Survival ability of humans - Foraged food

I have my phone. I paid for it about 150$.

I bought it years ago.

The battery is still good and I only charge it like once a day.

I see a lot of people complaining about their 1000$ phones as not being good enough.

So, I can be satisfied with a 150$ phone, but you cant be satisfied with a 1000$ phone?

To this, many will say: "its because you are so poor XD"

Well, I may be poor, but lets face it. If you had my 150$ phone and not your fancy phone, you wouldnt last 3 days.

But lets forget about that, and lets talk survival.

Many people are terrible at survival.

For example, talk about dandelion.

Most people know that dandelion is a flower.

However, almost no one knows its edible and contains more calories than spinach.

So in a survival situation, most people wouldnt know what to eat and what not.

To make matters worse, most people wouldnt even know how to make a shelter or storage for food.

The ability to forage food or to grow food is severely diminished at most humans.

Most humans, if lost in nature, would most likely starve or be poisoned due to inability to identify poisonous plants.

For example, most people would assume that stinging nettle is poisonous or unfit for consumption.

The truth is that stinging nettle is perfectly safe for consumption and contains calories and vitamins. Also,  there is usually a lot of it in forests.

Most people dont know that pine cones contain seeds that have plenty of calories. Very useful if lost in a pine tree forest.

Most people are also repulsed by eating insects. Despite that insect farms would benefit humanity more than cow farms, people still prefer to eat a cow and not an insect.

If you were lost in a forest with no equipment, eating insects would greatly increase your chances of survival. They can be easily found everywhere, and some are easily caught like earthworms.

Cambium from trees can be grinded into flour or tiny parts and consumed.

There are many fun tactics you can use in a forest, such as following a squirrel to her nest and stealing her nuts.

Or finding bird's nest and stealing eggs.

Now lets move on to the topic of water. If there is no clean water, you cant survive properly.

Sadly, humans have polluted some rivers.

So in a way, humans have diminished their ability to survive.

But this is not necessairly a game changer if you find yourself without clean water. You can still use the rain, assuming there is plenty of it. If not, then I would suggest eating more plants, since they contain some water.

There are many ways to process water, like boiling it or letting it pass through soil.

However, it is still the best if you have clean river.

Most people would go and drink filthy water due to thirst. However, its not a good idea unless there is no better option.

If there is enough fish in the river, you could potentially increase your survival by fishing. For fishing, you just need fishing rod and a bait.

Sadly, many people probably wouldnt have fishing rod with them when they find themselves in a survival situation.

Most people also overestimate their hunting abilities. For successful hunting, you need guns and bullets and a knife and maybe pot to cook the meat in. Fire starter is also an important tool here.

Now, shelter is where people fail badly. If you are lucky enough to have a tent with you or natural shelter like cave, you are fine. If not, then you have to make a shelter and that is not easy.

There are underground and above ground shelters.

Most people choose above ground, however, digging into the ground and making an underground room is more effective during winter, and can be used as a storage too.

You could potentially make shelter from animal skin assuming you can hunt enough animals.

Making shelter from big leaves, branches and hay is almost useless, but better than nothing.

When in nature in a survival situation, you shouldnt be drinking too much water. Most people dont understand this. Drinking too much water can help losing weight. In a survival situation, losing weight is not something you want.

Most people would not be able to survive simply because they lack the knowledge about plants and animals, and they refuse to learn.

In an event of a nuclear war, in case you get cut off from civilization, ask yourself how would you survive.

There's a big difference between knowing these things in theory and using that knowledge in practice. I already knew that nettles were edible from nettle tea, but I don't actually know what part of the plant is edible. I'm not even a hundred percent sure I could identify one in the wild, or if there's a specific time of year to eat them.

Most people (55% of the world and 83% of Americans) live in urban areas. Even if they had these skills, it would mean little because they would have nowhere to go. For instance, the state of New York has a population density of 421 people per sq. mile, while hunter-gatherers like you describe historically lived at 2-10 people per sq. mile. The U.S. overall is still at 94 if you spread people out to the Midwest, which would be impossible to do in a scenario that also renders modern food production useless (such as the nuclear war you mentioned). And that's not even going into how much land is uninhabitable or paved over.

"I don't actually know what part of the plant is edible"

Stinging nettle has edible leaves and stem and flowers.

Usually edible plants have edible leaves and flowers and stems. So you cant really go wrong, as long as the plant is edible and not poisonous.

"I'm not even a hundred percent sure I could identify one in the wild"

Stinging nettle sometimes stings you when you touch it. Hence, its name.

Its available for most of the year.

Well, the best way is to go to a nearby forest. Also, to read on characteristics of poisonous plants.

And the next problem:

"Most people (55% of the world and 83% of Americans) live in urban areas"

Yes, if there is no forest or river or grassland, foraging food is almost impossible.

So a person must see if there are forests nearby his city, or if there are rivers, and if they contain enough for survival.

If someone lives far from nature, his only food is the one delivered to him from far away. So if that supply disappears, there wont be much a person can do. At best, he could hope to travel to nearest source of food.

And yes, the population density could be a problem. The 400 people per square mile is a lot. They would need as much food as they can get. If there is a nuclear war, most people would die from nukes alone. The remaining would need to focus on survival, and they need the knowledge for that.

Our ancestors taught their children a lot about survival, but our society doesnt do the same. Like, what is their plan if the bad scenario happens? Fighting over the last supplies in the stores? And what when those run out?

That is potentially very harmful advice. Even domesticated plants such as potatoes and peppers have poisonous leaves and stalks. Rhubarb, though it has an edible stalk, has toxic leaves. Humans figured out what foods are safe to eat over the course of thousands of years, not a single nuclear winter. It would be better to advise people to just buy a book on this, even if they don't read it until they need it, they'll have it.

1. The current plan is to avoid 'the bad scenario.' An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as Benjamin Franklin said. Chances are good that a full nuclear war would render vast sections  if not all of the earth uninhabitable by humans. There's only a small window in between agriculture failing and total annihilation, so it's far more important to make sure nothing bad happens in the first place than try to recover afterwards.

"Even domesticated plants such as potatoes and peppers have poisonous leaves and stalks"

Yes, those would be plants with poisonous parts. So it is helpful to have knowledge of poisonous plants.

For beginners, its best to learn first about non-poisonous plants.

As long as you are sure the plant is not poisonous, you can eat its leaves, stems and flowers. Even if certain parts dont contain as much nutrients as other parts, eating them wont harm you.

To identify poisonous plant, check if it has thorns or milky liquid when you break its stem.

There are exceptions to these rules. So the best thing is to learn about most common edible plants in your area.

'It would be better to advise people to just buy a book on this, even if they don't read it until they need it, they'll have it."

The easiest way for someone to learn is to remember common wild plants that are edible.

Buying a book and using it when in emergency could have downsides.

First, the book needs to be about plants in your area.

If the book talks about plants that are rare in your area, its pretty much useless.

So if someone is to buy a book, he should make sure its about his area, and the book must have clear pictures.

Pictures are whats difficult about learning from books. Plants in nature dont always look like they are in a picture.

For a begginer, it would be best if he took time to be in nature and observe and find the common edibles. Having a guide would be good too, but there are also plenty of videos on youtube explaining difference between edible plants and the poisonous that look similar to them.

"The current plan is to avoid 'the bad scenario"

Yes. If you can, avoid it. If you cant avoid it, then adapt.

I mean, if every person has to be a master survivalist, then we don't have specialization in society. The idea behind modern society is that some people do certain jobs (like grow/produce food) and then other people (industrial jobs, soldiers, artists, etc.) don't have to engage in that work and therefore don't need to know about how it functions. This is a good framework because specialization allows for people to do specific work to a higher rate of productivity that produces more for society.