Foraging Wild Food -Survival Texas-

hey guys there today we're gonna do some foraging down here in South Texas it's late spring sun's coming up it is gonna be an extremely hot day but we have a lot to show you out there in the forest let's get started this is a mesquite tree it's not really a good year for it we're still about a month early I want to show you are the beans and they're about a half the size they ought to be most folks know the Mesquite from the wood they use it for smoking for barbecue you can get mesquite briquettes and even mesquite honey barbecue sauce so it's very desirable but the pods here these beans a good portion of that it's actually edible and on Goodyear's get three times as big as these are here after a while to swell up a little more and when they start to dry out turn tan with red striations down these beans what you'll find is that you can break it open pop little beans out but eat all the pith in between each of those and it's full of sugar some mesquite sugar is awesome now one of the other things you can also do if you get the right season the right year it's take a knife a tax something and damage the actual bark on these mesquite trees and what that can cause them to do is start to leak SAP so we'll start to just got a drain out of them and will congeal into pretty much pieces of amber but you can take those suck on them they're gonna be kind of like candy a lot of times different trees different years it might not be sweet that might be really sweet so it's hard to judge but it's definitely something worth remembering let's keep this is for Stroh's this is one of the most important flowers out there and I'll pick a lot of flowers but this is a good one to know now this beautiful distinct red helix right here that's all edible okay so just pick it off make sure there's no bugs inside of there maybe and pop your mouth and eat it same thing with these young Leafs lots of roughage good salad you can just chill them up and eat them raw or you can steam them up now what's awesome about these especially now that they're blooming and getting pollinated is it within a month month and a half these bushes are going to be full of what are called forest roads apples so they're about the size of peanut M&M maybe a little larger they turn orange to red they crunch up like apples they taste like apples they look like miniature pumpkins but again red and they are awesome one of my favorite forged fruits in the forest and they continue producing all the way through November December out here so [Music] it's a lot more refreshing and sweeter than you might think almost like a melon I think watermelon good stuff this mine right here it's pretty hateful just called Briar vine full of thorns real strong trips you up all over the forest kind of like nature's razor wire and most folks don't want to find this but there is a positive characteristic that this thing has and that's at the very top for this vines this is very large gives up in the tree but the growing tips are actually edible very soft you pick them off eat them raw they taste just like green beans I think I can't tell apart and when you steam them up cook them up they usually tastes like asparagus so pretty awesome you also have the roots underground which is an excellent source of starch but you've got to go and dig down for them and do a little bit of processing like good one to know these are ground cherries and it's actually kind of a weed that grows up every single year I would show you the plant itself but it's dried up and blown away unfortunately these were just scattered on the ground inside of these little paper lanterns as they dry up that's when your ground cherries ready if you tear that open you're gonna find this orange berry and it actually tastes like tomatillo or a tomato it's about half to a third the size they usually are each year so I don't think you're just going after little things most years these things are much much larger it's a good snack a good meal add it to something to want to know ground cherries this right here this is grapevine and those are wild grapes notice Mustang grapes down here in South Texas little grapes or sour grapes now that green right now but to give them about a month they'll turn black be full of sugar still be a little tangy but they're awesome eat them off the vine cook them down into a jelly jam maybe a syrup or even dehydrate them into raisins definitely a plant that you want to come across and this thing is just expansive so lots and lots of grapes fruit abundance that's what you want to find now I don't expect us to be very sweet give it a try anyway [Music] alright yeah now sweet at all not bad but definitely not sweet very tart give me some more time on the brush hmm this this is a yeah now if you're familiar with the channel you probably think this is a baby but this is actually just a different variant so kind of nice not as mean and spiky as the Spanish dagger you still make cordage of the leaves soap out of the roots the big draw here is gonna be the stalk the flowering stalk now something's already eating the pods kind of tells you just how edible those things are they are gone and a lot of times when we come across these plants you'll actually see that the stock has been nibbled off of and foraged before you got there so as it's coming up and flowering a lot of creatures to come eat the whole thing so you hit this thing at the right time you got yourself a meal but this thing right here especially as it starts to dry out is gonna be the most ideal fire by friction tool you can find here in South Texas so this is the spindle once it dries up it makes the best fire starter out there so we actually call it fire starter yucca I know it's got a regular name but it starts fires out here so that's what I call it this is unexpected guys this is about a month and a half after we ought to find this but this is the fire starter yucca in bloom and you come across two anomalies every once in a while blossoms just like regular yucca they're gonna be edible so check that out after they get about four or five days old they start to taste really bitter so here's to luck still fresh still good eat the whole thing now once these are pollinated which I imagine most of Mar they're gonna make pods within a couple of weeks and if they don't get eaten the pods get eaten by animals like the other fire starter yucca then they'll make seeds those seeds are also edible this thing just keeps on giving so awesome fine definitely an anomaly so keep your eyes open you never know what you're gonna find in the southwest you really can't go very far without running into cactus this is prickly pear cactus every part of this plant is useful now the pads themselves those are called no pulse we actually sell those things they're grocery stores down here in Texas especially when you get close to the border slice em up Dyson burn off all the thorns make a great meal on top each of these pads it's gonna be a heck of a year for him those are the fruits they're called tuna they have all kinds of thorns on them you have burnin thorns off here in about a month or two they're gonna turn pink and purple and that's going to make them very sweet full of calories a lot of folks enjoy those as a desert treat what a lot of folks don't know is that you can take these green unripe and fruits the tunas they come up for about an hour and you will absolutely love them alright they kind of remind me of okra I enjoy the seeds on the inside they're immature and you just bite through them kind of like okra so amazing texture amazing flavor you won't regret it on the last things is that here about a month ago each one of these fruits had a beautiful large flower on it each one of those flowers pull the petals off eat them enjoy them refreshing amazing more food again cactus is fantastic use it you know how to make the best out of the desert now in drought unfortunately the fruit and nut trees down here require constant rainfall and we're not getting that this year so they're all gonna suffer count those out in survival though in most of these situations even in times of drought you can find a silver lining but back here behind me this is actually my Creek or what's left of it this little puddle right here it's usually flowing about two and a half foot higher than it's at right now now as these puddles get smaller they dry out it's probably got two or three more weeks in it maybe all of the life inside of it the fish the crawdads everything are becoming more and more concentrated and that makes it very easy to go in there with your hands and pull stuff out not only that but as the water slowly gets centralized in these areas and we start to get these mud banks you're gonna have all kinds of snakes and predators come down to get a drink especially at nighttime and to pull those fish pull those organisms out of the water and get a meal as well so these are all excellent sources of protein you might not get your fruit your veg but at least you're gonna have something to eat this tree is called the anak WA and not many folks know about this one also known as a sandpaper tree because of the roughness of the leaves if you can hear that it feels like it sounds like sandpaper pretty distinct now we'll we're after with this tree is going to be the berries covered with yellow berries some users even more than this so there's plenty of them on there the yellow are not quite ripe you're gonna wait until it turn orange into red and that's when you're ready to pick these guys so really fleshy kind of like an apple he seeds in there stir those out but there's plenty of it good for tree to have you this big spiky plate back here behind me is the yucca and it's one of the most important and useful plants that we have down here in the south now every part of this plant especially seasonally is useful especially in survival from down at the base and the roots fullest opponents you make soap and shampoo out of that the leaves once processed to make some of the strongest cordage that's rope that you can have out there in the wild and up top you're seeing the dried remnants of a flowering stalk even now it is form as you see it it's extremely useful so about a month ago as it was shooting up very tender very edible you can eat it raw or you can cook it up the flowers that bloomed off of that stalk extremely extremely tender and definitely a treat worth tasting now as the flowers are pollinated you're now seeing the pods that developed from those and each of those pods when baked for an hour to make a pretty good meal full of starches and immature seeds give them about 2-3 weeks maybe for a month and those seeds are going to mature up barley you can take them out put them in a soup you can also grind them up and make a flower so it's gonna be a ton of food lots of things to enjoy in the yucca definitely want to know go ahead and show you what's inside of these things unfortunately it looks like some kind of bug or ant has drilled holes into all these and that might compromise all the seeds want to see later on the season it looks like okra on the inside pretty amazing there's also a neat feature that happens every other year in that all this white stuff starts to kind of turn into the mush that you would expect from an overripe banana so as you break it open you just smell molasses syrup and being able to make little cakes out of that cook them on the fire little sugar cakes fantastic so you pull the seeds out try them take the mush out make sugar cakes out of it yucca is good for a lot of stuff this big tree right here is called a mulberry we've got about a dozen dozen half of these within a hundred hundred fifty yards big tree lots of fruit it's going on an entire month of production right now though starting to fizzle out two weeks ago we pulled over 200 pounds worth of berries out of a couple of these trees and that didn't take much effort at all all the creatures in the forest know when the mole berries you're going ripe and it gets very exciting down here at nighttime so you really don't want to camp around a mulberry tree because of the animal activity and because they stay in so badly but lots of sugar lots of fluid good fruit to have and an amazing tree to come across you're handsome teeth of turned purple laughter wall to this prickly vine right here this is called Du Barry this is one you want to find they grow up and down the rivers they make briars they look like blackberries and a lot of folks get a mixed up with blackberry down here in South Texas to me they taste like strawberry though so pretty interesting contrast there for about two three weeks too late to pick these things enjoy them we actually ate a few of them early in the season but all the rest of it scavenged tried up shriveled up fall on the ground seasons move on you snooze you lose we'll get a mixture but do bury that river looks extremely attractive right now with the heat and humidity I'd much rather be swimming around that in midday and relaxing a bit and foraging being able to pull all those clams out we have several different species in here if you're gonna do so outside of survival make sure you're doing it legally but it doesn't take any tools most the time just digging around in the dirt pull some crawdads out get your protein you need it's a good place to cool off stay hydrated and a lot of times when you're down here by the rivers foraging because they are corridors of life you have your nuts have your berries and all the creatures that come to eat those things you're going to have increased risks so anytime you can jump in the water move up and down without having issues with animal attacks snake bites poison ivy all those things the water might seem a little intimidating to a lot of folks but for me it just needs your way to get around up until a few days ago it has been an extremely dry spring and so all of our onions just about to dried up and gone on the ground but this is one of the few stocks have been able to find let's go ahead and see if we can't dig it up get some onions go a little shallow you broke the bulb but that's what you're looking for beautiful wild onion bulb you know identification on wild onion wild garlic is through taste and smell so taste a little bit smell a little bit if it tastes or smells like garlic or onion that's what you have there's a few things that look like it but they definitely don't taste good and they don't smell good so taste smell a little bit you got wild onion look around you got one you got a lot of good thing to find makes your food taste a lot better you know now the stock the leaves the bulbs it's all edible on the onion a lot of folks will eat these things wrong that's all right get a few calories out of that but if you're surviving you definitely want to cut these guys up it's gonna break up a lot of carbohydrates make it simpler for your body to break down and get the calories it needs so a lot more nutrition that way good little thing to come across of this this is a tree that most Texans ought to know about through my favorites this is the Texas persimmon a medium-sized tree beautiful smooth bark and the fruits wonder what it's all about now these are about half the size that they ought to be we haven't gotten the rain out here this year unfortunately so they're rather small green is not ripe once they turn black all the way through the flesh that's when they're ready to eat it's kind of a strange color but it tastes like molasses a couple seeds spit those out here about two three weeks every creature in the forest is going to know when all these fruits are ripe because it's not something you want to miss again one of the favorites Texas persimmon but you give these a try a couple of early ones seeds haven't formed not much sugar room like a prune almost you didn't if you have to well hopefully we some rain I taste better in a couple weeks this is a desert hackberry bush this is another one down here in South Texas grows all over the place that most folks don't know about but should bright orange berries you can eat the entire thing seeds and all crunch it up it's a sweet treat and they grow in abundance so everywhere that you find a Texas persimmon usually five one of these guys growing pretty close by crunch up seeds brush of flavor like cantaloupe without the same texture pretty good though pretty as plate right here this is one to know especially to bind this is the tossa heel also known by some is the Christmas tree cactus now what you're after on this plant are the little bright red fruits and those are actually tuna most folks have seen those on prickly pear pad cactuses a much larger same thing though full of sugar full of calories they taste to me like watermelon Jolly Ranchers so before you go and start picking these things thinking you have a nice treat you need to treat them which means add some flame burn off the thorns burn off all the hate and then they're ready to go I spit out some of the seeds but it's definitely definitely a food that you want to know about because November's December will see roots are not here at the toe so he'll usually covered still well guys it goes without saying but it's been an extremely hot and long day out here in South Texas now we've gathered up a variety of things over the course of the day and hopefully there have been a few that most y'all maybe didn't know existed down here in the south or perhaps she knew about but didn't realize they were as edible or useful as they are and that's the idea knowledge is power now it might have looked like abundance on this video but unfortunately for every one of the trees that you saw and it probably should have been 20 to 30 times as much fruit on each one a lot of this fruit should be 2 to 3 times larger and for all this there's quite a few things in the list that we're here last spring that either didn't come up or they've since then shriveled up because we just didn't get the rain we're pretty much it drought right now which is extremely unfortunate for late spring so things change a variety is the way to go so if you counted on a single type of fruit tree or nut tree maybe an orchard out there that you're going to get to if things were to go bad don't count on it being the same year to year the idea is that you want to know as much about the area that you're in so that you can pick from it whatever that year is going to give you and that's the main idea so out here this is all wild we didn't propagate we haven't planted a bit of this we're fortunate enough to be in an area that all this grows wild now there are a few areas that the wood boring beetle grubs have decimated our forest which is beyond tragic I've since them started to plant a few trees in those areas wallak on Texas walnut a couple of pomegranates and a few figs just because I like figs those actually do really well out here in Texas all those four varieties and who knows what else would be out here I'm manipulating the environment a bit a bit but hopefully it'll all grow back and it'll help out the forest creatures and perhaps my kids or grandkids if things ever go wrong they'll be able to count on that food and that's the idea we want to plant trees that perhaps we won't live long enough to enjoy the shade of and that's something I live by guys if you enjoyed the video please like subscribe comment tell us what you think about it please share the heck out of these if you want to support our channel check out our patreon that'll be in description down below also grim survival and Titan survival those are affiliates so if you click on the link check out their products if you buy through that link you'll actually be helping out our channel which we again appreciate greatly been a long day guys as always be prepared and until next time mulberry okay okay he has a mulberry eater okay huckleberry get that one an aqua okay maybe maybe maybe huckleberry desert hackberry know what he's not sure about that one mmm huckleberry mmm when he was a puppy he used to love Tomatoes so ground cherries huckleberry ground cherry not gonna do it I tried guys raised him upright did everything I could I don't know he definitely not starving though get out of your pub see if we can't make some quick cordage show you that's done four pieces split one in half double it over and invert it double it over twist the inside flip them over twist the inside flip them over sit down and dirty I come to the end do is pull another one of these guys split in half take a half just like that twist it in integrate it that's how I make my cordage longer it ain't pretty but it certainly works and that's why about a hundred pounds test right there strong stuff you

Channel: Bob Hansler

Views: 677,205

Rating: 4.9466934 out of 5

Keywords: Bob Hansler, Wilderness survival, Survival skills, Primitive survival, Survival foraging, Wild food, Foraging edibles, Survival food, How to forsge, Edible foods, Edible plants, Texas foraging, Fruit survival, Berries survival

Id: alOtkF30fE0

Length: 26min 25sec (1585 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 06 2018