[text intro] [music] [show title] george: welcome back to another edition of“crash, are you readyâ€. this is your host, george whitehurst berry.today we’re very pleased to bring back a regular on our program, linda runyon.she is a very unique lady, having lived off the land for literally years, and with thecoming economic collapse, this information could potentially, literally save your life.we have a situation where i believe we’re going to have good shortages and in the crashsequence which i’ve stated in the economics
portion of my program numerous times, we havei believe a repetition of the 1920’s, 1930’s, boom and bust cycle.unfortunately, i suspect that the next major series of problems might be with the banksand they gave you no advanced notice when they take your deposit on a friday afternoonknowing that they’d be closed permanently on monday morning.again, i believe we will be, as this crash sequence progresses, suffering major breakdownsin the food supply, so again, what linda brings to the table, literally to the table, is aknowledge of how to survive anywhere, anytime, with an abundance of densely nutritious (onaverage 7-10 times more densely nutritious) food than the domesticated counterparts.with wild foods you have the confidence you
can make it through these difficult timesto come. linda, welcome back to the program.linda: i’m so excited about today. today is survival for kids, and how to startright now teaching them survival, but teaching them in a fun, fun way.we’re going to do everything from toothpaste to every kind of popsicle to hair softenerto candy with wild food. in very simple ways this can be done.and you know what, the more i went over this for the show today to get everything ready,the more i thought, “oh gosh, this is another book.i said i wouldn’t write another one.†this is all material found in my books anddvd, and such, but taken out of context.
it really adds up to a great book for parentswith kids. let’s start right away with the rules forchildren, because they’re a little bit different than they are for us.it stops immediately after they get that plant in their hand.they have to bring it back and show it to an adult.and of course we know the adult foraging rules. we’ve gone over them many shows, and they’reon everything. with children, though, you teach them theserules. don’t put anything in your mouth.absolutely not. always check with your adult figure.and you never pick plants, flowers, seeds
or fruit near a roadside.you have to go in 100 feet. and then you teach them why, of course.this is all teaching them. never eat leaves or flowers without checkingwith an adult or put anything in your mouth. these are the rules that you want to teachyour child right off the bat. and overeating of any one kind of plant, becausesome of them are really yummy, can cause your body problems.for instance, dandelion. we tell kids they can eat all they want.they generally don’t eat more than 10 or 15 at the very most.but even if they ate half a cup, it’s not going to hurt them.dandelions are so high in calcium, and you
teach the child to pick the blossom and twistit and pull the stem away, and what they have is a very fluffy yellow petal in their hand,and they can literally eat all they want. they’re eating something that’s sugarfree and yet it breaks down in your body as sugar would and is safe, we have found theyare quite safe in quantity, the flowers, with children that might have problems.so here we go. number one plant after the rules are instilledwith children, i feel we should start with things they’re more familiar with.have them sit down and figure out, how much money, if they’re old enough, how much moneyyou spend a month. let’s say you spend a month for dessertsand candy for them, x amount of dollars.
and just make it quite bluntly, we spend $15-$25/monthon these things. well, let’s change it.let’s look out in the back yard and see what we might have.so the first thing you might find is a rose. and a rose is everything in survival to achild. kids really love to do this.they pick a rose, and when they’re told they can eat petal by petal the entire thing.all roses are edible. now you’re talking different colors, andminiature roses, and we make candy out of them, with kids.and what they learn to do is pull the petals off.that in itself is a great experience.
just put them on a white paper plate, allthe petals. and then mother has a frying plan.mother (and if the child is old enough can do this), has a frying pan, a little bit ofolive oil, and when you put the petals in the pan, they make a bubble.they pop up into a bubble just sort of like popcorn out of a kernel.and when it makes its bubble, very carefully slide underneath it and put it on a papertowel. when you do this, sprinkle some confectionarysugar on it – the child loves to do this. and what you have are these bubbles, or petalsif they collapse on you, of candy. and it’s delicious.they’re really wonderful.
we have served to luncheons and dinners hundredsof these bubbles. this is something a child loves to do no matterwhat color the rose is. and they’ll be literally lining up to makerose petal candy. and that’s one way to save some money.another way might be to pick a flower that you know is edible, and in our material wetell you everything from pansies to violets. and if you pick those little johnny jump-ups,the kids go in the grass out here and pick hundreds of those little faces, or violetfaces, all you need to do is whip them into vanilla ice cream.the kids love to do this. have little plates, they pick them, and thenthat paper plate they put the blossoms in
some semi-melted vanilla ice cream, whip itin, and then refreeze it. the kids just love to serve it to their friends.that’s a great night out for older teenagers even, to make their own ice cream out of edibleflowers like that, and it saves you a lot of money.george: all right, we’ll be back after the break with linda.george: all right, we’re back with linda runyon.we were talking about the excellent hints that you have for kids.what is the first thing one should tell one’s children when looking for wild foods, andlet’s just go over this because we’ve got so many new listeners.we’ve gone over it before, but we are the
fastest growing program on the network, solet’s caution the new listeners about the protocol for the first thing one would tellone’s children in identifying. linda: the most important one would be donot put any plant in your mouth until you check with an adult.i work with kids all the time, and when you have a group of 60, 70, 80, i get a chanceto see what kids do on their own. and some of them automatically put thingsin their mouth. if you say you can eat pine needle, the firstthing they do is put it in their mouth. it’s according to the grade level and howmuch their parents have taught them. so i’m going to be quite blunt about this.if you’re going to teach a child to eat
wild food, you need to pick a couple of thesefun things that we’re talking about today, just a couple of fun things, and keep instillingover and over these rules. walk 100 feet from a car path.this is important because they need to know. they need to know about a car going by, andhow everything comes out of that exhaust, and comes down at 30, 40, 50 feet accordingto the speed the car is going. some kids love to know these details.so with unleaded gas it’s much better, but we’re sticking by our rules – 100 feetoff a car path is the best way to teach a child.with little ones , we’ll literally walk them. we'll take a 3-4 year old and walk that length, and show them how far andthen they can start looking for the plants
that we’re looking for.now if it’s in their backyard, use your head and figure how many feet from a highwayyou are, so you’re okay there. but teach them that, and teach them as thefirst rule that you don’t put any plant in your mouth until you check with an adult.and then i always teach the kids to bring a sample of the plant back with them to thehouse or wherever, and ask that adult. because the adult doesn’t know unless theyhave that sample. and if they don’t know themselves, wellthat’s why we’re all out there, we’re all wild food teachers, and we all have books and dvds and things like that. and they’re aimed at you being able to safelyteach your children these things.
we even have a free newsletter that you’llwant to sign up for, if you go on our website. and the kids read it, it’s on a third gradelevel and can read them easily. it will give them these facts and if you goon the website ofthefield.com be sure and sign up for the free newsletter.we don’t want your full name, just your first name and your email, and it will automaticallycome to you every month. let your kids have this and if they read,they’ll be able to read these rules over and over.i can go on a long time by saying bring the plant home once it’s identified.teach them to wash it under running water. and eating wild plants is the same as anyother food except that it’s more nutritious.
it’s better for you.so if you ate a quart of pansies all of a sudden, or a quart of violets, you would feelquite full because of the amount of energy from that is double or triple, even as yousaid 6 or 7 times more than regular food. this is something that older kids can understand.they understand they eat less. if you go to a maple tree, for instance, mapletrees, every child knows. all of us know the little pinwheel that comesdown that is the seed of the maple tree, i don’t care what kind it is.well the chippewa established in the great lakes in the minnesota area, a pharmacopeiaof what to do with wild plants, and i love to study that.and that’s pretty well covered in my books.
and i teach kids to take their scissors, thesafety scissors if they’re young, and if they're older use regular scissors and cutthe meaty portion of those helicopters, and leave the wing section.kids just love to do this. that meaty portion is food, and it can beeaten. the chippewa take all that meaty portion andthe children pound it with a rock. teach your child to take a heavy implementand squash it, it’s a lot of fun to fry it.it has a twinge of maple syrup taste to it. your leaves have a twinge.there’s nothing like the sap – the maple syrup that we make.that’s a whole educational experience right
there.for a child to take the scissors and cut that off.that’s a definite thing if they’ve learned don’t put it in your mouth, bring a samplehome, and then research that sample with your mother/father.it’s really neat, because you’ll come up with a lot of ideas to do with variousdifferent things. let’s take for instance toothpaste.add up what your family, according to how any kids, might spend on toothpaste.it’s kind of expensive. there’s lots out there that really equalwhat you would use in regular toothpaste. strawberries – little baby, tiny wild strawberries– they remove tartar off your teeth as well
as toothpaste.we didn’t use anything like toothpaste for 13 years or more.we used wild strawberries. and in the winter time i had it as jam, whichwas really cool because you’d just take some jam, you’d scrub your teeth with it– and that wild strawberry has something in it which is known to remove tartar as wellas toothpaste removes tartar. that’s a fun thing to teach them to usestrawberries, pick baby strawberries, bring them in and scrub your teeth with it.these are things i’m going to talk about today that are relatively safe for kids.you know they’re going to zero in on the flowers, or strawberries, or things like thisin the back yard.
let’s go on with a pine tree, because there’sso much on a pine tree. we’ve covered pine trees a lot, but children,since we’re doing kid’s stuff today, the sap that comes out in the spring is probablythe best glue you’ll ever have. we’ve glued wounds with that sap.we carry that sap in our survival pack. we put it in little glass containers.i have a glass container in my medicine chest. besides sap being so high in calories, youteach the child that that tree, there’s enough sap in that tree for the whole townthat you live in. there’s enough calories in that tree forthe whole town you live in, as food. george: the pine tree is certainly an incredibleresource.
we’ll continue this after the break.george: we’re back with linda runyon. linda, the pine tree is such an incredibleresource, and i would imagine a favorite to start teaching kids with.it’s easy to identify and there’s so many uses for it.what would you say to someone who was teaching survival skills to the children.what’s the first thing, the second thing, the third thing they should teach the childabout what to do with that incredible resource, the pine tree?linda: first thing, all pines are edible. they’ll ask is theirs in their yard, thejack pine, or long needle, whatever. that’s the first thing i find that theywant to know.
the second thing they want to know is canyou eat the outside bark, and i tell them no.i go into great detail of how to use twigs. because twigs are easily “scrubable†witha toothbrush under running water just like a potato.and the small twigs, to me, are the popsicle sticks.the small twigs are eating bark, if you want to do that.it is a taste that’s just the same. all parts of the pine tree are, to me, thesame. but the bark is a bit stronger.you’re talking very thin twigs that the needles grow on.so you tell them to pick a few twigs with
the needles on it.that’s the second thing we show them, of how they can get a lot of needles that way,but they also have bark to be able to clean those twigs and chew on it.my little son used to eat it just like it was a granola bar.seriously we stood around a pine tree, and we would take the needles and twist them inour hands, a bunch of them. and i show kids how to do that right away.because i don’t want them putting them in their mouth.they could get hurt doing that. i told them don’t stick the needles in yourmouth. take them and twist them.children are extremely bright and it’s just
amazing – all they have to do is see itonce and they know how to do it. so you show them how to take a bunch, youtwist them, and you chew from the center of that twist.that twist, to me, represents safety net there, because they’re chewing the sap from thecenter, and getting the taste of the forest. and you get the reaction right away.“oh, that’s not bad,†“oh, that’s goodâ€.“oh, that’s okay.†“it smells like my christmas tree.†lots of different remarks.from there i teach them to take the needles off the twigs.and you can do so much with them if you just put them in a pot, mother can simmer themand cool that down and it’s either iced
tea, pine tea, or it’s ice cubes, made outof pine tea, or it is popsicles made out of pine tea.and you can go a step further and make jell-o. jell-o is something that you can teach thechildren when they shop with mother to get the unflavored gelatin.there’s gelatin that’s completely unflavored, and that’s what we used.and we used that to make all sorts of jams and jellies.to make them stiffen the way we wanted them. you just follow the directions.it will tell you so much of water – well instead of water you use the pine tea.use the pine tea in any strength you want, and you can show them immediately how theycan make everything from tea to ice cubes
to popsicles to jell-o.and they come up with all sorts of ideas to use the pine tree.the last group i taught came up with more ideas than you could imagine.they were peeling the bark back very carefully, and making braids out of bark.and then one child was literally making a basket out of those little, skinny braids.one child said “can i use these as shoelaces?†i said, “no, the cactus was better for that.â€because what you have out there where you live is far better – the yucca.it’s far stronger. pine bark will dry and be crispy.we carry it in our pockets and it’s very chewable.it’s like you’re eating an orange of vitamin
c and you’re getting calories.so you’re getting energy from it. we teach them that it’s a very nutritious,energy producing tree that can produce a lot of different food for them, and it can alsofeed a whole city, and they love to get that idea.the sap for me, is something they really need to experience, even in the middle of winter.we’ve been known back in the woods, 20 below, if we see sap that has crystallized on theside of the tree and crystallized and frozen quickly type thing, which it does.there’s a tree over here right now, we’re not freezing yet, but the sap has alreadycrystallized on the side, so it stays clean. and you can literally wash it under the faucet.it’s like a pebble of dried sap crystallized
all the way through.we teach them that that’s food, and it’s a lot of calories.and survival-wise, it can really quench your…it’s like a little candy to them.and the kids love that idea. and they can use it when it’s running asglue. and they love that idea, too.of course they do put too much on their bug bites.it turns black on your skin. we always have fun with that.they dab it all over their mosquito bites and bug bites.there’s these camping kids that i teach, and of course they all look like they haveall these black dots all over them.
it’s kind of fun.so, you don’t warn them about that. just let them learn that.but that pine tree is everything to you. if you wanted to take the pine tree, all theway in its context with the child, according to the age that they’re at, the ropes thatthe pioneers used were from pine, but they are not the outside tree.the roots that grow can grow 50 feet long. and they found that if they followed someof these tap roots, these pine tap roots out (big ponderosa pine and stuff), they got somestrip bark (this is well documented) that could be braided into extremely thick rope,and didn’t dry crispy, like twigs do. george: how do you teach them to use the catkins?linda: thank you, george.
the catkins are just in the spring.in the spring the new needles are growing. it begins the pine tree with having theselittle, almost baby pine cones, and they call them catkins.and they’re so high in calories, that we would go out as a family and collect a quartof them. that was easily done off of one tree.five or six of those would be like an orange. i don’t have my nutrition chart in frontof me, but it’s in our field guide. our field guide has all the nutrition on allthe wild plants in the center and you’ll be able to figure out for your child, blackand white, what it equals in their everyday diet.so the catkins themselves are very high in
calories.and we love that idea of teaching them how much calories is in those little tiny things.they get the picture. they’ll collect those things really fast.and they can get a quart of them without a problem, and you put them in a shirt box,whatever, and they dry in your house. and when they’re completely bone dry, weteach kids to have your mother put the oven up to 200, turn it off.this is something you must do with your mother. you have them on your cookie sheet just at200 and turn it off. and then you bottle, and they stay foreverin there. george: we’ll be back after the break withlinda runyon.
george: alright, we’re back with linda runyon.do you have these children who are just beginning to be taught the ways of survival with wildfoods, and we talked about how you prioritized that.would the pine tree be the first resource you would direct children to?linda: absolutely. to me, kids seem to immediately have terrifichope when they see the size of the thing, and yes it would feed the whole, and how wouldyou do that. it’s different than a little flower in yourhand. picture yourself as a child, and all you hearon the news negative. that’s all you hear.and maybe we won’t have enough food, and
maybe whatever.all of this is going in. and survival is survival--mental and physical.george: it’s a state of mind as well as knowledge.linda: it’s horrible what kids are going through now.they do stand in a grocery store, and think, oh, well how could this really be, if theythought about it. but they answer that real quick too.george: to me, euell gibbons, the classic author of -- called the cattail – “supermarketof the swampâ€. linda: right, the danger, water, water, danger…george: and it is a supermarket of the swamps. to me the virtually ubiquitous real supermarketis the pine tree.
linda: yes.you look out your window and you’ll find one.you’ll find one in your neighborhood. back east it’s just a joke how many thereare of them. therefore the child sees that immediatelyin his mind’s eye. so they want to know everything about thatpine tree. we have a little flier which i send out withorders. also it’s in our newsletter.george: again, let’s give your website for our new listeners, ofthefield.com.for those of you who are new listeners, linda is a regular on our program.check out her website at ofthefield.com.
there are survival books on wild foods, alsocards, which should be in everybody’s backpack and vehicle, in my opinion, and a new dvd.and so you have the best, in my opinion, resource on wild food.but linda is also a firm believer that you should get at least three different sourcesto identify plants. so you can find very useful links there onlinda’s website to dr. duke and wildman steve brill, for example, which will giveyou supporting documentation on just exactly what you’re looking for. linda: you know, even if you’re a motherthat likes to cook gourmet style and put on dinner parties, have your kids help you withan edible centerpiece, or all of this that
teaches survival.as you go along, just having them be in the backyard picking a dandelion for a purpose.dandelions would be second, because kids just know them everywhere.they see them everywhere. it gives them a real good feeling.it doesn’t have any taste to it. if you twist and pull that fluff away, itdoes not have any bitterness or herbal taste. i love them myself.we stir fry them every night all summer. but for a child it’s an immediate securething to know – roses for instance, that they might have…george: children gravitate toward dandelions anyway because they want to pluck the ballof aerial-bound seeds and blow them into the
air.linda: in my coloring book we do have all these rules and everything, but we only haveplants – violets, dandelions, strawberry, clover, blackberry…george: we’re in the final segment here, so we kind of talked about the anatomy ofthe pine tree for children. what are the priorities of teaching kids aboutthe dandelion. linda: the priority would be that there’sa lookalike. there’s a lookalike plant on the land that’scalled…(forgot name) [cat’s ear]. to me it’s not a wild food in any way.it looks like a dandelion, but it’s much smaller.it’s only about a quarter inch, but it’s
yellow.and i could go out anyplace back east here and show them the difference.anywhere you have dandelions you have this little look-alike thing.it doesn’t have spiky leaves like a dandelion. it has rounded leaves.at first i thought it was male/female dandelion back when i was really going to figure outall the details of everything. it isn’t.it’s a plant that is not a food. it’s not toxic, but it’s not a food.george: what do we look for. obviously dandelions are very easy to identify,but what do we look for. linda: show them the difference between theleaf and show them the difference between
the flower.george: so in the dandelion, what do we look for that’s not in the look alike.linda: the spiky leaves, the leaves that are saw-toothed.george: this is…dandelion is from the french dent de lion.“dent†is the root word for dentist – dentiste. so “dent†literally, “tooth of the lionâ€.it does look like lions teeth. linda: and you’ll see all the differentstages on the lawn whereas this other plant doesn’t.it stays yellow until it browns out and goes away.it’s simple. they do see it, they see it almost instantly.i also show them that dandelion has milk in
it.kids are awestruck by this. dandelions are wild lettuce.and i teach them that all wild lettuces have this milk.and that’s a whole show – just wild lettuce. if you pick any part of the dandelion – thestem, for instance, it’s milky. it has a drop of milk come out of it.that is, only dandelion will do that. the plant that looks like it will not.i like to teach them that once they get used to the taste of the dandelion, which mostkids in all countries eat them in salads, except us.we need to start eating that, because it’s so high in calcium.it’s something that our kids need really
badly, and they don’t need to drink quartsand quarts of milk to get it. it really is in your wild plants.and it’s in an extremely good way for your body to gobble it up.and we have them make gum out of the stems. george: they had such a shortage of naturalrubber, latex, in wwii they were using dandelion latex.linda: they should have used milkweed. they would have gotten a big…george: we have another super food with the dandelion, just like the pine tree, in whichthe whole plant is useful, i mean the roots, the leaves, you name it.linda: red clover. george: we won’t have time to cover anythingelse in this session, but linda will be back
with us.she’s bringing a whole series of interesting and innovative formats about wild food.so we’ll take up those other plants next time.with the dandelion we can make coffee substitute – what else?linda: i french fry the flower. i teach them how to make these little balls.fantastic. you can french fry them with older kids, ofcourse. the root can be scrubbed with a toothbrushand you can eat it raw, and we also take a potato peeler and we peel shreds of the rootand put it in salad. and we teach them that it’s worldwide.all the other countries revere this plant.
george: and again, the leaves are a fantasticsalad ingredient. thank you so much, linda.this hour has passed too quickly. we will be back with linda next week.