning
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_phalloides
Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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