David Nash - The Preppers Guide to Foraging: How Wild Plants Can Supplement a Sustainable Lifestyle, Revised and Updated, Second Edition

Copyright 2016 by David Nash

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

Cover design by Tom Lau

Cover images courtesy of iStock.com

All photos in insert courtesy of iStock.com

Illustrations by Sarah E. Cole

Print ISBN: 978-1-63450-493-5

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-63450-842-1

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

To my friend W. Smith,

Thanks for all the help and support, but mostly all of the well deserved,

Thats a stupid idea, Davebecause you still helped anyway.

Foreword

When David Nash asked me to write a foreword to his book, I was extremely honored and excited. Im a student who enjoys doing common-sense stuff to become more self-reliant.

I like the fact that hes actually doing the stuff in his books, as well as the no-nonsense style of his writing based in humility. His attitude is always that of a student, whether teaching about guns or plants.

Knowledge is not enough to get you and your family through hard times when fragile systems fail. As much as wed all like to think that food trucks will always deliver, a small glitch (or a dusting of snow in Georgia) is all it takes for the industrial food machine to grind to a halt. Not a problem. Youve got food put aside for such occasions if the trucks start rolling again soon.

What if they dont? Ive read many misguided people who plan to live off the land in the backwoods. Thats not what this book is about. David puts that myth to rest right up front. Foraging from the landscape is a skill meant to supplement your overall food independence plan. But what many foraging books dont give you is alternative uses for wild plants and trees are rarely mentioned. Trees, my friend, are a four-season meal plan!

The more I learn about the natural world, the more I realize just how little I know. There are hundreds of thousands of plant species in nature. In my pursuit of outdoor self-reliance skills, knowledge of the plant world is the foundation of becoming less dependent on others. Im not a botanist, but I do study plants and trees for their use as food and medicine. However, one of the best value-added aspects of this book has to be the alternative uses of each of the twenty-five plants listed. That alone is worth the price.

David also provides some excellent resources to further your journey in wildcrafting. The common sense advice to seek out a reputable plant forager is wise. Even then, youll need to spend time in the woods or backyard practicing.

I would recommend locating and properly identifying two of the plants/trees each month. In one years time, youll have learned twenty-five plants and their uses. That would be a huge leap in your journey to self-reliance!

Todd Walker

Todd Walker, aka The Survival Sherpa, is an experienced survivalist who runs several websites and Facebook groups dedicated to wilderness survival and bushcraft.

Introduction

I spent a good portion of my childhood roaming the woods imagining I was a Native American, a mountain man, or a fugitive from justice (on the A-Team). As I explored I read every book on wilderness survival and edible plants I could find, but I also experimented by eating May apples, wild onions, and a variety of other wild edible plants. I was lucky because my father was a park ranger and I had access to experts and information that the typical kid did not. My views on wild edibles and sustainability were skewed toward my experiences (arent everyones?). As a result, I believed that bugging out to the wilderness during a disaster was a viable strategy.

As I matured, I began to realize how little wild land is actually available and how many people actually are on the planet. Once I married and started a family, I learned firsthand how much food it takes to feed even a small family, so my views started to change. Looking at what it takes to produce food and how much food a family of preppers needs to store, I began to see that my bug out to the wild dream was an unrealistic one.

I finally realized that the best way to survive a long-term disaster scenario is to have a place to bug in and grow the majority of my own familys food. This is not to say that foraging is not useful. I find it to be a valuable, if not vital, tool to supplement what I produce as well as to provide tools, medicine, and even chemicals that are essential to long-term subsistence living.

The Preppers Guide to Foraging is not meant to be a plant guide or an exhaustive reference. I simply do not have the space, time, or resources to create a manual to cover all the North American plants that are edible. My goal is to create a blueprint and idea guide to help you see what is possible when you are open to the idea that you can use wild plants to supplement a sustainable lifestyle, where the majority of your familys food needs are addressed through a comprehensive plan that involves food storage and some manner of food production.

This book is designed to show how useful wild plants are by giving a food and alternative usage for easily identified plants that are commonly found throughout North America. I chose plants that are commonly identified, are edible, and have additional uses besides satisfying a growling stomach.

You may notice that the focus of this book is on trees. I am not biased against smaller life forms. However, as I choose the plants contained in this work, I made several conscious decisions that led me to a work that contained many trees. I will share two of them. The first reason I chose to include trees is that many other books that deal solely with wild edibles focus on smaller plants and I wanted to share less common information. Another is that I believe that trees are both easier to identify and better suited to a lifestyle where wild food supplements , not replaces, home produced/stored foods.

I strongly believe that the library of every outdoorsman, prepper, and survivalist needs at least two (if not more) high quality plant identification guides, as well as good reference material for plant use and edibility.

To help the reader identify those resources, I have added a bibliography of books that have been useful in my search for safe plant usage. I could not have completed this book without the information contained in that bibliography as well as a large amount of information gleaned from the Internet.

Part I

How to Learn About Wild Edible and Medicinal Plants

There are several ways to learn about wild forage foods, but only two that I think are appropriate and safe.

The Best Way

If you have access to a local expertand I mean a real expert, not someone who read a book or two and threw together a YouTube channelthen the absolute best way to learn about wild plants is to take the time to study them together. This process takes a long time, maybe even years, but you will learn the most in the safest way possible. Going out into the woods with someone who can show you a plant, explain its habitat, and tell you about its uses, dangers, and methods of harvest is without a doubt the best way to safely learn.