#SURVIVALSKILLS Part One

Lately I’ve been worried about the chances that I could survive in a life or death situation.

Getting lost in the woods.

Or maybe a zombie apocalypse.

Or possibly even being forced to enter an arena with 23 other contestants and then have a fight to the death for victory on a nationally televised tournament.

At least Woody Harrelson knows how to survive.

Notice I don’t mention terrorist attacks. Knock on wood, but I’m not really afraid of that…

My main point is that I would easily die of dehydration. And if I didn’t die of that, I’d die of starvation, sickness, injury, or overall weakness of my combative skills.

I think I have a slight advantage over most of the human race, and that is my qualities of intelligence, creativeness/inventiveness, and general preparedness from my many hours of watching “Man vs. Wild” and the likes.

For example, a survivor’s number one priority is water- because humans can only live without it for about three days—but start suffering the consequences after only a day. If you don’t get water, you’ll be weak and delirious which could take away your ability to get other things you need like food, or aid.

The hard thing about this is how do you know which water is safe?

I barely feel comfortable drinking tap water at home, how would I feel safe drinking some type of forest water. There are several ways to get safe drinking water aside from purification systems of iodine tablets.

You could tie a back to a leafy tree or bush in sunlight and it will collect water over many hours.

You could boil saltwater and collect the steam in a towel and then wring out the towel.

I'm pretty sure there are stores of water inside of cactus as well and coconut trees. 

Next to water, food is one of the most important things to survival. Humans can last a few weeks without food, however, energy and mental sharpness as well as susceptibility to illness will be affected by lack of food.

One thing I certainly don’t have knowledge of is what plants are edible and which are poisonous. I know you can eat dandelions, but that’s about it. How would one go about learning this?

In Michael Pollan‘s book “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” he talks about how humans have this innate fear of fungus. It’s scary because it can so easily cause death. Humans have lost the ability and universal knowledge of which mushrooms and plants are edible, so now few are gatekeepers to the knowledge.

In his book, he also mentions that the first time he actually ate the mushroom he collected himself was when he has the direct approval of the mushroom hunter he was with, whose knowledge he trusted. Before then, even when he consulted many times with a field guide, the internet, etc, he still did not trust the information enough to take the chance of eating it.

After all, he could be dead shortly after if he made a mistake.

The biggest helper in the quest for this knowledge would be practice. Hardly any modern citizens would be able to survive off of what is in the wild—but if we had the knowledge to do so, we could easilty prosper.

However, we wouldn’t be able to live off plant material the whole time. We also need protein.

I have no idea how to hunt, let alone skin an animal and remove its guts.

Time to learn I guess.

UNTIL NEXT TIME. 

In the meantime, I'll be learning from this man:

What survival skills do you have?

How likely would you be to survive in an end of the world situation?

Why should I make an alliance with you if zombies are trying to eat your brainz? 

ALSO