The “Oops” Diet

So you got lost, and your weekend campout is now on its second weekend, or panicked looters cleaned out the local Piggly Wiggly, and you didn’t get any of those canned peaches you were counting on. Fear not. Fortunately, you can go without food for about three weeks. It won’t be pleasant, and it will affect your energy and judgment, but it won’t kill you outright until then, so you have some time to forage.

Teach a man to fish
It always amuses me to see fly fishermen with their two-hundred dollar reels and massive collections of hand-tied flies. They get all dressed up in their catalog gear and lug the forty-pound tackle box to the nearest river. To do battle with fish. Sorry, guys, but a survival situation doesn’t lend itself to your romantic recreation of A River Runs Through It.

If you’re lucky enough to have a body of water nearby, you can catch fish all day long with a minimum of effort at the beginning. If you didn’t think to pack fish hooks in your kit (why not?), small twigs can be woven into a fish basket (or if you’re scrabbling through the wreckage of civilization, try to find some chicken wire). Anything that will let water pass through but trap fish can be sunk into a river to collect food as you tend to other needs. You can even build a series of small fences to guide fish into a shallow pool. You can also string a fishing line (or dental floss!) from bank to bank, with a number of different lines pointed downstream. The water flowing past will make the bait bounce convincingly. Check the lines occasionally and replace bait as needed. There’s a nifty little gadget called a Yo Yo fishing reel that you mount on an overhanging branch. When a fish takes the bait, it has a spring-powered action that sets the hook for you.

Waiter! I made a soup out of flies.
If you don’t have a body of water nearby, you can always eat the bait yourself. Insects are nothing but protein on legs. Anything with six legs is safe to eat (though not necessarily easier). The best way to overcome the squirm-factor is to kill the bugs and let them dry a bit, then grind them into a powder and mix it into your water. Not pleasant, but it beats starving to death.

Kentucky Fried Squirrel
Do you have your dental floss or small-gauge wire? Good. Learn how to set a few simple snares. If it walks or flies it can feed you and, like the fishing, it’s something you can set and forget while you do other things like fix your shelter or find more firewood. If you want to duct-tape your big hunting knife to a limb and attempt to bring down a deer, by all means go for it. Make sure you have plenty of other food sources, though…just in case the deer manages to outrun you in the woods. The simplest way to field dress any mammal is: remove the head and limbs; cut straight down from the neck to the crotch (being careful not to nick the intestines); pull the skin off; spread the rib cage and scoop out the organs (unless you enjoy organ meat); stoke up the fire.

Vegetarians be damned
Unless you are absolutely, positively, 200% sure about plant identification, don’t even attempt to forage for greens as a food source. Most wild plants either have no nutritional content at all, contain dangerous symbiotes, or are outright poisonous to humans. Seriously. Don’t do it.

You keep mentioning all this gear, 'Cat; what should I carry?

Good question.