Saturday, April 08, 2017

Responsible Foraging for Wild Mushrooms is a Great Way to Get Nutritious Food!

Hericium erinaceus is a choice edible when young.
It also contains components which are powerful 
immuno-modulators that support deep immune 
health.

Anyone wishing to collect wild mushrooms should do so with an experienced guide or join a local mushroom club. They should also get several guides - starting with the "National Audubon Society Field Guide to North American Mushrooms". An example of couple of other books that one may want are: "North American Mushrooms: A Field Guide To Edible And Inedible Fungi", by Orson K. Miller, and Hope Miller, and a more localized book like, "Mushrooms of Northeast North America", by George Barron.

Learn the choice edibles and the most poisonous mushrooms like the Death Angel and the Deadly Galerina. In general, stay away from mushrooms in the Amanita family of fungi even though there are some edible varieties here, and small brown gilled mushrooms.

Introduce yourself slowly to mushroom hunting.
Never eat more than a sample portion of a new-to-you mushroom.
Above all, always be very attentive, to details, smells and what the mushroom is growing on - for example, soil or wood.

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Foraged Foods, the Permanently Fresh, Hidden In Plain Sight, Survival Food

Prepper people are fond of storing all sorts of survival foods - from buckets of grains, beans, rice and pantries of canned foods but they all expire leaving the preppers to consume uninspiring, nutritionally diminished foods or worse, leave all that money at the curb to be dumped into a landfill.  
Stored food is certainly part of a good plan but only as an alternative to starving.  Fresh food is essential to maintaining good health.  There is little point in eating foods that put you, and your companions in a compromised health condition requiring medical intervention that may not be available.  
Man survived, and thrived on nature's bounty found at our feet.  It only takes a bit of knowledge to unlock virtually unlimited stocks of healthy wild foods.  
Purslane, Lambs Quarters and Red Root (wild Amaranth) are fetch handsome prices at upscale stands near New York city.  Most "weeds" are the foundations of our domesticated vegetables.  there are few poisonous plants but KNOW THEM before you even attempt to forage for food.   
Red Root - Amaranthus retroflexus


The first step is knowing what, when, where and how to harvest wild foods.  The second, and possibly the most important knowledge, is how to use the food in recipes - if you find the food unpalatable you aren't going to actually eat it.  Recipes unlock the food for you to use it.  Here's just an example of recipes for Purslane.           
Samual Thayer's books ("The Forager's Harvest" and "Nature's Garden") are fantastic references, as are Steve Brill's books, ("Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants in Wild (and Not So Wild) Places").  

Sunday, March 12, 2017

Chemtrail Problems?

Many people are constantly looking up at the vapor trails of jets passing overhead and trying to connect it  with their health problems but that is not the problem at all.   
Instead of looking up, folks should look down - that is where the problem originates.  It is not a conspiracy, it is plain old greed, stupidity and shortsightedness.  It's our food - it is toxic and deprived of nutrition.  Our bodies weren't designed to run on toxin laced, food-like substances but that is exactly what our commercial food has become.  It is simply the business of profits, and your health isn't in the equation.  
Modern food is nutritionally deficient by the selection of high production varieties and fast growth promoting chemical fertilizers.  Crops are sprayed with gut bacteria destroying toxins - digestive flora are responsible for making vital brain support substances like tryptophane and seritonin, metabolizing proteins and creating a healthy immune system.
Growing food that is health promoting is expensive while companies can make much better profits by selling something that just looks like real food.  Don't believe me?  Look at the people who eat well grown foods and people who grew up when food was still relatively good - they are healthier and most are getting really old.  In contrast, people on our average modern diet are having heart attacks much earlier.  Diabetes has become epidemic.  Anxiety and mental health problems are rampant.  In general, those who eat more organically are healthier and mentally fit.   

"They" are not wasting money by spraying "chemicals".  "They" are making money off us by selling us cheap imitation nutrition.  

Tuesday, January 03, 2017

Survival Seeds - Save Your Money, Buy Your Own Vegetable Seeds

Often preppers want to cover all their bases but too often rely on marketers for suggestions and items for the collapse.  The problem with that is the sales folk want to make a profit and can not know about or have your interests and needs in mind.  
This happens with a lot of merchandise that survivalists think they need.  Survival seeds are one of those misrepresented items.   Marketers imply that you will have lots of food from your garden if you just buy their "survival seeds. There are many reasons to avoid spending your limited money on seed kits.   First of all, the seed are, by in large, horribly over priced.  Seeds of higher quality than those in “survival”  kits, or vaults can be bought for fraction of the cost from reputable seedsmen  Also, the survival seeds are not tailored to climates nor the individual’s tastes.  What good is it to grow vegetables that you do not like or varieties that will not produce or reproduce in your area?   What good are seeds to people who don’t know how to raise them or know how to save seeds?  
Only buy items that meet your needs and become proficient with them.  Seeds for survival are no exception.