Every action calls for work from some of your body’s cells, and, although new cells are continually being made in your body tissue, old cells are dying. These body tissue cells require replacing, and it is the digestible protein in your food which is used to build these cells.
PROTEINS are supplied by such foods as meat, cheese, nuts, beans and peas.
CARBOHYDRATES are supplied from the starchy foods such as bread, sugar, potatoes, and roots and tubers, and green vegetables and sweets generally, including honey.
For every action you burn up fuel. The more vigorous your actions the more fuel you require, and the faster your body burns it. This fuel is supplied from the carbohydrates in your food. Your body can no more run without this fuel than can the engine of a car if the petrol tank is empty. Your body stores up in its cells reserves of sugars, so that even if you have no food for your stomach, you can draw on these reserves and keep going for a short period.
Your body also needs other foods such as salt and special minerals and vitamins, but in a natural diet most of these essential specialities are contained in the fruits and meats and vegetables which you would eat.
It is possible to have a full stomach at every meal and at the same time to starve to the point of death. If you tried to live entirely on proteins, you might starve for carbohydrates, and, correspondingly, you could be full of carbohydrates but starved for proteins. There should be a balanced proportion of proteins to carbohydrates, and the proportion is, roughly, one part of protein to six parts of carbohydrates.
Another absolute daily essential is salt. Without sufficient salt there can be serious physical consequences. In tropical areas where there is great loss of body salt through excessive perspiration, it is essential to eat salt, and maintain the salt content of the blood at a safe level.
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General rules covering the edible qualities of foods are set out in the succeeding sections. If there is doubt, take no risk. Eat a small quantity of the suspected food, and await results. If there are no ill-effects the food is probably safe.
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ALL FLESH IS EDIBLE
Nearly all flesh, if freshly killed, is safe to eat. The flesh of all mammals, all reptiles and all birds is free from any poisonous contents and safe. But NOT the flesh of all fish.
By “poisonous” is meant actually toxic, that is, containing a poison. An exception in the reptile world is the Hawksbill turtle, which, in the thorax, contains a sac which more learned authorities class as toxic or poisonous.
PARASITE INFESTATIONS
The words “safe to eat” do not mean that the flesh may be eaten with no ill-consequences. It merely means that the flesh itself contains nothing which will be poisonous to adult human beings.
Many animals are hosts to parasites which can be fatal to man if they are introduced into his body. For instance, the flesh of the rabbit may be infested with hydatids, a worm which, if it finds entry into a human, can often prove fatal. The ancient Jewish law which declared the pig unclean was undoubtedly based on the observation that eaters of pig meat showed a higher death rate than eaters of other meats. Pigs are commonly infested with parasites which can also make man their host. Hence the law forbidding the eating of pig flesh.
In common with the pig and the rabbit there is always the chance that the flesh of almost any animal (particularly animals which graze close to the earth, or which burrow or which frequent fresh water streams) may be infested with parasites dangerous to man, and consequently no flesh is absolutely safe to eat raw, even in emergency. However, the parasites and their eggs are destroyed by heat, and therefore all flesh should be thoroughly cooked before eating.
This particularly applies to all fresh water fish and fresh water shellfish.
BACTERIAL DECAY
Putrefaction and decay are caused by bacterial action. Food is protected commercially by freezing, by salting or pickling, by heating and vacuum sealing, and by many other means. None of these methods which call for equipment are practical in the bush, therefore other methods must be found to preserve meat safely for indefinite periods.
Meat goes bad because of bacterial infection. Bad meat can be fatally poisonous if eaten. When the term “safe to eat” is used it only applies to freshly-killed and fresh meat.
PRESERVING MEAT FOR LONG PERIODS
The preservation of meat for long periods can be done by smoking and sun-drying, by salting and pickling and, for short periods, by cooking in fat. If climate permits, meat can also be preserved indefinitely by freezing.
SUN-DRYING (BILTONG)
The meat to be smoked or sun-dried must be freshly killed. Cut off the fatty portions, and then slice the meat into strips no thicker than half an inch and no wider than one inch. These strips are threaded on to a wire or cane, so that no piece of meat touches another.
There must be free circulation of air round each separate piece.
Hang the canes or wires with the strips of meat above the thin blue smoke of a wood fire until the outer surface is quite dry. This may take from an hour to a day. Do not allow the meat to hang too close to the fire, or in the flame. Smoke alone is sufficient. If the meat is to be sun-dried, the only reason for hanging in the smoke is to protect the moist meat from blowflies while the outer surface is drying.
It is also important not to try and build a “smoky” fire by piling on green leaves or wet rubbish. If you do the moisture and essential oils evaporated from the leaves will condense on the strips of meat and make it uneatable.
Many an enthusiastic but inexperienced meat drier has ruined his meat by making a fire of green leaves, and then wondered why the meat was saturated with oil from the leaves.
Blowflies will not lay their eggs, or their larvae, on a dry surface. When the surface is quite dry, take it from the fire and hang it in the sun to complete the drying process.
A single day in a dry atmosphere will complete the drying-out. When carrying dried meat, pack it in a bag of open weave. Do not wrap or pack in cellophane or plastic, otherwise the meat will “sweat” and mildew.
Sun-dried or smoked meat will keep indefinitely and retain its original nutritive food value. You can cook it in a stew, use it for broth, or eat it raw. If well smoked, it is very palatable eaten raw. When using for a stew, it is advisable to soak for an hour or two.
PEMMICAN
This is simply sun-dried meat powdered. It may be mixed with fat in cool climates. Pemmican will keep very well, and can be eaten raw, or soaked and made into hamburgers or stews.
DRYING AND WEIGHT
These simple methods of preserving flesh effect a considerable reduction in weight, simply because the excess moisture has been removed.
This is important to the traveller who goes through the bush on foot. About six ounces of dried fish or meat is equivalent to one pound of fresh meat. There is also a corresponding reduction in volume.
DRIED FISH (Edible Fish)
The fillets of fish which it is known are safe to eat may be sun-dried in a similar manner to meat. With fish it is essential to dry quickly, and, if the day is not hot and dry, then smoke thoroughly over the fire. If the flesh is flaky and cannot be cut into strips, heat flat smooth stones and lay the slices of flesh on these, and place in the sun to dry out thoroughly. Turn the slices frequently. Fish meat is easily powdered into fish pemmican, and can be cooked either by making into fish cakes, or by soaking, if in strips, and then frying in batter.