As preppers, we are specifically prepping for SHTF to avoid having to forage for food in a post-SHTF world. This will be dangerous and most likely leave us in a perpetual state of hunger.
But if something were to happen that forced you to venture into the wide world in search of food, particularly if you are caught up in an urban concrete jungle, this article should serve as a great primer to get you thinking about how and where to get some nutrition.
Remember that protein is your most important macronutrient. Protein is highly versatile and can also be used for energy production. In contrast, carbohydrates cannot be used for cellular repair and muscle maintenance. Living on rice will see you slowly wane away in a process called sarcopenia.
If in doubt, leave the veggies and eat the steak, or drink the milk, eat the eggs or fish, or, as you will soon see, you can also eat mealworms and roaches. Bon Appetit!
Urban Foraging
I bet that if you took a botanist into New York Central Park, he could show you a variety of plants that could provide you with a well-balanced diet.
Dumpster Diving
I know this sounds unimaginable. But keep in mind that many perfectly edible things end up in dumpsters. Why, someone may have decided to go on a sugar-free diet just before SHTF, and you can run into a week’s supply of soda cans and Coco Pops.
Related: 6 Places You Can Go Dumpster Diving for Your Prepper Stockpile
Or maybe even a bag of brown rice after the poor sod who bought it realized they would rather starve than eat brown rice. You never know, but rummaging through dumpsters could prove to be a worthwhile undertaking.
Pet Food
Many types of pet food, particularly those labeled as high-quality or grain-free, are made with ingredients like meat, fish, and vegetables, which are similar to human food.
While not designed for long-term human consumption, pet food can provide basic sustenance in a pinch.
Dry kibble stores well, lasts for years, and could serve as a calorie source during a crisis. Just be sure to avoid anything with additives or ingredients unsafe for humans, like certain preservatives or artificial colors.
Roadkill
We eat dead animals, right? So why make exceptions based on how the animals died? I would, however, suggest following some guidelines when eating roadkill.
It needs to be fresh. If it’s smelly, lying in contaminated water, or looks like internal injuries may have released colonic bacteria onto the meat, you MUST NOT EAT IT!
Aquaponics
Setting up an aquaponic system is easy. You need water and fish. That is it. The fish will need food, etc., but there are many ways of sorting that out. You can also fish in ponds or streams or rivers or the sea. Fish are basically everywhere and should, by and large, survive SHTF events.
I learned from here how to build a sustainable aquaponic setup that can keep producing food even when traditional methods are no longer an option. It’s been a game-changer for my preparedness strategy.
Seaweed Harvesting
Seaweed is a great source of nutrition.
There are many ways of harvesting, preparing, and drying seaweed.
It can really help you through tough times.
And let’s face it, as long as the sea exists, you will not run out of seaweed.
Insect Farming
Insects can be found everywhere and are a rich source of protein and fiber. You can farm them or maybe even just set traps to catch them. Primary sources of insect protein that could be farmed include mealworms, crickets, grasshoppers, or even, and I hesitate to say this, black soldier flies larvae (maggots, I know).
Guerrilla Gardening
Take advantage of the fact that civilization has collapsed. Get hundreds of packets of seeds from stores and nurseries and just sow them everywhere you can. I bet many of them will eventually bear fruit, which you can harvest and eat when ready. Some vegetables can bear fruit in 60 to 90 days, so you better get sowing ASAP.
Hunting and Trapping
Hunting and trapping might not seem like weird methods for getting food after SHTF, but when the grocery stores are empty and wildlife becomes your main source of protein, it can start to feel like a foreign experience. You’ll need to learn how to adapt to the environment, track game, and be patient—skills that most people don’t practice in their daily lives.
Just make sure to understand the terrain, animals’ habits, and how to craft effective traps from whatever materials you have on hand. After SHTF, hunting isn’t just about getting food—it’s about survival.
One resource I found invaluable for this is this guide I came across that covers everything from setting snares to identifying animal tracks. It also includes detailed pictures of animal tracks, which makes it easier to distinguish between prey and potential predators—crucial knowledge for anyone relying on the wild for food.
Edible Invasive Plants
Learn to identify and harvest edible invasive plant species, such as garlic mustard or Japanese knotweed. These plants may become even more abundant after SHTF. And let’s face it: survival will be more important than combating invasive plant and animal species.
Algae
Certain types of algae are edible and can provide nutrition that would prove invaluable to surviving in the long run. And let’s face it, most people will not be looking at these for sources of nutrition, so if you can get your algae game to be on point, you will not need to compete for other resources. Here are some examples:
Spirulina is a blue-green algae grown for its high protein content and nutritional value. It is also rich in vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and essential amino acids. Spirulina can be consumed in powdered form as a dietary supplement. Mix it into a drink or sprinkle it over grain-based foods to add protein.
Chlorella is another type of green algae that is popular as a source of protein and micronutrients. You can harvest, dry, and mill it into a powder. This powder can then be consumed with fresh greens or mixed into broths to increase the protein content.
Macroalgae (Seaweed) can be found in freshwater and marine environments. Once again, you will need to learn to identify edible species. Dried seaweed is used extensively in many cultures worldwide as a source of nutrition and fiber. Once again, you will likely face almost no competition with other obstacles to harvesting seaweed. Rough seas also tend to wash much of it onto the shore, where you can collect it at your convenience.
While foraging, hunting, and other unconventional methods of sourcing food can be essential survival skills in a post-SHTF world, the best way to ensure you don’t go hungry is to grow your own food and maintain a well-stocked supply of long-lasting provisions. By having a reliable stockpile and a garden or other self-sustaining food sources, you reduce the need to venture out into potentially dangerous environments. Prepping is all about being ready before the crisis hits, and ensuring you can provide for yourself and your family without relying on the unpredictable.
For expert guidance on bugging in and ensuring your home is ready for any disaster, The Navy SEAL’s Bug In Guide is a valuable resource. This guide, developed with insights from some of the most elite survivalists, provides strategies on securing your home, managing supplies, and preparing for extended periods indoors. It’s packed with practical tips to help you survive, thrive, and stay one step ahead when sheltering in place becomes your best option.
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Pie in the sky on some of these suggestions, especially dumpster diving, yeah sure, dumpsters never get cleaned full of dirty crap, bugs, pee, poo, bacteria, viruses. And we consider to get food their, no matter when your hungry you will eat anything.
You will also suffer the consequences like drinking unfiltered dirty water because you are thirsty. Same thing if we go half cocked on survival skills missing a step to be sure can cost you your life.
We see on some TV series, someone dumpster diving for food, but these are Hollywood actors portraying a homeless individual. Would any of you be that disparate?
Then down the block you some rich guy eating at a restaurant, wouldn’t you take a chance and steal his food instead?
I believe there are two Lisa Blake, people just like there are many people named John Smith for example, some good and some with evil intentions.
This post has some questionable parts would not do for survival. I do agree with Lisa that dumpster diving may solve a temporary hunger but cause other unwanted problems latter.
How many preppers even with foraging guide books able to tell the real plant from a look a like poisonous plants?
Even the best foragers do make mistakes of identify plants.
That comes to what happens when we run out of our favorite vegetable seeds as we have several bad crop failures and our seed saving techniques can’t keep up. Will there be underground seed saver clubs to barter with?
Yes there are two Lisa’s on this blog, one good, one bad.
Hackberry is the most widespread forage plant in the world, and the one offering the most calories and nutrition for a moderate amount of work. Which is to say, you gain more energy finding and crushing hackberry seeds than you expend. Canna lillies are another plant high in calories and nutrition, cultivated as a food crop for thousands of years, now common in urban areas. Yellow nutsedge is a forage plant common in urban areas, cultivated as a food crop around the world for thousands of years, good calories and nutrition, easy to find and process. Rounding out common and easy to use nutritious plants is the Cattail, roots, shoots, flowers, and pollen, most important with cattail is that the roots are good all through winter.
I have some preps to last about a year and a small bugout bag. I am waiting to see how this maybe be the last American election we may have.
The two areas have considered for bug out locations have been compromised by illegals living in one close location and foreign armed gang members using that site for their activities.
Right now reports on bug out locations are not very accurate as to make a definite guess where I want to be at.
The problem is logistics bug in we have our temporary stashes of limited food. The other thing is if bugging out what food preps do we carry out as we maybe on food.
Do we leave all those preps or do a scorched earth tactic?
In the old American west some pioneers had to give up their farms or cabins because of health, domestic fights with neighbors, Indian war tribes, robbers and thieves.
Sometimes the original settlers comeback to their homesteads to live finding some homeless took over their homes.
Sometimes this would end in a bloody battle to take back their abandoned homes from the freeloaders.
Are preppers prepared to fight for their homes whether in the city or in the country?
Are you willing to terminate what ever has taken over your property as civilization is coming back to some normalcy.
This is somethings not mentioned in the survival prepper sites lately.
Correction; What we carry out as we maybe on foot.
Do we destroy the rest if we are not ever coming back?
Do we destroy the rest if we’re never coming back? If I am forced out of my home against my will, to never return, you can bet your bippy it’ll be destroyed.
Look up ‘Calories in a human’.
Cannibalism is a good source of food.
When the wife says eat me honey, ask does she come with BBQ sauce?
Or Steak sauce?
Better ask for clarification ahead of time lol
lol. Fava beans and Chianti.
It was said Hattian’s are cannibals in their country. Imagine the fresh meat markets in China running out of endangered animals and cats and dogs. They start to eat fresh human meat, maybe prisoners and the homeless are next on the menu.
“Soylent Green” was just a movie, right?
I lived in Haiti for 3 years. I got around to see all areas of the country and meet and work with people at all rungs of the economic ladder from the poorest peasants to the highest government officials. Haitians are survivors. In three years, I never saw any evidence of cannibalism or eating of cats or dogs. Voodoo, yes. Necklacing of criminals and personal enemies…frequently. Riots and violence, almost daily. Mostly, people just go on their business of eaking out a living as best they can. 99 percent of the people are decent, God fearing folks. Don’t condemn a whole society based on unsubstantiated rumors.
My dog developed a good case of tapeworms from eating his favorite forage food…grasshoppers. crickets can carry them too. You might want to cook all your bugs if you decide to go that route
…and check out the videos on “horse hair worms” Remarkably unappealing.
Isn’t that funny how the United Nations so far told us to eat bugs, not in the demanding mode yet.
Yeah I think those who suggest eating bugs may have tapeworms eating their brains up.
You know the elites would never eat those bugs when China farmlands in America and Bill Gates farms will supply the deep state with all the meat to eat.
Eating insects carry diseases to eventually kill us, the elites way for depopulating the planet.
Let them eat cake!
I include a .22 pellet rifle in my preps. I’ll eat tweety birds before bugs.
terry sims talked about cannablism, the book “fly boys” is about captured pilots in ww2 that were in jap hands. the japs practiced cannableism and one general preferred human meat and made all his officers eat it too. since there was no electricity on the islands they would cut parts off the men but not hit any arteries so the prisoners would syay alive for days keeping their bodies healthy to eat. never underestimate what someone will do under dire circumstances. by the way the book is a true story and the author talked to jap guards and officers that were still living.
I can generally come up with a good use for items found in the bush, but what about porcupine quills? Those critters are the easiest to harvest and yet I have no idea how to use the quills. Any thoughts? Also, when you catch a grasshopper, twist the head 90 degrees and pull. The intestines will come out with the head. Put the body on the end of a twig and roast over your campfire. No tapeworms.