SNACK FOOD COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE
You’ve been told your entire life that snack food will kill you. What if I told you it could save your life—and it has nothing to do with eating? When it comes to fire, snack chips are some of the best kindling I’ve ever used. Many snack chips are fried in cooking oil, which happens to be very flammable. In damp or moist conditions when tinder is scarce, rip open a bag of oily chips and light them on fire. You’ll have to use an open flame such as a lighter or match to get them going, but once ablaze they will burn long and strong even in inclement weather. Snack chips are also conveniently packed in waterproof packaging. Note: The inside shiny Mylar lining of most snack-food bags also has several survival functions, as you’ll find in other hacks throughout this book.
FIRE FEATHERS
Your feather down–filled sleeping bag, vest, or jacket may be able to keep you warm in more ways than one in a cold-weather survival situation. Feathers (especially the light, fluffy, downy ones) make impressive fire tinder. The silver lining is that many down jackets and sleeping bag shells are water-resistant, which helps to keep the feathers dry inside. A handful of dry down feathers will ignite into flame with just a spark from a ferro rod or broken lighter. Warning: Feathers are what I call a flash tinder. This means they burn up in a flash and provide a survivor with little time to react. Be sure to have a good tinder bundle prepared before igniting your feather tinder.
TINDER PARMIGIANO
Have you ever been to a fancy Italian restaurant where the waiter/waitress offers to grate fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese on your piping-hot dish of pasta? Believe it or not, that cheese grater they are using is also really good at producing fire tinder from dry wood. Softwood shavings from trees such as willow, cottonwood, and tulip poplar make excellent fire tinder for the beginning stages of a fire, just after your tinder bundle catches to flame. A steel cheese grater can make a quick pile of tinder shavings that’s very similar in effectiveness to a traditional feather stick. The best use of this tool isn’t in the field but rather in advance when preparing for an adventure. I like to fill small reusable bags of fine wood shavings and throw a few in my pack before I head out for an overnight camp. You never know when dry wood tinder may be difficult to secure.
Chapter 4
Food Hacks
STOVE AND COOKING HACKS
Ramen Noodle Stove
Cardboard Fire Roll
Brick Stack Cooking Spit
Wok Solar Cooker
Satellite Solar Cooker
Pop Can Alcohol Stove
Egg Carton BBQ
Toilet Paper Stove
Tuna Can Burner
Junk Stove
Newspaper Oven
Inverted Can Oven
Improvised Swedish Torch
Shelf Bracket Stove
Brick Rocket Stove
Make a Walking Oven
FISHING HACKS
The Fisherman’s Bracelet
Credit Card Lure
Pop Can Fishing Kit
Spider Web Net
5-Gallon Bucket Aqua Lens
Paracord Fishing Fly
An Energetic Fishing Hook
Use Walnuts to Get Fishing Bait
HUNTING AND FORAGING HACKS
Pallet Bow
Figure-8 Sling Bow
Spoon Broadhead
From Toy to Takedown
Loads of Larvae
Orange Sack Ghillie Hood
Bicycle-Powered Slingshot
Cross-Country Takedown Bow
Nickel for Your Dinner
8" Pipe Bow
Tweezers Gig
Slingshot Whisker Biscuit
David’s Sling from Your Shoes
Improvised Arrow Fletching
Key to Eating Wild Game
Carpet Quiver
Balloon Bottle Sling
TRAPPING HACKS
A Better Mousetrap
25-Cent Mousetrap
Deadfall Trigger
Toilet Lid Live Bird Capture
Build a Bird Bottle Noose-apult
POTS, PANS, AND UTENSIL HACKS
The 2-Liter Spoon
Loop Stick Pot Hanger
Shovel It In
A New “Rind” of Cooking
Natural Alternative to Aluminum Foil
Fork Handle Hack
Bottle Cap Scaler
Pot Hangers
PRESERVATION HACKS
Dashboard Dehydrator
Clay Pot Cooler
Mini Solar Dehydrator
In extreme conditions, humans can survive for as long as 3 weeks without food. While food may be on the bottom of the survival priority list, it can bring a survivor or group of survivors much joy. A meal in the wilderness not only provides needed calories and energy, but it can uplift spirits and boost morale. Just one meal may provide the hope necessary to make it through a difficult situation. Remember, survival is 90 percent mental and 10 percent physical. A full belly has just as much impact on attitude as it does on energy levels.
From cooking and preparation to hunting, fishing, and trapping, this chapter covers all kinds of incredible food- and eating-related hacks. These hacks may use random everyday objects, but they are based soundly on field- and time-tested survival principles. Many of the items used can be easily found or sourced in a sudden and unexpected survival scenario, often in the form of trash.
Securing food is usually the most time-consuming and difficult aspect of survival. Trying to outsmart animals while using improvised tools is not easy. Having a vast arsenal of options is a huge bonus. I hope this chapter provides you with a few more options to add to your existing list.
STOVE AND COOKING HACKS
RAMEN NOODLE STOVE
I love items that do double duty. Ramen noodles are not only a lightweight pack food, but they can also serve as a great little cooking stove in a pinch. All you have to do is saturate the dried brick of ramen with a flammable liquid such as alcohol or HEET brand gas-line antifreeze (yellow bottle) and it will burn like a solid fuel puck for up to 20 minutes per side. The dried ramen noodles help to control the rate of fuel vaporization. It helps to soak the ramen brick in one of the fuels mentioned above for a while before use, but it isn’t necessary. Build a makeshift frame to balance a pot and cook away! Hint: A standard yellow kitchen sponge also works the same way and makes a handy little impromptu stove when soaked with alcohol or HEET.
CARDBOARD FIRE ROLL
If you’re looking for a quick and dirty way to cook a meal using a pan or skillet, the cardboard fire roll could be just what you need to get the job done. Roll pieces of cardboard into a tight log-like shape that is approximately 2' × 8' in diameter. Twist scrap wire around the cardboard log in 2 places to hold it together (old clothing hangers work great for this). Stand the roll upright atop 2 bricks spaced 6" apart so that air can draw through the hole up the center of the rolled log. Stuff the bottom interior of the roll with dry, combustible tinder such as leaves, grasses, newspaper, wood shavings, and twigs. Once ignited, the cardboard will continue to burn like a rocket stove until gone.
BRICK STACK COOKING SPIT