Eating From Natures Food Store
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The campfire is getting hot, your shelter is ready for the night so now is the time to cook that long awaited first meal. Usually this is taken from the supplies you carried with you and the most popular will be something like bacon, eggs and beans.
Although this will be the best bacon, egg and beans you have ever tasted the time will soon come when you will have to forage for your food and Mother Nature has supplied a bounty all about you BUT YOU WILL HAVE TO LEARN WHAT IS SAFE TO EAT.
The easiest way to do this is to get a survival book and study what is safe and what is not. (I have a couple in my Survival Store worth a look at.) Always remember … if your not sure DO NOT eat it!
Have you seen the film ‘Into The Wild’? I won’t ruin the ending but be careful of what you eat.
There is only so much flora you can eat before you want meat for protein and that means catching, killing and cleaning a living thing so if this is not in your nature you should bring a good supply of preserved meat etc. with you.
However, if you are not too squeamish then good old Mr Bunny is one of the easiest to capture.
Please remember that this is a living creature and should be shown some respect. Inflicting pain unnecessarily is cruel and has no place in your survival.
A good Survival book will teach you how to catch rabbits and how to skin and prepare them for the pot but briefly this is how I do it.
- With the rabbit held by its front legs, squeeze down from below the ribs to the base of the stomach to expel any urine in the bladder as this will taint the meat.(Bit like squeezing a tube of tooth paste)
- To make your first puncture in the abdomen, pinch the loose skin at the base of the stomach and puncture sideways to avoid puncturing the innards as these will ruin the meat. Then with the tip of a sharp knife, enter the hole just made and carefully cut the outer skin as far as the chest.
- You will now expose the inner membrane containing the intestines etc.. From the chest , puncture this and split down to the base of the stomach. Take the rabbit in both hands by the skin on his back, give a good downward shake and all the innards will drop out leaving just one piece of intestine attached that you can pull away.
- Skin the rabbit by cutting the skin up the back legs and working it off the flesh as far as the ‘ankle’ joint, then chop off the feet from here. Holding the legs in one hand and the skin in the other, pull as hard as necessary to take the skin off the body as far as the neck then chop off the head and front feet and pull the skin off completely.
- Split the chest to remove the heart and lungs.
- Cut off tail and remove anus from the pelvic bone.
- Rinse in cold water, cook and enjoy.
All this sounds very gory but it is not as bad as it sounds. If you are going to eat meat then you should get to know where it comes from and how it gets to your plate!
The rabbit skins can be treated and kept but this is another subject tho’ well worth learning in the future.
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