Food

STEAL THIS BOOK - FREE FOOD

General Guide

Until several days without food it's difficult to really understand what hunger means. You get faint and weak, unable to concentrate, and your reactions will be slow. As you go longer, you feel an ache below your heart. You may fantasize about food and how to get some. You will feel cold in bad weather no matter the clothing or bedding you pile on, and weak and drained in hot weather.

Many will steal. Hours pass and it feels like your soul is being cut with knives. When you are starving, it is easy to hate fat, well dressed people in warm, air conditioned houses.

Let's make this clear - Corporate government really does not care about who is eating properly, that is your problem. In a 2006 pamphlet distributed to its laid-off employees, Northwest Airlines once advised its newly impoverished former workers to strongly consider rifling through trash for suitable food! Wage slaves like nurse aides typically feed their residents three meals plus a snack a day while having a sneak to eat or only affording one meal a day. Even fast food, hotel, and restaurant jobs can have unreasonable meal plans. Your need to feed yourself is considered disgusting (and cuts into profits!)!

Yet Amerika is the most wasteful nation on Earth, consuming the most food per person in the world and throwing it away. Country club members graze daily on huge brunch buffets, only taking what they are in the mood for. Huge conventions throw away massive amounts of food in order to offer choices the upper middle class may or may not want. Even grocery stores throw away much edible food.

We may not have a right to food in America, but surviving is important! So how do we eat?

Overview

The United States government's position is every resident should have a minimum of 72 hours of water and food stored. The reasoning behind this is 72 hours or three days is the average time it takes for federal emergency services to arrive, set up operations, assess needs, and to begin distribution of aid. This is a good start and for many the only step necessary. Purchasing and storing food and water for three days for each member of your household is relatively cheap and easy. While there are many purveyors of “survival” rations with 10+ year shelf lives I recommend that the beginning prepper stay away from these types of products. Especially the prepackaged 72 hour kits that contain “survival crackers”. While these crackers do indeed provide the claimed nutrition they are bland and much more expensive when compared to alternatives.

The best advice I can give regarding storing any amount of food is to “store what you eat and eat what you store”. This costs less than cases of freeze dried meals that may only give you 800-1000 calories a day. Also it has the added benefit of giving some small comfort in the familiar taste when the stress of an emergency is starting to set in. Either store bought or home canned soups, meats either canned or dried, instant potatoes, rice and/or pasta sides are basic fare that will supply a 72 hour kit easily and cheaply. While a portable camping stove of some kind may be a good idea if you need to prepare food for a group, a few cans of chafing dish fuel might suffice to heat soup or boil water for a single person.

Calculating Food Storage

Adequate food storage is one of the cornerstones of prepping. While the body can certainly last at least a few weeks without food, the latter part of that time frame will be decidedly less than pleasant. Food is what fuels the body, and in the aftermath of a disaster, you’ll need all the fuel you can get.

When we talk about food storage, you want a mix of products. You need not, and should not, just go out and buy several pallets of freeze-dried products and call it a day. First of all, doing so will be extremely expensive. Further, proper rotation is a key element of any successful food storage plan. You need to use and restock your stored food regularly. Always use the oldest product first.

While dumping several boxes of freeze-dried food into your pantry isn’t necessarily the worst idea in the world, you need to condition yourself and your group by introducing it into the diet gradually. Failing to do so could have a significantly negative impact on everyone’s digestive systems. A better idea is to work on stocking up on the foods that your group already knows and enjoys such as canned foods like veggies, pasta, stew, chili, and soup; dried goods like beans and rice; and staples such as flour, sugar, salt, and spices.

Concentrate on buying things that are relatively cheap, to get the most bang for your buck. Look not only at the price but the number of servings as well. A can of condensed soup might cost less than a dollar, but you’ll be lucky to get two servings out of it. Not a bad deal if you’re feeding yourself, but if you have a spouse as well as growing kids, you’ll need a bit more than just a can or two for a meal.

Rice is still relatively inexpensive, though the price has gone up in the last year or so. Dried beans are an excellent source of protein and easy to prepare. Beans, rice, and a can of peas, and you can feed your entire group for mere pennies per person. We’re not talking about gourmet meals here, obviously. Instead, focus on filling bellies with nutrition and calories.

How do you know how much you really need per day? The scientific way is to calculate the necessary caloric intake per person and plan accordingly. This gets a bit complicated, but bear with me.

There are formulas for determining what’s called base metabolic rate. This refers to the number of calories your body needs just to maintain your current weight and activity level. You then adjust that number up or down depending on your desired outcome. Down if you want to lose weight, up if you want to increase weight.

Measure the height (in inches) and weight (in pounds) of each group member, comrade, or whoever you’d like to prepare to feed in case of emergency. For our trans and non-binary friends, what works best will depend on your own approximations of what kind of metabolism, hormones, and body fat distribution you have. Then, using those numbers, make the following calculations:

Adult Women : 655 + (4.3 × weight in pounds) + (4.7 × height in inches) – (4.7 × age in years)

Adult Men : 66 + (6.3 × weight in pounds) + (12.9 × height in inches) – (6.8 × age in years)

Girl : 655 + (4.35 × weight in pounds) + (4.7 × height in inches) – (4.7 × age in years) 39

Boy : 66 + (6.23 × weight in pounds) + (12.7 × height in inches) – (6.8 × age in year)

You then take each of those figures determined above and adjust them based on each person’s activity level. Now take your base metabolic rate figure determined above and adjust it based on your activity level. See the chart below for the multiplier you will need for your adjusted calorie intake.

Activity Level	Adults	Children
SEDENTARY (little to not exercise)	× 1.2	× 1.2
LIGHT (exercise up to three times a week)	× 1.3	× 1.375
MODERATE (exercise three or more times a week)	× 1.4	× 1.55
HEAVY (exercise five or more times a week)	× 1.5	× 1.725

The final number for each person tells you how many calories you need to consume to maintain your current body condition. Naturally, consuming a bit less won’t have a hugely detrimental effect on most people, at least not in the short term. But keep in mind that during a long-term disaster recovery period, the odds are good that activity levels will increase among your group members. Whether you’re out cutting up fallen branches, digging and weeding garden beds, or doing laundry by hand, you’ll probably be burning more calories than you currently do.

Should all that math prove entirely too complicated, an easier way to figure out your group’s needs is to devise a meal plan for two full weeks. Don’t worry about what you have in the house right now; this is all just hypothetical. Sit down with paper and pen and write out what your group might normally eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Then, add in one or two snacks as well, since I’m sure group members are used to having a quick bite between meals. Be as detailed as you can with these meals, estimating quantities of each ingredient that goes into the meal. Don’t just write “tacos” for dinner on Tuesday. Figure out how much meat and other ingredients you normally use.

Creating a meal plan for two full weeks, then doubling each meal, gives you a fairly accurate estimate of what you’ll need for a month to feed everyone. Granted, you may not have access to all the ingredients, such as fresh vegetables, but these figures give you a baseline, a starting point, for your food storage plans.

How to Make Emergency Baby Formula

We are not medical providers, and none of the below is professional medical advice. Many medical professionals and the FDA advise against making homemade baby formula, so keep that in mind and do not use homemade formula if you have store-bought formula available.

An emergency can be a stressful time, especially with a newborn. Running out of baby formula or breast milk can make it even more stressful. Luckily, there is an easy way to make emergency baby formula with pantry items that have a long shelf life.

As a dad, having my infant prepared for emergencies was a priority. Luckily, Mom was around and provided breast milk whenever he was hungry. That is not always the case for everyone, and some moms are forced to rely on formula. If there is a disruption in our food supply and the supermarket cannot stock enough formula, or if parents cannot reach the supermarket to get formula, what happens to the hungry babies? There may be some hope in the pantry…

Evaporated Milk Baby Formula Recipe

Baby formula is made in high-tech labs and can’t be reproduced, right? Wrong. Widely available baby formula was not available until the 1950s. Baby formula has been used since the 1920s. So what did everyone do for those 30 years in between? They made their own emergency baby formula.

The baby formula has a basic three-ingredient recipe:

• 12 oz evaporated milk

• 18 oz boiled water

• 2 tbsp corn syrup (or sugar)

The ingredients are widely available, and you can even stock up on evaporated milk online. Both evaporated milk and sugar can last in the pantry for at least six months, which should carry you through all but the worst-case emergencies.

The corn syrup was meant to stave off constipation. These days, health services suggest using sugar instead (Alaska DHSS) in homemade baby formulas. You can also tweak the amount of sugar based on your child’s needs.

To follow the recipe, you simply combine the ingredients and thoroughly mix. If your infant is larger, you will want to proportionally increase the ingredients, making sure the ratios stay the same. This recipe helps babies gain weight but does miss out on some of the vitamins and nutrients store-bought formula provides. Vitamin supplements can always be added to the recipe to make up for any deficits.

Because of the vitamin deficiencies in the homemade formula, some professionals advise that homemade formula should not be given to babies at all. This is an absurd blanket statement since you will obviously need to feed your baby if there are no other options. The concern about vitamin deficiencies should be emphasized that homemade baby formula is only a temporary solution for when it is absolutely needed.

What Can I Substitute For Baby Formula?

If you find yourself really in a bind without formula or evaporated milk, a few other options could help you out. Breast milk, whole milk, and even goat’s milk can get the job done if life depends on it.

• Whole Milk – Whole milk alone can cause some digestion issues, but for older babies, you can start phasing it in. Diluting whole milk with equal parts of water allows it to be substituted for the evaporated milk in the emergency baby formula recipe. Once your baby hits one year old, it is generally safe to switch them to undiluted whole milk anyway.

• Goat Milk – Goats have been a homesteading favorite due to their versatility and ruggedness. Milk from a goat can be used in an emergency. It isn’t recommended for long-term use (it is low in vitamins B12 and folic acid), but it can get your baby much-needed sustenance if there is a disaster.

These options may be tougher to come across during an emergency or disaster. Milk and formula are usually a few of the first things to sell out at a grocery store, goats are not exactly found everywhere, and it may be difficult to talk somebody into breastfeeding your baby. Stashing some evaporated milk in the pantry is definitely a good route to go when it comes to being prepared with your little one.

Don’t Substitute These for Baby Formula

When professionals talk about NOT using homemade baby formula, they often refer to other solutions—some of which aren’t even homemade. Either way, you should avoid using:

• Expired Baby Formula – Baby formula has a shelf life, and you should not keep or use formula past its shelf life since it can become dangerous to babies.

• Goat’s Milk w/ Honey – Adding honey to goat’s milk is a common recipe, but this can actually cause botulism poisoning.

• Diluted Formula – It can be tempting to cut the formula with water to make it last longer, but it’s not a good idea. Babies need milk and/or formula for a reason, and substituting this with too much water can quickly cause problems.

• Counterfeit Baby Formula – Yes, this is actually a thing. It is more common overseas, where the FDA does not have oversight. Make sure your baby formula is from a reputable manufacturer.

There are plenty of other things you shouldn’t give your baby, but the ones above are the more common mistakes. Here are The Doctors talking about a lot of these alternatives and their risks, the FDA warnings, and what people should try to do in shortages:

Can I Stock Up On Baby Formula?

Of course you can, and that’s your best thought of the day! As we mentioned before, baby formula has a shelf life, but this shelf life can be up to 18 months, which should be more than enough to make it to the solid food stage. It is an excellent idea to have an emergency supply of baby food as a part of your emergency food supply. Even if the baby is being breastfed and you have an extra breastmilk supply in the freezer, you will want a shelf-stable option for an emergency.

Cans of powdered formula typically are the easiest to store with your long-term food storage. My kids are now both grown out of the breastmilk stage, but we stored Similac 30 oz cans in addition to keeping our freezer fully stocked with breastmilk.

Baby Formula Shortages

Baby formula shortages are not uncommon and have been an issue recently. The FDA is actively working with manufacturers to solve and prevent shortages in the formula supply chain.

When we specify the recipe for emergencies, a temporary shortage isn’t what we have in mind. The emergency formula recipe should be your last resort when your baby is hungry and there are no other options, not just a choice of convenience.

Even during widespread baby formula shortages, dialing 2-1-1 (in the US) can connect you to a community resource specialist to get you what you need. They are liaisons to:

• Food pantries

• Charities

• Food banks

Many of these options supply infant formula and baby food specifically for these events and should be sought out well ahead of a homemade recipe.

Sources and References

Here are the sources I relied on while researching emergency baby formula for my kids and updates since then.

• Anderson, E., et al. (2022). Special Edition – Homemade Infant Formula. Michigan State University; Center for Research on Ingredient Safety.

• American Academy of Pediatrics. (2023). Why Do Infants Need Baby Formula Instead of Cow’s Milk? Caring for Your Baby and Young Child: Birth to Age 5.

• Chen, A. (2024). Comparison of Human Breast Milk Nutrition to Goat’s Milk & Cow’s Milk. LiveStrong.

Blood and guts

Picky Americans throw away lots of good meat that everyone else considers to be delicacies. Things like hearts, kidneys, livers, stomachs and lungs can all be had for cheap, if not free, and are not only nutritious, but also delicious if prepared properly. Although some people eat them, it's wise to avoid brains due to all the diseases they can carry.

This is especially noticeable in areas with lots of hunters. After they bag bambi, most hunters will only take the loins and some ground meat for their troubles, leaving lots of perfectly good meat available just for the asking.

Even blood (assuming it's fresh, NEVER use old blood) can be turned into food. It can thicken soups, make sausages and can be even used in pancakes.

In the rest of the world, this is haute gourmet. So why not use it to make 5 star meals for growing revolutionaries?

Dumpster Diving

No discussion of free food would be complete without talking dumpster diving, but remember that you can score great bike parts, computers, weird electronics, clothes, toys, paperback books, etc. Anything you can get through the front door usually comes out the back door and into the dumpster at some point.

Look through a phone book or tour the neighborhood on your bike to see what grocery stores, restaurants, and food services are nearby and check their dumpsters when no one is outside. It may take a few days to learn when the trash pick-up day is and what time fresh food is dumped, so keep checking. Don't ruin a good dumpster for everyone by throwing trash everywhere while rooting around. If you clean up the manager will have no reason to lock the dumpster, and the cops can't charge you for littering.

Be aware that a "No Trespassing" sign or demands by an employee usually mean that you do not have permission to dive there, which may cause trouble with the cops. However, if you are never asked to leave and there is no obvious signage you should be fine. Most state trespassing laws will not charge or even arrest you for trespassing if you have not refused to leave after being asked, which can be substituted by a "No Trespassing".

Rubber boots, work gloves, long trousers, and long sleeved shirts will help protect you from cuts in the dumpster if needed. Box cutters are useful for packaging, boxes, bags, and twine. Dumpsters are mostly safe, just really dirty. But don't gamble with sharp metal or broken glass, wear tall rubber diving or leather boots.

LED headlamps will give you light to see what you are grabbing. Use a red filter when possible at night to prevent your flashlight from being visible at distance. Removable car seat covers, trash sacks, or sheets of newspaper will protect your car seat if you have gotten really gooped up. Clean plastic trash sacks are a good way to protect your finds while wading in the dumpster, transporting your haul home, and when containing messy boots or clothes. When biking, line your panniers or backpack with plastic shopping bags.

Don't worry about getting sick until you start deciding what to eat. Always wash unpackaged produce; vinegar or diluted bleach soak for 30 minutes kills most bacteria to safe levels. If you come across any cans that are bulging at the top and/or bottom, leave them in the dumpster. They're known in the trade as being "blown" and are unfit to eat and ripe with bacteria.

Compactors and garbage smashers are really good at crushing bones. Don't disable compactors as that can get you in trouble with the police, and may not even disable the system. Most stores with compactors have fitted a metal collar to keep divers and raccoons out. We find that these are usually bent from careless truck drivers and desperate kids grabbing beer left by friends inside. You can usually grab for something you can see and reach, but you MUST use a grabber or you risk trapping your arm. We don't like compactor amputations.

You can purchase a "universal skip key," which will open many (if not most) dumpsters. Bumping a lock or picking it can also work.

Dumpster diving can be a powerful way to save money, reduce waste, and support self-sufficiency. Whether you’re looking to cut down on expenses, find items for daily use, or even make extra cash, this guide will help you navigate the basics safely and effectively.

Understanding the Basics

Why Dive?

Dumpster diving offers access to an enormous variety of items that are still useful but have been discarded. Grocery stores toss out food that’s past its sell-by date but often still fresh. Households and businesses throw away furniture, tools, books, clothes, and electronics, while construction sites discard building materials and tools.

Businesses dispose of items for many reasons—overstock, minor defects, damaged packaging, or simply lack of shelf space. Understanding this wasteful cycle gives you an edge in salvaging perfectly usable goods.

What You Can Find :

• Food : Packaged goods near or past their expiration date, fresh produce, and baked goods.

• Household Items : Furniture, electronics, dishes, clothing, and other essentials.

• Recyclables : Aluminum cans, glass, and scrap metal.

• Materials : Craft supplies, building materials, tools, and more.

The Potential :

Dumpster diving isn’t just about survival; it’s about transforming waste into resources. By salvaging items others consider garbage, you can save money, reduce environmental impact, and even create income streams by reselling or repurposing your finds.

Getting Started

Choosing Locations

Start by identifying key areas where high-value discards are likely:

• Grocery Stores : Look for stores that clear inventory frequently, often discarding food that’s still edible.

• Residential Complexes : Furniture, clothes, electronics, and books can often be found in apartment dumpsters or on curbs.

• Businesses : Office supplies, packaging, and bulk goods are often discarded by retailers or offices.

• Construction Sites : Look for scrap wood, insulation, and hardware. Be sure to get permission where necessary.

Timing is Key

Dive at optimal times for your area. Many stores and businesses dispose of goods just after closing, making the early evening ideal. For residential pickups, aim for the evening before trash collection days, as people often put items out late.

Safety and Hygiene

Always prioritize safety. Wear gloves and durable shoes to protect against sharp objects and contaminants. Avoid items that are visibly spoiled, moldy, or damaged, especially food. If you’re diving for edible goods, thoroughly clean and inspect all items before use.

Storage and Transportation

Plan how you’ll transport and store your finds. Bags, bins, and boxes are useful for organization, and stackable containers maximize storage space at home. Sort items immediately to reduce clutter and ensure nothing spoils or degrades.

Techniques and Strategies

Food

Focus on food that is sealed, canned, or packaged. Avoid perishable goods unless you can confirm their safety (e.g., unopened containers that have been chilled). Supermarkets often discard produce or baked goods that are still fresh but may have minor blemishes or are near their sell-by date.

Clothing and Household Items

Apartments and residential neighborhoods are goldmines for clothes, furniture, and electronics. Seasonal purges or move-outs often result in usable items being thrown out. Pay attention to donation bins, which may have overflow or discarded items nearby.

Electronics and Tools

Check dumpsters behind electronics stores or home improvement retailers. Test all electronics before use, and keep a basic toolkit handy for repairs. Many items require only minor fixes to become functional again.

Books and Media

Libraries, schools, and colleges frequently dispose of books, DVDs, and media when updating their collections. These are often in excellent condition and valuable for personal use or resale.

Not Getting Caught

Understand the Law

Laws vary by location. In some areas, dumpster diving is legal so long as you are not trespassing or entering private property. However, some municipalities have strict anti-scavenging ordinances. Always check your local regulations to avoid fines or legal trouble.

Respect Others

Leave the area tidy after diving. Close lids and pick up any items you don’t take. Respect others who may be diving in the same location; cooperation is more effective than competition.

Be Discreet

Avoid drawing attention to yourself. Working quietly and efficiently helps maintain goodwill with property owners and avoids unnecessary conflict.

Making the Most of Your Finds

Repairs and Upcycling

Slightly damaged items can often be repaired with minimal effort. Broken furniture, electronics, or tools can often be restored for personal use or resale.

Reselling and Trading

Market your finds through local thrift stores, consignment shops, or online platforms like eBay, Facebook Marketplace, or Craigslist. Recyclables such as aluminum cans or scrap metal can be sold to recycling centers.

Organizing Your Finds

Sort and categorize items as soon as possible. Invest in stackable bins or shelves to keep items organized and accessible. This is especially important for perishables, which need prompt attention.

Final Tips

• Stay observant and flexible. Build a mental map of the best dumpsters in your area.

• Diversify your targets: rotate locations to maximize opportunities and avoid over-dipping into a single source.

• Remember, consistency is key. Regularly checking high-yield locations ensures you won’t miss valuable discards.

By following these guidelines, you can turn dumpster diving into a practical, safe, and rewarding activity. With preparation and a mindful approach, you can transform waste into treasure while reducing your environmental impact and boosting your self-sufficiency.

Day Old Bread Stores

Ask for bread a bakery is going to throw away. Tell them it's for your pig. Most times they will squash it down in a buggy but squashed bread is still tasty. Remember to check for mold and pinch it off, but a spot of mold will not hurt you.

Many deli chains and sub stores have a "bread bin" with perfectly edible, scrap bread to be thrown away. It's sanitary, and if the employee is cool, they may give you some for free. Just remember that for many employees it is still cool to disrespect the homeless.

Free Drinks

Get your hands on a plastic cup from a gas station or fast-food restaurant. Swipe 'em from tables, ask for a cup of water, or surreptitiously peruse the trash bin. This guarantees you free drinks there for as long as you have the cup. If you're worried about germs, when you fill up your stolen cup, "accidentally" drop the cup, and ask for another one. Don't forget to clean up the mess.

Some restaurants will issue "courtesy" cups for non-customers asking for water. If a restaurant has drink fountains out in the open, as most fast food joints do, these can easily be filled with the beverage of your choice. Even if the minimum wage employees see you, it's unlikely that they'd go out of their way to stop you.

Fortunately the mono culture consumerism ensures that restaurant that lack branded cups will have have selected theirs from a small collection. Save your cups nested inside each other; often you can "select" a matching cup from your bag without suspiciously digging through the trash. You might think you are being sly, but reaching into the trash is one of those faux pas that store clerks catch from across the restaurant every time.

Hotel Grazing

Do not forget the wondrous resource that is your local hotel. Many hotels offer complimentary breakfasts, a fact which you can use to your advantage.

First, look at what hotels offer what. A small Super 8 or Motel 6 may not have much more than pastries and coffee. Mid-scale hotels like Hampton Inns offer a very generous free spread and a couple of free hot items. Higher end hotels and some independent establishments may not offer any free breakfast at all. The best ones to hit are business-styled suite hotels, which offer free hot breakfasts and often free dinner, snacks, and sometimes beer during the evenings. Since they are designed for the long-term traveling business man, looking respectable can guarantee you weeks of free grub!

You should (of course) make sure that they don't check that you have a reservation or a room key. Dont worry, most don't. Most hotels work on a shift schedule (7-3, 3-11, 11-7) so going in during shift changes almost guarantee complete distraction by employees at the front desk.

Once that's established you may want to dress nicely to make sure that you can enjoy a hearty breakfast. You should at least have a backpack/messenger bag with an extra shirt in it. Walk into the hotel early in the morning, looking like you're coming in from a long night on the town. Head towards your "room" and find the laundry, exercise, or any room that has both water and privacy.

Change into the fresh shirt, wet your hair and wash your face - make it look like you had a quick shower and changed your clothes. Stash the bag where you can retrieve it later or risk it and take the bag to breakfast with you Now wander on down, eat your fill. You shouldn't hang around more than a couple minutes once you've finished, but don't look overly rushed.

One thing you may notice (especially if you're a "repeat customer") is that a manager will make their rounds chatting with the breakfast diners. Don't be alarmed...they won't notice a thing with a halfway decent alibi.

Fast Food Chains

On a busy Friday or Saturday night, find the closest chain to the bar district in your town. After last call stand in the food line for about 15 minutes then approach a clerk. Often in the busy after hours crowd they wont notice you approach from outside, and the cleaning staff almost never get a chance to tell the kitchen staff of your scam. Tell them you've been waiting in line for any item off the menu for half an hour, and they will serve you right away!

Convenience Stores

Clerks get really bored at the dead hours or when they have to stock the shelves and they are often happy to let you lift in exchange for some company. If you make friends with the staff they'll often let you chew on their hyperinflated shelves and encased junk food. Don't insult them by being too open with your sticky fingers, let them turn their back, stock some shelves, or go in back, before you start filling your pack, give them some plausible deniablity in case you somehow get caught.

Sometimes loss prevention and the manager actually view the cameras, but this is normally only after a robbery, sometimes you'll meet an employee who is forever afraid of losing their job. Avoid the paranoid high strung type employee they probably wont even converse with you as it is against the company policy. Our best results are with the angry, burned out, or apathetic clerk.

Convenience stores have surprisingly useful services like western union money-grams, rolling papers, prepaid credit cards, prepaid cell phones, etc. The convenience store recognizes the needs of the underground economy of drug dealers and undocumented illegal aliens, and cater to their privacy needs in a way that rakes in huge profits.

Movie Theaters

Wait outside a movie theater on a Friday night and ask people leaving for a ticket stub to get in. Walk into a theater that is just letting out, or peek into the garbage cans and grab the largest bucket of popcorn and the largest cup. Most theaters provide free refills on popcorn and soft drinks, so dump out the contents and proceed to the food vendor. This works particularly well at the new megaplexes.

If you know anyone employed at the movie theater, ask them to get you a big bag of the gallons and gallons of popcorn that theaters throw away every night, especially on weekends. These can also be obtained from the dumpster after hours, but then it will most likely be mixed with popcorn that was swept off of the floor. Once again, this works particularly well at the megaplexes.

Many theaters have back side exits for safety reasons. Take a peek inside and if you see anyone other than an employee (they'll have name tag), knock and kindly gesture to be let in. Pat them on the back, say something along the lines of "thanks buddy", and then just pick a movie. Make sure there are a lot of other people seeing the film you choose. Occasionally (at some cinemas) audience members will be counted and compared to number tickets sold—if the numbers don't match up, customers will be asked to show their tickets. Nobody wants to interrupt the movie for a hundred people just to catch one or two freeloaders, assuming they did not miscount.

Cafes

Most Coffee shops give away their remaining pastries at the end of the day due to their sales policies to refresh the stock each morning. In addition, most coffee chain baristas are cool, and will give as many free samples of different drinks and snacks as you want. Many chains have a very liberal customer service policy so make a fuss if they won't give you a sample. You may be able to walk out with a free drink or gift certificate.

Hospital Cafes

In addition, cafes inside hospitals provide a diverse menu, particularly focused on grab-and-go, and can be excellent locations to get lost in the lunch rush, and forget to pay on your way out. A busy worker bee mentality will help you in your appearance.

Free Milk

Many places that serve coffee also serve liquid cream packets. These are often provided freely, where the public can take as many as they want. They range between coffee cream and whole milk and if you a proportionate mixture in an 8 oz. glass of water you can easily make an approximate 2%, the same as sold at a supermarket. It won't really taste like supermarket milk however, because it has been added to water rather than having milk fat removed.

Free Candy

Super glue or tape a coin down to a rotating coin feeder and spin it as many times as you like for whatever is in the dispenser, be inconspicuous because in the unlikely event that you're caught this can be considered both vandalism and theft. It may not be nutrition, but we like free sweets too.

Find a grocery or department store that has the bulk candy/coffee bean racks and grab a handful of them. Walk around like your shopping and you will almost never be stopped for this. Since the candy has no intrinsic value as it is not priced unless it is weighed you will not be charged with shoplifting. Otherwise, nearly every parent you see in the supermarket would have a charge on behalf of their kids' sticky fingers.

The above trick is not limited to candy though. Trail mixes, dehydrated fruits, cookies, etc. Anything measured in bulk is difficult to prove as a theft and security will almost never bother you for it. If you are stopped you may be asked to leave the store, so leave.

Free Meat and Cheese

Many grocery stores will give away free samples of the meats and cheeses sold in the deli. Dress appropriately, fill a basket with products, and then ask the deli hand to taste a meat or cheese that interests you. They'll usually cut a slice or two for you to nibble.

Fool them into believing you're a customer and you can usually ask to try yet another meat or cheese. Repeat this as long as they'll allow and make up any excuse to not purchase anything. Take your samples and make a soup, sandwich or other quick dish with.

Don't hit the same deli day after day or they'll get smart to your scam. Have a grocery store for each day of the week and rotate them weekly. Obviously more grocery stores in your neighborhood makes this a lot easier. By changing the order from week to week and the time of day you should keep most staff from catching on to what you're doing, and keep yourself in a consistent supply of deli samples.

Don't worry, unless you throw the poor wiener sample lady into a freezer case and steal her tray, nobody cares if you raid a few times. These people get bored like everyone else, and chatting or flirting will help you fill your belly.

Grocery Stores

Your local supermarket deli, produce section, and bakery may sometimes have a free sample any day of the week. They, most likely, will gladly give it to you, this is often corporate policy. Wearing crappy, tom, homemade clothes made from rags will sometimes buy you another piece or a bigger sample to start with out of sympathy but will more likely get you nothing more than thrown out on your ass.

If dressed and acting casual, asking the deli counter for a sandwich, salad, etc in most grocery stores will give you a free meal - as long as you eat it in the store. Just make sure not to take the packaging with you.

Sikh Temples

The Sikh religion believes in charity that will benefit the neighborhood and culture they live in. As a result, most temples offer a free meal to the community at least once a week, if not every day. Their cooking is mostly starches and curry, and they often offer second or third portions with enthusiasm. A bean or lentil curry will give you needed protein, the starches will keep you feeling full for the day!

Free Food For Your Own Church

Join the Universal life Church, a free and legally recognized Church. Once joined, you will be a legally ordained minister. Then ask for donations to your food bank.

This might require talking to some managers but if you find one that has a cross on, it just might work, because they're usually the holy types that will help. It doesn't hurt to have a few business cards printed up stating that you're the minister of the universal life church. A shirt and tie also helps this undertaking, but if you really want to do it up, bring a black long sleeve shirt, a minister's collar, a cheap cross necklace, and ULC membership card. This getup costs around $50, but can scam thousands of dollars worth of retail.

Please have a conscience about this. You can easily hoard way more food and clothing than you'd ever need this way, so help out your less fortunate sisters and brothers. Keep a month's worth of groceries and give the rest out to the less fortunate. Not only does this help others, but it no longer makes this a scam, as you are genuinely starting a food program for the poor.

A bible verse which may help you, and should be memorized, is this; "Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' "Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'" - Matthew 25:34-40. If you memorize this and talk about the "social gospel of Christ" and "the Sermon on the Mount" you can sway even hardcore Bible beaters into giving up loads of perfectly good stuff.

You might consider contacting the Mormons RELIEF SOCIETY groups. These people function as the welfare for Mormons and give their members free food. Contact them to see where and how in your area they are getting food for their food banks. Then tell them that you also are trying to start a food bank for your church. While they might try to convince you to join them a little bit, they are usually more than helpful because they will see you as someone who is trying to carry out charitable work.

Bird Bread

Most jurisdictions don't allow stores to sell items for human consumption after their sell by date, but they can sell them for other purposes. Its not uncommon for bakery thrifts to sell "bird bread". This is simply smooshed up bread one day after its sell by date. Use it in meat loaf. We also show how to make cheese from just expired milk to put on a handmade pizza in Cheap Chow.

Own a Pickup?

Make up a convincing-looking pamphlet IN COLOR at your local copy store or off your computer. It should say "Cans for Homeless Mothers" or some such, followed by various heart wrenching facts about how a can of food can feed someone for a day, etc. (Copy some text from a charity website if you are unsure.) Now, armed with your pamphlet and your pickup truck, go to your city's neighborhoods. For some reason, poorer neighborhoods are best, especially trailer parks. (Sorry, it's sad but true.) Now, go up to the door, show your pamphlet, and say "Can you spare a can or two of food for those in need?" Tell them you do not accept money, this is important! It builds trust, and they will give you more cans. Bring grocery bags. After a day of this, your pick-up will be filled with canned goods.

External Links to Free Food Resources

These are proposed solutions that will work in today's world.

• About.com Frugal Living Directory - http://frugalliving.about.com/od/?once=true& (This site contains tons of tricks for getting free food. Some are best suited to those -with access to stoves and kitchens.)

• Dumpster Diving FAQ - http://ranprieur.com/misc/dumpster.html

• The Dumpster Lady (Website down, but archived) -

http://members.aol.com/TheDumpsterLady/thedumpsterlady.htm

• Dumpster World Forum - http://www.dumpsterworld.com

• Feeding America Food Bank Locator - http://feedingamerica.org/foodbank-results.aspx

• Food Not Bombs - http://www.foodnotbombs.net

• Instructables Tutorial on Dumpster Diving - http://www.instructables.com/id/Dumpster-Dipping-for-a-small- planet-or-just-for-f/

• Soup Kitchens USA - http://4homeless.hypermart.net/soup_kitchens.html

• Trashwiki - A wiki about dumpster diving - http://trashwiki.org/

Food Programs

Food not Bombs

Ask around to see if your town has a Food Not Bombs chapter. FNB groups in cities across the US and several other countries serve healthy, free, vegan food to anyone who wants it. Most chapters serve at least once a week, some serve everyday. FNB groups usually serve in a public place, such as a park or town square. Food Not Bombs groups will also often agree to provide food at large gatherings, such as protest marches, picket lines, disaster areas, activist conferences, etc. provided they have the resources to do so. Go to http://www.foodnotbombs.net for more info, including an (incomplete) list of active groups.

Food Stamps (SNAP)

The Food Stamp program is always around if you qualify. Food Stamps are now debit cards that can be used like real debit cards at supermarkets for storable food goods. More information is in the ‘Welfare’ section of ‘Free

Money’.

WIC

This is a state-run federal program that gives baby formula, juice, powdered milk, and cereal to folks who have just had a baby. The food can be either picked up from a central location or bought from a store depending on the state.

You can stay on it until your kid turns 5 years old. The income cut-off levels are also fairly easy to meet.

http://www.fns.usda.gov/wic/

Religious Organizations and Shelters

Often, organizations (especially religious clubs) at high schools, colleges, and community centers provide free breakfasts and snacks.

In some major cities, there are a few Krishna religious groups that often give out a free vegetarian meal if you sit in for a seminar (Fair warning: The food they serve can be VERY spicy!). Be advised the quality can vary wildly. Some groups have good resources for ingredients and skilled cooks that can make stuff that tastes great. Others are not quite as lucky and/or good.

Also, consider helping or going to your local homeless shelter. Not only can you help those in need but you can also get a free meal or two. Most shelters also have way more than they serve. Much of the excess food goes to waste. Sometimes they will give their volunteers some of the extra. Many have a walk-in cooler, freezer and pantry that are filled to the brim and at least half of it gets thrown out every week. Browse the back and take what looks good to feed you, your friends, your family and others less fortunate. After all, we could all use a free meal!

Feed a Yippie

If you are not up to direct action at least support our kids in the streets, use the large group recipes in Cheap Chow or whatever you can dumpster dive and support our troops! Please remember that we need to eat every day, put a chalk mark on the curb or sidewalk Wall Painting so we know you are willing to feed a traveling Yippie.

This page was last modified on 24 July 2010, at 14:07.

Cooking Basics

Hey McKids! Have you been raised all your life thinking that food comes from the drive through window? Do you grocery shop in the campus bookstore and 7-Eleven? Is your idea of home made food baking a cake from a box? Have you or your family just been dumped onto the street with no cash, or did you run out of cash on a trip across the country? No problem! This section will teach you tips on how to cook food for yourself, your family, your commune, your protest team, or your whole neighborhood with what is available. Also included are tips on getting ingredients or precooked foods, as well as tips on living independently of the prepackaged, super-processed existence that is the Amerikan food market. To make them easier to find Cheap Chow and Roadside Chow are in the appendix at the end of the book, these appendixes are not so much a recipe book than a diverse collection of low impact low cost lessons on preparing different easy to acquire foods.

A Few Helpful Hints on Cooking

Keep any loose clothing away from open flames, wash everything (especially your hands) that comes in contact with the food, always wash your hands after touching raw meats and eggs while cooking, use oven mitts, be careful how you handle anything sharp, keep a fire extinguisher handy, and remember that "Baking Powder" and "Baking Soda" are two completely different things (as are "Cream of Tartar" and "Tartar Sauce").

Grease and oil fires cannot be put out with water (It will actually make them worse by spreading the grease or oil over the surface of the water). If you don't have access to a fire extinguisher, be sure to keep a decent supply of baking soda or sand on hand whenever you cook, to control these fires. If need be you can also put them out by cutting off their oxygen supply, such as placing a lid on the pan. Always be careful of your appliances. Regularly check for gas leaks, holes, stripped cords, or other hazardous malfunctions. You may also want to see Cheap Chow and Low Impact Crashing for tips on living on your own and Farm It for tips on growing your own produce.

For consistency purposes, when reading the following recipes:

• tbs represents tablespoon(s)

• tsp represents teaspoon(s)

• qt represents quart(s)

• gal represents gallon(s)

• lbs. represents pounds

• oz represents ounce(s)

• c represents cup(s)

• C represents temperature in Celsius

• F represents temperature in Fahrenheit

Measurement Conversion Tables

Cup (c)	Fluid Ounce (oz)	Tablespoons (tbs)	Teaspoons (tsp)	Milliliters (ml)
1 c	8 oz	16 tbs	48 tsp	237 ml
3/4 c	6 oz	12 tbs	36 tsp	177 ml
2/3 c	5 1/3 oz	10 tbs + 2 tsp	32 tsp	158 ml
1/2 c	4 oz	8 tbs	24 tsp	118 ml
1/3 c	2 2/3 oz	5 tbs + 1 tsp	16 tsp	79 ml
1/4 c	2 oz	4 tbs	12 tsp	59 ml
1/8 c	1 oz	2 tbs	6 tsp	30 ml
1/16 c	0.5 oz	1 tbs	3 tsp	15 ml
USA Standard	Multiplied by	= Metric
Fluid Ounce (fl oz)	29.75	Milliliter (mL)
Gallon (gal)	3.785	Liter (L)
Ounce (oz)	28.35	Gram (g)
Pound (lb)	4.54	Kilogram (kg)
Metric	Multiplied by	= USA Standard
Milliliter (mL)	0.043	Fluid Ounce (fl oz)
Liter (L)	0.264	Gallon (gal)
Gram (g)	0.035	Ounce (oz)
Kilogram (kg)	2.202	Pound (lb)	Approximate Measurements (Used casually)

• "Tad" = 1/4 tsp

• "Dash" = 1/8 tsp

• "Pinch" = 1/16th tsp

• "Smidgin" = l/32nd tsp

Temperature Conversions

http://wi ki.stealthiswiki.org/wiki/Cooking_Basics

2/7

• Fahrenheit - 32 + 1.8 = Celsius

• Celsius x 1.8 + 32 = Fahrenheit

For times when you are moving around or on the road learn how to pinch out a teaspoon and tablespoon from your ingredients, it is not hard to learn just start by first pouring the measured dry ingredients into your hand when cooking so you get the feel for that volume liquids you just need to learn how much to pour to get the right amount. Mark your cup with measurements to use in cooking, get an idea of what one cup looks like, many small cheap disposable or kids cups are 8-9 ounces and might even be marked as such on the bottom.

Planning Meals

If you will be feeding a group it is useful to know some ways to get your crew to fill up on the cheap stuff so you can save on the expensive stuff. If possible start your meals with bread and simple soup, then let everyone fill up on the cheap starch like potato, rice, or easy steamed vegetables, finally serve the more expensive protein and fats. Many dishes can be served on a bed of rice which will absorb the gravy or drippings and prevent the waste. Make an attempt to serve meals that combine dark leafy vegetables, citrus fruits, healthy fats, and protein as well as meeting daily minimum calories for the work being done but not so far over that your group gets that All-American fatbody look. The kitchen is an egalitarian place and everyone is expected to take their turn, so if you are not cooking you should be cleaning up.

Waste Not

While dumpster diving can yield good stuff to eat even a trip into your fridge full of expired or soured foods can supply you with ingredients many people would throw out to help you stretch til your next paycheck or properly stored for tight times. Plenty more ideas in the appendixes Cheap Chow and Roadside Chow.

• Sour milk actually lasts pretty long once it glops up, use it in recipes that call for buttermilk, it is also a rising agent when used with baking soda(sodium bicarbonate) so in a way better to bake with than fresh milk

• Sour juice is just fermenting, you can keep it around with a loose cap for prison hooch but it can be subbed in for water when baking a cake adding flavor.

• moldy solid foods, don't eat unknown mold, cheeses and vegetables can be trimmed or scraped of mold or soft spots often saving the majority.

• Discolored meat, not a problem, even if it takes on a nasty smell washing and either long boiling or roasting it will make it safe to attempt to eat killing bacteria and toxins.

• Smelly fish can sometimes be washed with vinegar, again boiling in a soup for 30 min will sterilize any food

• Stale cereal, bread, cake, and snacks can often be put into a oven on low to bake dry to return crispness, cake and bread can be toasted for a snack or use in recipes.

• Most random vegetables and meats can be chopped and combined in a stir fry, if they are limp or flavorless just add garlic, soy sauce, honey, pepper, or sugar to spice it up a bit.

• For some people pressure canning leftovers in glass jars is less expensive than running or acquiring a refrigerator and leads to a far longer shelflife for food that just needs to be heated for a quick meal.

• Many leftovers can be boiling water bath canned without a pressure cooker using canning jars and a pot of boiling water by vinegar or salt brine canning, consult a recent canning recipe book.

Protein

Instant potatoes, com, and instant rice might fill us up and give us starch to bum as energy, you might skip a few days but your body needs protein to survive and be effective, here is a quick way to estimate your minimum daily protein requirement, either multiply your weight in kilograms by .8, or weight in pounds by .37, so a person who weighs 100 lbs needs 37 of protein per day, one who weighsl50 lbs. should eat 55 grams, and a 200-pound person should get 74 grams. Below is a table of foods to help you calculate your minimum protein intake.

• Tuna, 6 oz can - 40 grams of protein

• Tofu, 14 cup 20 grams protein

• Tofu, 1 oz, 2.3 grams

• Soy milk, 1 cup -6-10 grams

• Most beans (black, pinto, lentils, etc) about 7-10 grams protein per half cup of cooked beans

• Soy beans, 14 cup cooked - 14 grams protein

• Split peas, !4 cup cooked - 8 grams

• Peanut butter, 2 Tablespoons - 8 grams protein

• Almonds, % cup - 8 grams

• Peanuts, % cup - 9 grams

• Cashews, !4 cup - 5 grams

• Pecans, !4 cup - 2.5 grams

• Sunflower seeds, % cup - 6 grams

• Pumpkin seeds, % cup - 19 grams

• Flax seeds - % cup - 8 grams

• Egg, large - 6 grams protein

• Milk, 1 cup - 8 grams

• Cottage cheese, 14 cup -15 grams

• Yogurt, 1 cup - usually 8-12 grams, check label

• Soft cheeses (Mozzarella, Brie, Camembert) - 6 grams per oz

• Medium cheeses (Cheddar, Swiss) - 7 or 8 grams per oz

• Hard cheeses (Parmesan) - 10 grams per oz

• Ground pork 100%(check for fillers), 1 oz raw - 5 grams; 3 oz cooked - 22 grams

• Bacon, 1 slice - 3 grams

• Ham, 3 oz serving - 19 grams

• Most cuts of 100% beef(hamburger may contain filler) - 7 grams of protein per ounce

• Chicken meat, cooked, 4 oz - 35 grams

• Most fish fillets or steaks are about 22 grams of protein for 3 14 oz (100 grams) of cooked fish, or 6 grams per ounce

Flavors and Spices

Since most quality spices and flavors tend to be expensive when purchased it is useful to learn how to evaluate available flavor enhancers and improvise. Firstly learn what spices grow naturally around your location, you can have several kilograms of free spices hanging around drying in your place. Learn to use leftovers like citrus peels in your cooking. Sometimes you will be presented with a new herb or spice, a sniff and taste test may be useful for integrating that missing link into your recipes. Often candies and processed foods have useful natural and artificial flavors that can be used either whole, crushed, or dissolved in boiling water although allergy problems may result from the artificial flavors or colors. Chocolate and nuts can be found im many forms but can be chunked or ground to use as a flavoring. Absent chocolate powder freeze dried coffee or even a cup of strong coffee can add color and flavor to your recipe.

Pressure Cooking

Consider acquiring a quality pressure cooker, if you can find a 15 psi model it will cut your cooking time for beans and meats to 1/4 the time making a hour of boiling in an open pot only take 15 minutes. Look at department stores and at Hispanic or India food shops, don't bother with the old steam bombs made from the 50's through the 70's. It is pretty cool when you can do lentils and rice in about 15 minutes, or a pot roast that tastes like it ran overnight in around an hour even with the cheapest meat. The real bonus is the fuel savings if you have had your electricity and gas turned off and you are using a camp stove. Just be sure that there is always some liquid at the bottom of the cooker to start with or you wont be able to build pressure and might scorch your food.

Solar Cooking

Cooking food with the sun can be one of the cheapest ways to cook a meal, other than by making fire by rubbing two sticks together. If you have the free time, you can make a decent meal once you have your solar oven set up.

Basic Solar Cooker

Don't fall for expensive solar cookers; There's little that they can do that a cheap homemade solar cooker can't. At least nothing that would make them worth $100+. An effective solar cooker can be made out of a car windshield reflector for less than $15. If you can't even afford that, you can cut/collapse a cardboard box and tape or paste aluminum foil to it. The advantage to the windshield reflector is that it is collapsible and more durable. If you're into long hikes in unknown territory, having a windshield reflector solar cooker may be a good way to conserve fuel, but unless you have a few weeks of experience and very hot and clear weather you will be eating cold or spoiled food.

The only other part you'll need for your solar cooker will be some kind of oven/microwave resistant bag or container for the food.

It's entirely possible to cook a whole chicken in a few hours using a solar cooker if there is enough sunlight. Place the windshield reflector in a way that is parabolic in nature(sunlight should enter and reflect inward onto the food). Fill your container with your chicken, and whatever seasonings you choose, and place it in the middle of your solar cooker. Then just aim it towards the sun. You will probably have to adjust the direction your cooker is facing due to the changing position of the sun in the sky. After 3 to 4 hours, with the right conditions, you will have a fully- cooked chicken ready to eat.

The possibilities with a solar cooker are seemingly endless. If the only fowl you have access to are wild birds and park ducks, a solar cooker will work perfectly to cook your lunch or dinner while you're trying to catch more food. Should also work well with fish.

While you will not get to boiling temperatures, the temperature created by a solar cooker should be sufficient for killing germs. If you can, obtain a thermometer and use it to make sure the food temperature reaches around 165 F or finish up by cooking to a boil over a fire.

Using Old Cookbooks

When looking for something out of the ordinary to make for a meal, you may come across a few older cookbooks. A number were written during the Great Depression using simple ingredients (such as "Aunt Sammy's Radio

http://wiki.stealthiswiki.org/wiki/Cooking-Basics 5/7

Recipes" produced by the US Department of Agriculture). Some written during World War 2 may feature a number of meatless recipes since civilian sales of many foods were rationed so the Armed Forces could be fed. You may have to cut back on some of the fatty ingredients since such things as "cholesterol" and "trans fats" were not as widely known as they are today. Many of the older cookbooks were written back in the days before microwave ovens, and some terms may seem unfamiliar to folks today. Here are a few that you may come across.

• Double Boiler: This is a two-tiered saucepan that is used to melt things like cheese and chocolate. It uses the heat from boiling water in the bottom to melt the item in the top pan, since direct heat from the flames can bum it. If a recipe says to mix something "over boiling water", this is what they mean. These are still being made, but you may have to buy yours at a specialty cooking store. You can also make your own by placing a pan over another pan, but be careful that they fit properly so that they won't slip or bum you from the steam.

• Double Cream: An old term for Heavy Cream.

• Hard-Wheat and Soft-Wheat Flours: Hard-Wheat flour was used for yeast breads and Soft-Wheat was used for pastries, cakes and quick-breads. Just use All-Purpose or Whole Wheat flour.

• Nutmeats: These are nuts (often walnuts or almonds) chopped into little pieces. (Note: Peanuts aren't nuts; they're legumes, a kind of bean.)

• Rich Milk: Back in the day when almost all milk delivered by the milkman was Certified (that is, nonhomogenized), the cream in the milk would rise and collect in the neck of the bottle. This was called "Rich Milk", "Top Milk" or "Top of Milk" and was used in a number of recipes. You can substitute Light Cream for this.

• Scalded Milk: You're to bring the milk almost to a boil (using a Double Boiler). This often helps the cooking process in some recipes.

• Single Cream: An old term for Light Cream.

• Skim (or Skimmed) Milk: Another term for "Fat Free" Milk.

• Soda: Not a soft drink, but Baking Soda, also known as Sodium Bicarbonate or Bicarbonate of Soda.

• Top Milk (or Top of Milk): See "Rich Milk".

• Yeast Cake: This is a small 0.6 ounce block of active yeast (about a tablespoon) that is used in baking. It is rarely seen in supermarkets anymore, since it is highly perishable and doesn't transport very well. Substitute it with 2 1/4 teaspoons of Active Dry Yeast (what you'll find in those yeast packets in the store). If the recipe calls for a 2 ounce yeast cake, use three packets or 6 3/4 teaspoons of Active Dry Yeast.

• A Note About Pasta: Some cookbooks from back in the 1930's mention cooking pasta for as much as 20 minutes. This was when pasta was made with much denser dough than today. Ignore the time suggestion and just boil until tender unless you are using our home made pasta recipe. If the pasta is to be used in a casserole, undercook it, since it will continue to cook when it's in the oven.

External Links

Budget 101: Make Your Own Mixes and Convenience Foods - http://www.budgetl01.com/frugal/mix-recipes-166/

The Cook's Thesaurus: http://www.foodsubs.com/ "(A) cooking encyclopedia that covers thousands of ingredients and kitchen tools. Entries include pictures, descriptions, synonyms, pronunciations, and suggested substitutions."

Fankhauser's Cheese Page - http://biology.clc.uc.edu/Fankhauser/Cheese/cheese.html College level cheese making with some easy Italian recipes.

Great Depression Cooking with Clara - http://www.greatdepressioncooking.com YouTube videos of recipes from hard times, demonstrated by a woman who lived through those years.

Instructables: Home Made Bread without Breadmaker - http://www.instructables.com/id/EF95ZHYF3435TlQ/

Instructables: Solar Powered Parabolic Cooker - http://www.instructables.com/id/ESNVFBHF48U7G77/ An Instructable on zero-impact cooking.

Open Cola - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenCola_%28drink%29 The only home made cola released under the GNU General Public License!

Recipe Goldmine - http://www.recipegoldmine.com/ "Better Than A Thousand Cookbooks!"

RecipeSource - http://www.recipesource.com/ "Your Source for Recipes on the Internet"

Wikibooks: Cookbooks - http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cookbook Recipes from Wikimedia

Hunting

When we talk about hunting, we are not talking about sport hunting. Nor or we talking about expensive "beer" camps for the rich and bored to escape their nagging trophy wives. We are talking about poaching, butchering, and cooking an animal with good meat to feed ourselves. We could care less about a bear rug, antlers over the fireplace, or other things. Never forget that by hunting you have removed a living, breathing creature from the flow of life. Whether it's a beetle or a buck, it has the same spirit and not to utilize the whole animal would be a waste. Give thanks and appreciate that a living being gave up its life for you.

See also Piece Now

• 5.1 Birds

• 5.2 Furred animals

• 5.3 Snake

• 5.4 Gutting

What You need

First, you are going to need some sort of weapon or trap. Bambi the deer and Thumper the rabbit are not exactly going to walk up to you and let you eat them. This means you are going to need a gun. If you have a felony or are opposed to firearms due to some moral code, you can still hunt with composite bows and crossbows (although bows take far more skill and practice). Piece Now has more information on firearms as gun self defense and hunting have many topics that overlap.

Firearms are good for the occasional target of opportunity but in terms of bringing home the meat traps and snares are far more effective. Browsing a military survival manual will show several humane and inhumane traps, you will have to decide the level of your hunger to balance it against the cruelty level of your traps, you must plan how to deal with a wounded or trapped live animal that will not get you injured or killed. Walk all trap lines as frequently as possible especially if you are using traps which could wound animals, laziness is cruelty when using traps.

There is a limited capacity renewal capacity in every ecosystem, it is quite possible to hunt out an area to the point where there are no food animals left, this can be expected especially if it has become common for the local population to hunt to provide sustenance food.

If you do not know how to shoot or have never hunted before, it is strongly recommended to practice or get training first before depending on this to put meat on the table. Air rifles and BB guns are excellent to get a feel for things then move up to a .22. It is also highly recommended you accompany successful, seasoned hunters many times to learn the tricks of the trade that really can not be taught in a book or magazine article.

Second, you are probably going to look into a hunting or fishing license to avoid oppression from Smokey the Pig. These are issued by each state. Usually, they are pretty cheap ranging from around 10 USD to 30 USD. If you are an American Indian, many states will let you forgo needing a license if you carry an ID identifying your race as such or have tribal membership papers. Some states will not issue licenses or revoke licenses to those that owe back child support or have committed certain crimes.

Third, you need a place where you can hunt. If you live in a rural area, you have it made. If not, the best you may be able to do is Urban Pigeon!

Firearm Observations

A .22 rifle is a great gun and a good starter weapon with not as much kick. Don't use it for large game (anything larger than a rabbit) unless you're a sadist. A .22 caliber rifle beats the others out for light weight and inexpensive ammunition, you can easily pack a 500 round package of ammo and it only weighs a few pounds.

Larger firearms will bring more success and less wounded run-aways, shotguns can take down flying birds but this requires skill and ammunition is very heavy. There are special semi-auto backpacking .22 rifles that disassemble and some even float, but again, unless you want to torture a deer to death, anything below .223 is not recommended.

If you are using a black powder firearm .32 is considered the small game caliber. Some air guns especially those in .22 caliber can rival a powder burning firearm. Slingshots with lead balls and lots of practice can be powerful enough to use for sustenance hunting although are mostly only useful at very short range. Learn to take careful shots and not rapid fire.

Wire snares and improvised traps are still a better way to collect animals for food but a firearm lets you grab opportunity shots and safely euthanasia animals in traps.

If hunting large game (Deer, elk, antelope, and in some states even turkey), .270 Winchester is a good round. JO- SO is also a very common and handy round which can take most game at medium ranges pretty much anything above a .223 or so will be sufficient. When hunting more dangerous game like bear, elk and moose, a .30-06, .308, or larger is commonly used (7.62x51 or 7.62x63 mm, respectively.)

Animals like bees, and most bird, can be smoked out. Building a leafy, smoky fire under a bee's nest can cause them to pour out, leaving their honey sitting there in the hive for you to take it. Birds require something different; they need the smoke to be blown in their face, it retards them.

Spotlighting Deer

Deer are naturally attracted to bright light. So much so, that sometimes they stand in the road staring at an oncoming car, causing wrecks. Some folks exploit this behavior. Usually, this involves driving a all terrain vehicle up on some land and shining a high powered spotlight towards the edge of the woods. When the deer gets mezmorized by the bright light, another person waiting with a rifle shoots it dead. Fresh venison and weeks of food follow after.

Be careful if you do this, though. It is ILLEGAL in most areas. If Smokey the Pig catches you, this is a HUGE fine, possible jail, community service, and loss of any hunting license.

Roadkill

If the animal just got a broken neck or thorax crushed and the flies haven't got to it often the meat will be in perfect quality, as long as the meat you are able to salvage is well cooked you're ok. For cycle campers seeing a squashed animal on the road is a daily occurrence; learn how to butcher your rabbits and birds before you leave and you're guaranteed an easy meal nearly every day. If you find you can't salvage the meat you can always use the guts and any maggots it's attracted for fish or trap bait. If you are really hard up even maggot infested meat is fine to eat once well cooked, the maggots actually clean away the rot first and fatten themselves up on the good meat second. Don't be squeamish, if you are close to the edge maggots are actually extremely nutritious as they have to store up for their metamorphosis into flies, more so actually than the roadkill meat. If possible save the valuable skin.

Urban Pigeon

If the soup kitchens are providing nothing but watered broth and the dumpsters are picked clean there is still an easy source of protein if you are careful and fits your philosophy. First of all realize that this is both controversial in that some will call it cruelty and secondly it could be an excuse for the pigs to haul you in.

While in China rat is sold in markets and raccoon, cat, rabbit, and squirrel all exist in the urban zones they are too often diseased or dangerous as they will fight back. Some birds like seagulls and crows are just too gross because of their diet of vermin infested animals and rotten garbage, but the occasional dove, goose, or duck while more difficult to trap should be good to eat.

The best meat we can get for free is the simple stupid urban pigeon. The easiest way to catch them is with a little bread trail for bait, a box with a stick holding it propped up, and about twenty feet of string. A cardboard box might need a rock or brick on top for weight to help it drop closed faster. It goes like this, bird follows trail of bread under box, you pull string, stick lets box fall, bird is trapped. You can use other methods like nets or a loop of string and hope to catch a leg but the box method seems the easiest and most humane. Put your hand under the box and grab your bird, he won't bite (if he does, it won't hurt), be quick so he won't hurt himself flapping, grip around his body pinning down his wings and covering his head which will calm him down a lot.

Look him over: are his feathers looking healthy or is he shedding and scabby? Is he infested with bugs or weak and sluggish? Are his eyes looking filmy or gross? If so let him go and wash your hands he is probably diseased. If he looks good snap or cut his neck quickly (with a new razor blade) so it will be over for him. Cut him open from neck to tail and look his insides over, are they glistening smooth and come out easily (good) or are they all stuck together and spotty(sick), if they look bad or wormy again chuck him out and let a cat or raccoon find him, he was not long for this world anyway. Rinse out the gut area with safe water before proceeding. You might consider plucking before cutting open (it is too hard after) to save the skin and fats, but most of us just peel the skin off and cook like a mini chicken. A pigeon soup would be the safest way to go, let it boil for at least a half hour, but an hour is better, drink or save the broth. For smaller birds like doves sometimes the breasts are all that is worth taking for pan frying but see what you can salvage of other parts at least for stew stock.

A rubber wrist rocket type slingshot, high power air pistol (.22 pellet is very good, not those wimpy BB guns), even a thrown stone can be used to zap birds at a bit longer distance but if you get caught shooting in the park expect a night minimum in the clink and your stuff confiscated for your effort. Alternatively you can build your own slingshot by using a Y shaped branch, a strip of inner tire tube (found at the local dumpster or tire shop trash) and some strong thread. Proceed to tie the ends of the rubber to the branch with strong thread loops, until it gets firmly attached. It will cost you nothing to build some, and you can even trade them later with other survivalists.

Anyone who eats meat but is offended by this idea must remember that at least this bird lived a completely free life and died quickly unlike the factory cage chickens you might be eating from the store.

Gutting and preparing meat

For people who've never done this before it may be a daunting task, but once you've learnt how to it is quite easy. Before you start, if possible sharpen your cutting tool as much as possible, it's always preferable to have a good sharp knife but you can get by in a pinch with a piece of sharp rock, a piece of clean sharp glass etc.

Birds

For feathered game such as pigeons, just flip it onto it's back and pluck away all the feathers on its front side surrounding the breast, they should just pull off pretty easily. After you've done this, feel around until you've got the very top of the ribcages and make a cut following them along, cutting all of the breast off as you go trying to cut off as much meat as you can. As soon as you've cut it off plunge it in a bowl of water and clean it thoroughly to get any dirt/blood etc off of it, be especially careful if the animal has been shot with a shotgun to remove any pellets that may have been embedded in the flesh. On pigeons the breast is the only meat worth taking, although on larger birds such as pheasant the legs have good (although sinuous) meat as well. If you have the time and are making stews or pies then the carcass can be used to make a very tasty stock, in this case pluck all the feathers off, gut as below and clean thoroughly.

Furred animals

The majority of animals that you'll find as roadkill or easily be able to hunt will be furred animals for which the procedure is a bit different. It is preferable to have a very sharp knife for this, so you can cut the skin cleanly and not cut too deep. Again flip the animal on it's back and make an incision from the anus up towards the throat. Try to cut only through the skin and not to make this too deep or you risk puncturing the guts, which is quite messy. If it's a large male animal some suggest tying some string around the penis so it doesn't leak urine and then cutting around it. From this point, you have to remove the hide from all of the animal, which can be used for a lot of different things once you've treated and tanned it. Make an incision along each of the legs now, either cutting the feet off or slicing a ring around the ankles and start cutting the skin away from the body. Start by pulling up the skin and gently cutting through the layers of connective tissue, trying not to cut into the meat. It should be pretty obvious where to cut, and with bigger animals once you've got a good portion of it off it should pull off with your fists underneath it. At this point cut the head and tail off, save the head as it can be used for tanning the hides. Now you'll have a large carcass and it should be pretty obvious where the meat is. Gut the animal (see below). After this, with small animals it can be easier just to put the whole carcass into a pot of stew, boil it for a good 40mins+, making the flesh softer after which the nice bits can be peeled off, put into a pot of stew and the carcass discarded. Larger animals such as deer need split up and either eaten quite quickly or preserved. With roadkill it may be easier to simply cut the legs off rather than going through the process of gutting it etc, there is a fair bit of meat on the body but if you're on the side of a road then it may be easier just cutting the legs off.

Snake

Snake is good meat! It is a bit on the bony side, though, but it more than makes up for it by being easy to get. One can kill all but the largest snakes with a decent club or rock, or even by stomping them. If you manage to kill a decent sized rattlesnake, water moccasin, or cottonmouth just cut of the head (and rattler if it has one) and slice down the underside. Snake is really good if you take it and shake the skinned snake up in a paper bag with com meal and fry it. Cajuns and folks out in Texas swear by it and there are even rattlesnake festivals in those parts. Careful though, many snakes are deadly poisonous if they take bites out of you before you can take bites out of them!

Gutting

Now make an incision from the belly upwards, carefully cutting through the abdominal wall without cutting into the guts, which should now spill outwards. Put a hand inside and pull out the guts, cutting them away where they're still attached. The heart, lungs and liver on most animals are still very edible although strong tasting and can be used in stews etc chopped up finely.

Fishing

Fishing as a food source is a useful skill in some parts of the world. If you know what you are doing you might be able to supplement your protein intake with some lightweight gear. Forget about hobbyist fly fishing gear, we want the food.

Watch out for fish and game cops, they can take all of your gear, car, or boat as a punishment leaving you destitute if you are accused of poaching or using illegal non-sporting fishing methods. If you're really heavy into fishing, a license and state fishing rules book can usually be had for around $5 over the counter at any sporting goods store, and it’s better safe than sorry. Look up the local laws on fishing so you know how you are legally permitted to fish and how to identify the fish it is legal to catch! Your "friendly" local ranger can now carry a gun, tazer and pepper spray, so ask yourself if saving the money is worth it in the face of police brutality.

General Guide

In over fished areas forget about wasting your time. Sport fishers, hunters and gatherers are often out in huge numbers during hard times and will often cause many years of damage from taking too much from the ecosystem.

Fishing licenses are usually cheap too, but you can get away without if you stay away from heavily trafficked lakes or streams. Fish is one of the most nutritious meats around, and all you have to do is scale the fish and cut out the guts (Which can be used for bait, as well) to eat that fresh, slippery sucker.

Fish can be kept in a rocked off area of the river for future eating, or for fattening them up. If you're lucky enough to get a hold of turtle eggs, i'd recommend leaving them where they are, and coming back for them when they're little and hatched. Depending on how long you're out there, you could raise them up just like regular farm animals, and eat them! The shell makes a great pressure cooker, with them in it!

Gear

Cheap fishing gear can be found in any pawn shop. Bobbers, hooks and sinkers all sell for under a dollar at most sporting goods stores, but they're usually small enough to steal for the really cheap. Dig up worms in a rainstorm, throw them in a styrofoam cup with a soil and cornmeal mix and cast away.

A telescoping pole and spinning reel will do the trick without breaking your bank or back but a stick and floss will work in a pinch. Some six pound test monofilament line will bag most small river fish, but as said before, a pawn shop can hold a treasure trove of high quality fishing gear. Estate or garage sales are also worth a look.

Rods

A fishing rod is an important, yet durable tool for fishing. There are many different types and "actions" (strength) of rod. Stronger action rods are more suited to larger fish, yet are less sensitive to bites. That said, a medium-light action rod can catch most freshwater fish and anything too large for the rod will break the line first. Most rods are graphite these days, although fiberglass is stronger and more sensitive. Like most fishing gear, rods are being updated with all sorts of totally useless features designed to fleece the rich out of their cash, so you can often find "last year's" models on sale for cheap.

Reels

A good reel is a good investment. The third world made models will break down fairly quickly, but a good reel will last a lifetime. The two main types of reel are spinning and bait casting. Spinning reels are more versatile and easy to use, whereas bait casting reels are generally heavy duty, but harder to cast and use. As a rule, good reels are made outside of China, and can be found in pawn shops. You can also find good deals on discontinued, but perfectly good reels in many sporting goods stores. Many of these are just "outdated" models, which will still perform just fine and last as long as you want to keep them.

Techniques

Ask locals their favorites but in general worms, com, insects, and dough balls all work good, it won't hurt to carry some flashy, rattly, and spinny lures with your gear. These can easily and cheaply be made. Walleye and pike fishermen throughout the world use a simple lure called a crawler harness, which consists of a spinner blade (Cheap, flashy stamped metal in a teardrop shape with a hole on the top for the line), colored beads and 2 hooks, allowing the use of a whole worm. Add some sinkers and you have a cheap, effective lure. If you have a little money, the supplies for making lures can be very cheaply obtained. Get a big assortment pack of fish hooks, they weigh and cost very little and are useful for a hobo on the move even if you just use a stick pole and dental floss. A bobber hangs your bait off of the bottom in still water, moving water requires casting out and recovering as it floats downstream, you can use a dry stick as a bobber if needed. For simple hook and bobber fishing, you'll also need sinkers, which are simple lead weights that go on between the hook and bobber. They are also very cheap, and you should get an assortment. Bigger weights make the bait sink faster and deeper, whereas smaller weights can be used to suspend it slightly off the bottom.

A small net at the end of a large triangle of rocks laid in the river to guide the fish in will make a good trap. A series of baited hooks in the water strung to tree branches above, the fish will stay alive as long as they are still underwater. Check your fish traps regularly as they are at risk from poaching by raccoons. Spear fish in the shallows as you are setting up your nets or hook traps with a barbed frog spear tip on a stick.

Bombing fish in a pond with chlorine bleach is classless destruction, it will bring fish to the surface but will often kill the whole ecosystem. Instead use rotenone from the organic plant store or crush green husks from butternuts or black walnuts. Throw the husks into still or slow moving water, it will do the trick just stunning the fish without killing the other animals, collect and eat or salt and smoke all fish you stun.

Fish Tickling

Although harder than other methods, fish tickling is a common method of catching fish without any equipment. It involves getting the fish you want to under a rock, or some other natural barrier it can't back out of, and slowly moving your hand towards it until you can tickle its belly. The fish will become relaxed to a point where you can grab it and throw it onto the ground or catch it in a net.

Preparation

If you catch a fish it should have firm and elastic flesh, clear and full eyes, bright red gills, a clean pleasant odor, and an absence of reddish discoloration on the ventral side of the backbone, i.e. the side of the backbone that’s on the inside of the fish. Cloudy, sunken eyes and gray colored gills are the first recognizable signs of old, decaying fish. When the head, gills, and backbone are gone, like at a store, rely on your sense of smell and touch. Worn out or dying fish have much less nutritional value but cooking them will remove danger of illness and parasites.

To clean a fish smash the brain area to kill it, then cut from the anus to the throat, remove guts(these are good fish bait, and can also be used to trap minnows and crayfish), and use a dull knife to scrape off the scales. Some fish are best filleted from the ribs but small ones are easier to leave in and remove when you eat it. Pan-fry most fish with a little oil and spices, a favorite is to use banana or other large leaves with a pleasant or neutral flavor to wrap the fish for roasting, if possible rub the fish with oil, lemon and/or pepper is nice for flavor. Salt water and a smoke pit is a way to preserve fish for a longer time, even without salt a dry smoked fish will keep for a few weeks. Another cheap and tasty way of preparing fish is dredging fillets in egg, flour then bread crumbs, seasoning with salt, pepper and paprika, and frying With all cooking methods remember fish cooks quickly like eggs, over cook it and it will get tough. Pike and similar fish contain lots of small bones, so be sure to bone the meat before cooking.

Foraging

The gathering of food is a concept that has been almost entirely abandoned by modem man, making it a forgotten science and art(when it comes to preparation). During travel, survival, or when food is quickly needed. What most people don't realize is that perfectly edible food grows everywhere, making foraging a viable survival method.

Much of the information in this article comes from both user experience and the U.S. Army Survival Handbook.

Safety

Many poisonous plants appear similar to other plants which would be edible. One example would be poison hemlock; appears to be very similar to wild carrot. The most important step to eating wild plants is to know your plant. It's good to study what kinds of plants are edible and how to distinguish them. That way when the time comes to use your knowledge, you can spare yourself from the danger of testing plants you are not familiar with.

One good way to prevent yourself from eating poisonous material is to avoid eating plants which have wilted. Some plants can become poisonous after wilting. Also avoid eating any fruits that don't appear ripe, because some fruits like Elderberry can be poisonous before they are fully ripe.

If you are inexperienced at foraging, it is best that you stay away from mushrooms all-together, even in a survival situation. Many mushrooms look similar and there are many kinds of poisonous mushrooms.

Avoid unnecessary contact with unfamiliar plants. Some plants can cause dermatitis(severe skin rash) which can be dangerous without proper health care. Symptoms can occur from minutes to hours. If your skin comes in contact with a poisonous plant, try to scrub off the plant oil using soap and water. If no soap is available, you can use dirt unless blisters have formed(since blisters open you up to infection). If a plant has spines or prickles, and you feel you must handle it, do so using gardening gloves or a durable material.

Ingestion poisoning can cause a variety of bad symptoms, from diarrhea, to hallucinations, to coma, and death. If you or someone else has consumed poisonous material, the best way to prevent the poison from causing serious damage is to induce vomiting. Vomiting can be induced from either tickling the back of the throat or consuming warm salty water. Whether vomiting can be induced or not, it is also important for the victim to consume a large amount of water or milk, as this will help to dilute the poison.

Avoiding Poisonous Plants

These are some general rules for avoiding poisonous plants. There are many exceptions to these rules when it comes to known edible plants, but these rules will make a desperate situation more safe.

Plant traits to avoid:

• Milky or discolored sap.

• Beans, bulbs, or seeds inside pods.

• Bitter or soapy taste.

• Spines, fine hairs, or thorns.

• Dill, carrot, parsnip, or parsley-like foliage.

• "Almond" scent in woody parts and leaves.

• Grain heads with pink, purplish, or black spurs.

• Three-leaved growth pattern.

Universal Edibility Test

From the U.S. Army Survival Handbook:

If there are no familiar plants available, or if there is any doubt of the edibility of a plant, it might be necessary to conduct an edibility test. The edibility test takes at least 24 hours to conduct.

To prepare, each part of the plant must be gathered and separated(leaves, stalk, roots, flowers, etc).

To test:

1 .) Test only one part of a potential food at a time.

2 .) Separate the plant into it's basic components - leaves, stems, roots, buds, and flowers.

3 .) Smell the food for strong acid odors. Remember, smell alone does not indicate whether a plant is edible or inedible.

4 .) Do not eat 8 hours before starting the test.

5 .) During the 8 hours you abstain from eating, test for contact poisoning by placing a piece of the plant part you are testing on the inside of your elbow or wrist. Usually 15 minutes is enough time to allow for a reaction.

6 .) During the test period, take nothing by mouth except purified water and the plant part you are testing.

7 .) Select a small portion of a single part and prepare it in the way you plan to eat it.

8 .) Before placing the prepared plant part in your mouth, touch a small portion(a pinch) to the outer surface of your lip to test for burning or itching.

9 .) If after 3 minutes there is no reaction on your lip, place the plant part on your tongue, holding it there for 15 minutes.

10 .) If there is no reaction, thoroughly chew a pinch and hold it in your mouth for 15 minutes. Do not swallow.

11 .) If no burning, itching, numbing, stinging, or other irritation occurs during the 15 minutes, swallow the food.

12 .) Wait 8 hours. If any ill effects occur during this period, induce vomiting and drink a lot of water.

13 .) If no ill effects occur, eat 0.25 cup of the same plant prepared the same way. Wait another 8 hours. If no ill effects occur, the plant part as prepared is safe for eating.

CAUTION Test all parts of the plant for edibility, as some plants have both edible and inedible parts. Do not assume that a part that proved edible when cooked is also edible when raw. Test the part raw to ensure edibility before eating raw. The same part or plant may produce varying reactions in different individuals.

Ethical Foraging Guidelines

Like a good friend, the earth provides us with free chow, so we must take the proper steps to sustain this relationship.

14 ) Never pick too much of a plant from one area. If you must harvest a large amount, pick a moderate amount from several locations. Picking too much from a single area can affect the edible plant population and effect the local ecosystem.

15 ) Always get permission when necessary! If a certain plant is on private property, contact the owner for their permission to harvest from their plant. Most people won't care and will allow you to do so if you are polite and honest. You generally won't need permission if you are picking a plant from a park or anywhere that's public property unless you are in a protected area or a county park. While you technically can pick what you want, it's a good idea to ask local experts what should be picked and what shouldn't be picked. Many edible plants are considered invasive or non-native, in which case you are free to pick what you like. Try to go for plants that grow fast and aren't endangered.

16 ) Make sure to leave enough for the animals!

17 ) If you happen to obtain seeds from a plant that you have eaten, it is a good idea to plant those seeds in the same area you picked from.

Edible Plants

Here is a list of relatively common plants that are edible and easy to identify.

Acorns

You can collect wild acorns for free and then turn them into a meal similar to com meal! Just gather a decent amount of acorns and shell them with a nutcracker or a stone. Grind the meat inside in a blender with water until it is a smooth paste, or hand grind it into a similar consistency. Now, you must place the ground meats into a colander lined with a paper towel and rinse thoroughly several times. You will notice that the water that runs out is milky. You are draining a bitter substance called tannic acid that rendered the meal inedible unless it is drained out. Repeat until the water that runs out is clear. Taste the meal to make sure. Too much tannic acid in your meal makes it bitter and can damage your kidneys over time, so be sure the water runs clear. After letting it dry, you can use it in a manner similar to cornmeal or flour. Use it to make pancakes, muffins, biscuits, cookies, etc.

Another method for leaching the acorns is to pour the paste into a stocking and filter out the tannic acid by running the stocking under running water. This will make it possible to process acorns even without a sink; The stocking can by placed in a stream or a river like the Native Americans used to do.

During the Civil War, acorns were used as a coffee substitute. Take plump, round acorns and shell them. Brown them in an oven and grind them with a coffee grinder. Brew as you normally would coffee. If needed, you can use this as an extender for coffee. Just remember that they can be very bitter, and won't taste as good as regular coffee.

Acorns from the white oak tree are considered to be the best, since they tend to be very large and have the least amount of bitter tannic acid in comparison to other varieties of acorns. Native Americans used to fight over these trees because they sometimes have a very large yield, hence these trees became very valuable.

Chickweed (Stellaria)

Chickweed is a ground-covering plant with small alternating leaves and little white blossoms. There are some other plants that are referred to as chickweed, such as Mouse-ear Chickweed, but these are not true chickweed. True chickweed is part of the stellaria genus, whilst false chickweeds are usually of the the Cerastium genus.

Location: There are many species of chickweed, all of which look very similar to one-another. The common chickweed(stellaria media) can be found on forest floors throughout North America, Europe, and even Australia. It has also been naturalized in Japan. Chickweed can also be found in fields and disturbed ground. While it usually grows on it's own, if you come across Miner's Lettuce, there is a good chance that common chickweed will be growing among it.

Identification: All true chickweeds are edible, but some false chickweeds are not. One way to identify chickweed is to examine the stem for a small single line of hairs growing up one side of the stems. In case you are not sure you have chickweed, you can take one of the stems and bend and twist part of it until the outer part of the stem comes apart; You there should still be a small white elastic fiber connecting the two parts of the broken stem. This might take a few tries. Chickweed tastes very similar to com silk, so if you are willing, you can taste one of the leaves to verify the correct flavor. If any of these 3 tests fail, you probably don't have chickweed.

Preparation: It can be consumed as a leaf vegetable in salads. Can be boiled, but like many wild greens, it will shrink significantly if boiled.

Dandelion

Dandelions are quite possibly one of the ultimate famine foods. Many people believe that they are a worthless and poisonous weed. They can't be further from the truth. Not only are they completely edible, but they grow just about everywhere and they contain more vitamins and minerals than other leafy greens such as spinach. A cup of dandelion leaves contains 112% daily recommendation of vitamin A, 32% of vitamin C, and 535% of vitamin K and 218 mg potassium, 103 mg calcium, and 1.7 mg of iron. The entire plant can be eaten and used for different purposes. The leaves can either be made into or added to a salad or blanched by boiling in salty water. The root can either be eaten and cooked like any other root, or can be roasted and ground up to be used as a coffee substitute(like Chicory). The flowers can be used to make a tea or can be made into fritters. If you can find an abundant amount of flowers, it's possible to use them for making wine. Keep in mind that dandelion greens are somewhat bitter, so you may decide to blanch the leaves by adding them to boiling salt water(make sure you have a lot of leaves because dandelion leaves tend to shrink significantly when boiled). However the bitterness isn't intolerable and it's possible to acquire a taste for it. A simple dressing made of olive oil and vinegar with a little salt and pepper will make the greens more palatable.

More misconceptions about dandelions are that they are harmful to your garden. Dandelions are very efficient growers and will not harm your garden as long as there are not too many of them. You may even consider planting some in your victory garden because they grow extremely quickly and can become quite large when taken care of.

Dandelions can also be used for medicinal purposes. They are already very nutritious, but they can be used as an antioxidant and a diuretic. It's said that they are also good for kidney and liver cleansing.

False Dandelion (Catsear)

Catsear is known as the "False Dandelion" because of it's strikingly similar appearance. An easy way to tell the difference between a dandelion and a catsear is to check the stalk to see if it's hollow; If it's hollow, it's likely to be a dandelion. If it isn't hollow, it's more likely to be a catsear. Dandelions also have only one flower per stalk. Catsear can have multiple flowers branch off of the stalk. Other plants have these traits though, so a better way to be sure it's a catsear is if it's leaves are similar to that of the dandelion.

Catsears are edible and can be used in most of the same ways that a real dandelion could be. However it's nutritional value is unclear.

Field Corn

When riding the rails or hitchhiking you will often find fields of com waiting to feed you hungry travelers. If you are lucky you will be near sweet com, but field or dent com(animal feed) while not sweet is edible, if it is dried out you can pound or grind into cornmeal. You can eat com raw but cooking will make it taste much better. Pull the silk out of the top but don't remove the husk(leaves covering the com). Some people will pour a little salty water in to flavor before cooking but it is optional. Wrap the husk tightly and either wrap in foil and place in the edge of the coals or place on a grille and cover, turn every few minutes. Add salt spices and butter to your liking, cooking 10- 20 minutes. If the com has already dried hard either boil it in a soup or crash into com meal and try the recipes below. (Edited from Dishes & Beverages Of The Old South by Martha McCulloch-Williams (1913): //digital, lib .msu.edu/proj ects/cookbooks/)

Another alternative is to remove all but a thin layer of husk around the com cob, instead of using foil. The only problem with this is that the husk bums rather easily, so direct flame is not recommended.

Mallow

The common mallow is related to the plant that was used over 100 years ago to make the original marshmallow. A mucilaginous substance was extracted from the roots and peas of the plant, and whipped with sugar to make the confection.

Identification: Common mallow can be identified by scallop-like leaves that branch off of a central stalk. The younger plants start off as something similar to a basal rosette. Most of the leaves grow off their own branches, and the leaves have a fine hair-like texture. The leaves of the kind of mallow that grows in Europe may appear more ivy-like, but will still grow in the same way as the American common mallow. When the leaves are chewed, you may be able to feel a slight mucilaginous texture(though not always). When the plant blossoms, the flowers have 5 pink-colored petals with purple veins. The petals may also be heart-shaped. Common mallow grows in every western continent. Ground ivy can be mistaken for common mallow, and vise versa. Ground ivy has a square stem whereas mallow does not. Ground ivy leaves are more round and are attached to their stems from the center of the leaf.

Time of Year: These grow pretty much all year in most climates, although they start growing rapidly in spring.

Preparation: Mallow has very little taste and most people find the hairy texture of the leaves to be unpleasant. Generally, you will probably only want to eat the leaves of this plant if you are desperate. If you decide to eat it, boiling the leaves will make it more palatable. Though it still won't taste great. Not bad flavor; just bad texture. Putting the leaves in a sandwich will help cover up the texture. The stalks and root can't be eaten because they are too tough and fibrous even when boiled.

The "peas" of the common mallow are likely the most edible part of the plant. While the plants usually don't bear that many peas, you can collect them and cook them like real peas. They aren't very flavorful, but they're still very good to eat. But they are the most mucilaginous part of the plant, so that may make some people turn away.

It is possible to use the plant to make the confection we know as marshmallow. You have two options: To use the root or use the peas. The root of the plant is around longer, but it also must be fairly large and the best time to collect it is during when the plant is flowering or when its producing peas. Your other option is to use the peas of the plant. The advantage in just using the peas is that you will not only probably get better results, but it means the plant itself can live to continue producing more peas. The disadvantage is that the peas only come around for one part of the year. If you want, you can use both the root and the peas.

The material should be cut up and placed in boiling water. You should use 2 to 3 cups of water for every cup of plant material you're cooking. Over time, the water should thicken to a certain point, and then you should filter out the plant material with a sieve. Take the filtered mucilaginous fluid and whip it with sugar. Add sugar until it's to your liking. You can either immediately put it on a dessert or you can make little plots on a sheet and let them dry.

Miner’s Lettuce

Miner's Lettuce actually isn't a true lettuce. It is a member of the Claytonia genus, whilst true lettuces are from the lactuca genus. Miner's lettuce got its name from the California gold rush in 1848, because it was consumed by gold miners as a source of vitamin C to prevent scurvy. Keep that in mind in case you haven't consumed much fruit on a long trek.

Location: Miner's lettuce is located throughout the pacific coast of North America, even sometimes up to Alaska. Though most of it is found in California. It has also been naturalized in parts of Europe.

Identification: It is very easy to identify and has no poisonous or non-poisonous lookalikes. When the plant is young, it bears lush arrow-like leaves, and soon after it will produce saucer-shaped leaves with tiny white or purple blossoms in the middle of the saucers. Each of the leaves and saucers have their own stalk, and the stalks become very tender near the bottom and are a silvery-white or purplish color. Miner's lettuce has very tiny roots and the whole plant can be uprooted extremely easily(it's often difficult not to pull out the entire plant when just tugging at one of the stalks). The plant thrives in a certain amount of shade, so you will almost always find it on shady hillsides. It will grow in a variety of altitudes. This contributor has found miner's lettuce from as low as 1,200 ft to as high as the mountains in Yosemite Valley.

Preparation: Pick it up and eat it! Every part of the plant can be eaten, and there are no spines or defenses that have to be removed. It can be easily grabbed and munched on during a hiking trip. Miner's lettuce is best eaten raw in a salad. The stalks can be fibrous, so one might want to remove them and just eat the leaves; That doesn't mean you can't eat the stalks too. Miner's lettuce can be boiled like spinach, but this isn't recommended unless you have collected an abundance of plant material. When boiled, the miner's lettuce shrinks significantly. Don't boil the stalks as they become tougher to eat, due to their more fibrous nature.

Other Uses: If you're low on drinking water, a long way from a stream, and have come across some full-grown miner's lettuce, then you're in luck. The tender stalks are very lush and juicy. Grab an entire plant and squeeze or chew on the stalks; They will provide you with a substantial amount of liquid good for drinking. If you squeeze the liquid out of a few miner's lettuce plants, it may help to hold you over until the next stream.

Mustard

We all know the condiment, mustard, but did you know that the mustard plant itself can be eaten? Wild mustard makes for a wonderful green vegetable, and even has a mild to pungent mustard flavor. All varieties of mustard can be eaten, and they grow in many places around the world.

Identification: Wild varieties of mustard tend to have small yellow 4-petaled flowers with 6 stamen. 3 of them are tall and 2 of them are short. The flowers come off branches from the central stem, and long skinny seed pods also grow off the stalk. The leaves are broadleaved and fairly large.

Preparation: Mustard greens can be eaten raw, but some may not like the pungent flavor. The best way to be get rid of some of the spicy taste is to boil the greens for at least 10 minutes. After that, you can add whatever dressing you like. For simplicity, olive oil and vinegar with a little salt and pepper always works well. Only cook the leaves; While the whole plant is edible, the stalk is very tough and potent even when cooked. The root is nothing special, and you can usually throw it out. But overall, mustard greens make a great food which you can also use to add flavor to other meals. If you like the mustard flavor, they make an excellent salad green and can make for an entire meal on their own, depending on size.

Opuntia(Cactus)

There are other kinds of cactus that are edible, but here we are talking about the a kind of cactus common in Mexican cuisine known as opuntias. These are cactuses that are "paddle" shaped with small irritating hairs and often long spines typical of most cacti. There are two parts of this plant that can be eaten. The paddle, known as the nopalito, can be de-spined, skinned, and cooked like a vegetable. The fruit of the opuntia, known as the prickly pear, can be skinned and eaten as is or incorporated into a dessert.

Location: Opuntias grow in 46 of the 50 states in the U.S. They can also be found in Hawaii. The only states it can't be found in natively are New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. They can also be found in Mexico and throughout parts of Central and South America.

Identification: Cactus is made up of multiple paddle-shaped pads and often grow magenta fruits known as prickly pears.

Edibility: All opuntias are edible. Just make sure an opuntia is what you have. They are edible both raw and cooked, but most people prefer them to be cooked.

Preparation: When collecting parts of an opuntia, make sure to always wear gardening gloves. This is to protect you from the glochlids, which are irritaing little hairs that come from the "eyes" of the pads and fruits. Not dangerous unless you get them in your eyes; otherwise they are just irritating. People underestimate the opuntia and figure they don't need gloves because they only see large spines, and those same people end up getting their fingers covered in little itchy hairs. After you collect your pads/fiuits, make sure to wash them with water and pluck out long spines with needle-nose plyers. This will help get rid of some of the loose glochlids. There are a few ways to get rid of the glochlids. One is to bum them off with a torch, which won't be a problem if you plan on cooking the part. Another way is to remove the eyes with an apple-corer or with the end of a peeler. The outer skin is edible, but the most sure-fire way to get rid of all the glochlids is to skin the outside of the pad/fiuit with a peeler or a knife. The pad can be grilled or boiled and seasoned with some salt & pepper. You'll know when it's done when it turns into a more olive-green color similar to cooked green capsicum(bell pepper). It can then be cut into little strips and added to tacos or a salad, or just eaten straight. The prickly pears can be removed of glochlids and can be eaten raw, juiced, or added to flavor a dessert. Just beware of the very hard seeds, which can break teeth.

The pads can be very mucilaginous, which can be unappealing to some people. If you boil or saute your pads, you can remove them and dump off the mucilaginous byproduct. The opuntias can provide quite a bit of food because they don't shrink too much when cooked, unlike many other wild foods.

Other uses for the opuntia would be as a hedge for one's property, because they make for a formidable defense.

Palm Fruit

Yet another ornamental plant that, with a few exceptions, is generally considered inedible. Those among the exceptions would be dates and coconuts. But those aren't the only palm trees that bear perfectly good Suits!

Palm trees are very distinct, so we all know how to identify them. What makes palms even better is that none of them are poisonous! They also grow all around the world in both arid and tropical climates, and they're often planted as ornamentals.

If you find a coconut palm, then you're definitely in luck, and same goes for date palms. But other kinds of palms produce different kinds of fruit. One such palm is known as the pindo palm or the "jelly palm", which produces a bounty of orange Suits that are about the size of a walnut. Some are tastier than others, and usually the Suits are very fibrous making them somewhat difficult to eat. However, the fruits are excellent for making preserves. They're naturally mucilaginous so they do not need any pectin when making a preserve. All you have to do to make jelly palm fruit preserve is to place your fruit into a pot with enough water to cover most of them, and boil them. When the Suit becomes a little bit softer, use a potato masher to mash the fruit and get as much juice out of them as possible. Once you've squeezed out as much as possible, you have to strain out the fruits and then continue boiling the juice. The juice may be kind of bland, so add sugar to taste. That's all you need to do to make a preserve out of jelly palm fruit. You may need to boil the preserve longer to get the desired consistency; You can make a syrup or create more of a jam/jelly. There are other palm trees that produce a similar orange fruit, and they can be used in the same way. The preserve will taste similar to a fruity honey. Tastes great on ice cream, contains lots of calories, and is high in vitamin C!

There is also the "saw palmetto"; a palm that produces a black olive-like fruit. Their flavor is not considered very pleasant to most, as they are often described to taste like oily and peppery blue cheese. But they are very rich in fatty acids. Eat small amounts at first to get accustomed to it. The saw palmetto is a low-growing palm like the pindo palm, but with a more fan-like leaf and the stalks have sawtooth-like spikes.

Broadleaf Plantain(Plantago)

A native to Eurasia, the broadleaf plantain grows just about everywhere(at least in North America) during nonwinter seasons. It is considered an invasive weed, and in some areas it grows so wildly, so pretty much you can't harvest too much of it. The broadleaf plantain is small but has relatively large spoon-like leaves which are tough and fibrous when matured. They usually have a rattail-like seed pod which sticks up vertically. The older leaves can be eaten, but are very tough. The young leaves of the broadleaf plantain can be eaten because they are softer and more tender. The plant is a bit bitter with a taste reminiscent of spinach.

The large leaves can be used to dress wounds, as it contains natural antibiotics and a powerful coagulant. Because of this, plantain should not be eaten by those taking blood thinners. Broadleaf plantain leaves are known to also treat and calm insect bites; Some people chew up a leaf and stick it to an insect bite.

Thistle

Thistle is another one of those foods deemed worthless by the general public. Different kinds of thistle, such as milk thistle, were somewhat of a common food at one time. They became unpopular in contrast to other vegetables due to it's spines. But the reason the thistle developed such a formidable defense is because it can make for a good food. Little do people know about how edible and useful these spiky plants are.

The thistle usually starts out as a basal rosette, and then after a year it will grow a stalk with a flower(usually purple with large spines around it). The leaves have little spines around the edges that hurt when touched, so you may want to handle the plant with gloves. The spines on some thistles will soften when boiled, like with the sow thistle and milk thistle. But if you don't want to boil the leaves, you can simply cut off the spines with a knife or snip them off with scissors. Depending on the kind of leaves you're dealing with, this can be a lot of work. The greens are usually not bitter and make a great addition to your meadow salad. All thistles are edible, but make sure the plant you have is indeed a thistle. Milk thistle is particularly bountiful in that they grow large and are more broadleaved, whereas some other thistles have narrow leaves. Milk thistle can be identified from other thistles in that the leaves have milk-colored splotches on them.

The inner stalk of the thistle can be eaten raw or boiled. To get to this tender part of the stalk, you have to carefully strip off the leaves until you are left with the part you want. The stalk is hollow and has a somewhat similar feel to celery when cut. Depending on the size of your thistle, the stalk can be of decent size, and the harvest is especially worth it if you find an abundance of thistle.

The leaves and the seeds can be used medicinally as a liver tonic. While research in the past lead to unclear results, a more recent government-funded study showed that the chemical in milk thistle, silymarin, showed promise in treating toxin-induced liver damage.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14506392

When the plant dries out after the summer, the flower becomes a mass of soft white fibers with seeds. The fiber can makes great tinder for starting a fire and it can also be used as a replacement for down in a pillow.

Strawberry Tree(Arbutus)

This plant is somewhat common as an ornamental plant in suburban areas that are of a Mediterranean climate. The strawberry tree bears many fruits which vaguely resemble the strawberry. The fruits are red and berry-like with a bumpy outer-texture, about 3/5 the size of a golfball. Most strawberry trees are actually more bush-like than a tree, with flat green leaves. The best way to identify the strawberry tree is to look at the fruits. The fruit matures at the same time as the newer fruits develop, so there will be both yellow fruits and red fruits(the red ones are ripe and edible). The ripe fruits are soft, sticky, and orange inside with many little seeds. The fruits usually don't have much flavor, although some strawberry trees have better tasting fruits than others. The flavor is often referred to as a combination of peach and strawberry. Though the fruits are unknown by most people and considered worthless, they can easily be made into a tasty jam preserve and can even be used to make alcohol. The strawberry tree bears quite a bit of fruit, so a single harvest can yield a large amount of food.

Strawberry Tree Jam

http://wi ki.stealthiswiki.org/wiki/Foraging

Ingredients

• 4 cups of strawberry tree Suit

• Juice from 1 lemon

• 1 cup of sugar

1. Wash the fruit thoroughly and remove the stems. The skin can be left on and will dissolve in the jam process.

2. Take a large spoon or a potato masher and mash the fruit in a large bowl or pot. Mash it thoroughly until there are no large chunks. You will now have a large orange mash with red specs from the skin.

3. Now comes the hard part. The seeds of the fruit are many and very tough. It's possible to have the seeds present in the jam, but it will make the jam tough and not as pleasant to eat. To filter out the seeds, you must pour the mash through a sieve into a cooking pot. This is a somewhat long process, depending on how much fruit you have. It might be necessary to add water to the mashed fruit to make it filter through easier(however this will significantly increase cooking time).

4. Add the lemon juice to the fruit mash, and then bring the mixture to a boil. Then turn it down to a simmer and stir occasionally for an hour.

5. Slowly add the sugar and let simmer for 3 hours, stirring occasionally. Taste occasionally and add more sugar or lemon juice depending on your preference.

This jam can either be properly canned or placed in a container for short-term storage.

Restaurants

The modern restaurant, fast food places, and cafes sell convenience at the expense of the lower working classes. Money is made off selling to folks who do not want to cook due to work, needing to feed many folks, or being in a popular location. The restaurant associations get away with paying waiters below the federal minimum wage legally (in many states)and force them to live off of patron's tips. Fast Food pays employees poverty wages for being covered in grease. Meanwhile, the district bosses, owners, and top executives lead country club lifestyles.

Restaurants currently operate under three main different models. Fast food is all about getting fed quickly and cheaply. Sit-down restaurants are about eating in a relaxed atmosphere where the customer has a servant making sure they do not have to get up (unless it is a buffet.) Delivery deals with getting food to the customers location. We will discuss all three.

Contents

• 1 NOT Eating Out

• 2 Fast Food

• 3 Sit-Down Restaurants

• 3.1 Dealing With and not Pissing Off Restaurant Staff

• 3.2 The Walk-out

• 3.3 My Food is not Cooked Right!

• 3.4 Turning Employees

• 4 Delivery

• 4.1 It Has Been a Long Time and My Food Is Not Here!

• 5 Restaurant Waste

NOT Eating Out

One could easily blow $20 USD (or more.. if you get fancy or get alcohol) for one person in a sit-down restaurant. This includes tipping so some wage slave does not hate your guts if you ever come back there. If you eat even only one time a day, this could easily be 600 a month just to eat! Yes, there are some ways to save. Not getting (or stealing) a drink, only getting cheap items from fast food, or going to only lunch buffets can bring down the cost. But, with the exception of fast food 'dollar menus', most of the time you can prepare your own much cheaper.

Don't get that 'sorry' feeling for blowing your precious survival cash on an overpriced junk. This really needs to be watched if you are in wage slavery or homeless! Our advice to you is to make a big breakfast and carry your lunch and a late snack or dinner. In winter plan a way to warm your "out" meals.

Many restaurant meals are nutrition poor but high in both fat and carbohydrate calories which can be useful to someone who wants to abate their hunger for longer than an hour or two and involved in some physical labor, foot or bike travel, or just be stuck outside in the wet and cold. Be aware that there is a movement especially directed at fast food places to reduce calories sometimes even by substituting diet non-digestible fat and sugar substitutes. You might soon find yourself spending your hoarded cash on fake food which is effectively flavored and textured cardboard and candle wax; you will be denied even the empty calories you were hoping to acquire.

Fast Food

Fast Food corporations market (mostly) high calorie food to folks that only have a short time to eat or are too busy/ too lazy/ can not cook. Fast food also markets to the poor with value deals and not having to tip. They draw in folks with kids by maintaining one of the largest cheap toy distribution networks and ad campaigns in the world. For all that money, it is common for non-management to be making below poverty wages and managers working 70 -90 hours a week.

Fast food places can be fairly cheap if you stick to 'dollar menus'. Most of the cheap specials are not very filling and can leave you hungry unless you get a bit of it, but it is a meal. Some offerings may be bad on your cardiovascular system when eaten regularly, so be mindful. You can get a burger or taco for a dollar or two which is cheaper than picking up all the stuff you would need at a grocery store to make it.

The biggest money maker for fast food is 'upselling' combos. The pitch is to charge a few dollars more for a small bit extra of a side item and drink. Every cashier is drilled to ask before every sale under pain of keeping a job. You do not really get much except for a few extra fries and a bit bigger overpriced drink.

Speaking of drinks... the fountain machine puts out soft drink for pennies, yet you get charged dollars. You can get a much better deal buying your drink from a grocery or convenience store. Some will frown on you bringing in outside drinks, though.

The biggest scam currently going is the fast food places that let you get your own drink and free refills. If you ask for a cup of water, you can generally just go get soft drink instead and rarely be harassed if common sense is used. With the possible exception of the manager, who usually has to work equipment as well, most employees really do not care or are too busy.

Sit-Down Restaurants

Dealing With and not Pissing Off Restaurant Staff

When you talk of sit down restaurants, you are talking of basically renting a seat unmolested by claims of loitering for a period of time usually for the duration of your meal. Some of these "rents" are fairly inexpensive while the upper middle and upper class 4 star places in good locations with name brand chefs and multiple waiters to suffer over your every swallow can run 60 USD a seat or much more...

Regardless, the staff at restaurants can sometimes be a source of free food. But, only if you do not piss them off and they are allowed to slide by greedy management. Like any culture, the service industry has a set of unspoken rules that can put you on 'good terms'. The life of waitstaff, especially, is feast or famine. On busy nights, they are easily the highest paid people in the building, but on slow nights they might not even take home enough to cover taxes.

• Service staff hates people that do not tip with a passion. They may not mention this in front of a customer's face for fear of you complaining to their corporate overlord, but it can be guaranteed to be talked about in the kitchen to other waiters. Many states LEGALLY allow servers to make way below the minimum wage. In addition, they may be also responsible for tipping out other staff as well. A few bad tables combined with slow times can mean the server works for nothing.

• When you tip, tip cash. Some restaurants hold credit card tips until the server's payday which can be up to two weeks or longer to make sure Uncle Sam gets his (and they do not have to pay compensation if the server does not report enough tips). Your server will appreciate this. Greedier places even deduct a fee from the tip to cover use of the credit card machine.

• Do not be a piece of shit! This includes ordering staff around, snapping fingers at them, causing scenes, never being satisfied, etc. It is bad enough to be a wage slave. While some trust fund babies may get an ego out of this, being cool can attract much more than being a jerk.

• Do not 'run' the waitstaff. Serving tables is A LOT of running back and forth from the kitchen and the assigned group of tables. During 'rush' times, this can be stressful and requires good memory and juggling many steps mentally at the same time. Be sure to tell them everything you need at one time and not 50 trips for small things. This really pisses them off.

• If you have a small child, control your child or tip extra. French fries spread under the table mixed with crayons and spills all over the table is a lot of work. Many waiters make their money by turning over the tables frequently. A massive clean up may make that table not settable for a long time.

• Do the little things. Offer to box your own to-go plates if the place allows it. Stack the plates. If you eat like a pig, do not leave big messes.

• Do not come in right when they are about to close. The staff wants to get the hell out of there. It messes up closing duties and can delay getting off up to hours. Grease, sweat, managers, and dealing with people makes some want to erase their CorpGov abuse with an activity of choice as soon as possible. Late night bars after weekend tips and kitchen paydays are popular places they go. In large towns and tourist areas, there are even service industry bars that sometimes give discounts to them.

• If they are not being slammed, chat with your wait-person. Sincere small talk and maybe a short travel story (remember Security Culture ) can make you appear human other than an endless conveyor belt of customers. If they think of you as a friend (and not simply another tip), they might want to draw you back for more tales of the road.

• Asking outright for freebies is generally an alienating move until you have built a rapport.

• ALWAYS make sure to tip as extravagantly as possible ANY favors to let the staff know that you are sharing what wealth you do have.

• In our sexist society, you will find that a woman has a better chance to get free stuff with a male waiter, especially with a slightly cute, shy approach, while still letting him know you are running tight and relying on his compassion. Males usually also have more success with males if they can become interesting and respected; a male appealing to another male's compassion is more likely to elicit a reaction of disgust than sympathy.

Folks have suggested that posing as a charity and getting the restaurant to 'donate' food is a possible major food scores for the more charismatic. However, most of the time, managers are not going to do this because of food poisoning lawsuits. A few go as far as not even letting their own staff, but some will let staff. Better to ask a friend who works in one. However, we have known of some folks who claimed they had a bunch of dogs or pigs to feed and wanted the food for slop get this to work in rural areas. Of course, these folks looked the part of some guy in a trailer with dogs or on a small farm.

Being liked by the staff sometimes has perks. You may find that your coffee is left off the bill. You could be given a free buffet. Even another customer's unwanted entree may find its way to your table. Once you've cultivated a relationship with a restaurant, you might even be able to bargain leftovers if you hang around at closing time. People can be surprisingly compassionate and empathetic if they identify with you.

The Walk-out

Warning: If the server handles money, restaurants make the server responsible for PAYING YOUR BILL if you walk out! Leaving a tip does not help much. It is nice to stick it to the man, just make sure it is the man you are actually hurting!

Sit-down restaurant food is one of the few products where it is acceptable in society to consume the product and pay later. The walkout takes advantage of this. Walking out works really well with a partner. (a male-and-female duo works best for this kind of scam, but if you are two of the same gender, it might work to your advantage to pretend that you are siblings). As long as you appear clean and are dressed appropriately for the place, you should be fine. You may want to avoid the place for several months or years afterward, though.

To walk out, just watch the server and busperson for when he or she goes to the kitchen then nonchalantly disappear. Going for a smoke outside or the restroom is an acceptable excuse if questioned. Then leave promptly. If this is a place where they have a cashier or host at the front, watch for when they are busy, then walk briskly out the door and bolt! If escaping in a car, please be mindful of any chasing staff viewing the plates of your car. Once you are off the property, you are home free.

A good related trick to the walk-out, is the walk-in. This will work in most buffets, as you pay for a tray and not a plate. The trick works best if you are with a group of people or if you say you are meeting up with someone if asked. Simply walk past the register, maybe go into the bathroom if you see that the cashier saw you, wait a few minutes, and grab a plate. Many places give cups up front where you have to pay. But, to avoid attention, bring your own. Just be smart with it. While you have an unlimited source of food in front of you, you might as well stock up with plastic bags or something of that nature. Again, be smart, this trick is a lot better if you have access to refrigeration. If you need a paper cup, go to another restaurant, and say you just want a few cups for a 2-liter bottle of soda in your car. Get creative, the cup trick works well at smaller places, and doesn't work well at fast food places, foreign restaurants are perfect.

Don't dine and ditch unless you have no other choice! Leaving without paying your tab/ bill is a form of shoplifting and can get you hauled in. Only attempt this ruse out of town, because a waiter might remember "those bastards that ran off without paying."

My Food is not Cooked Right!

Most restaurants will refund your money if you complain about the food or have it sent back the kitchen. Your server may get annoyed, but all restaurant managers are allowed to give 'comps' to displeased customers.

This one is simple. Order something and say it's overcooked or undercooked. Naturally, do not eat more than a bite or two or some places will refuse to play along. However, if you complain convincing enough it should be possible to get another dish for free. Sometimes you can even get a full 3 courses gratis if one of them isn't done right! If you claim your 'dining experience' was ruined by your companions having to wait while your were still eating or their food held under a heat lamp while they were fixing your order, the better.

This one is remarkably easy to pull off and has a very high rate of success. There's no need for an elaborate setup, and it's perfectly legal, too. You can also call the corporate office with a complaint and sometimes get a comp even if the manager did not give it away.

Glass in the food, bug in the food, etc. is only urban legend. In the extremely rare case of this, you are pretty much expected to walk out if this is the case and never come back. If there is even the slightest suspicion by the manager you placed this in the food and walked out, you can be hauled off. Lawsuits are rare because more evidence is needed besides a wrapped food or plate. You would need an actual doctor bill.

Turning Employees

Use some charm and make friends at the pizza shop. Most places we have set down we find a pizza shop and we get free food and drinks and an air conditioned place to hang out during the day several times a week. For some reason the strip mall, no tips expected, lunch rush, single slice to go type pizza shop with one post high school employee on duty is just perfect for this hack once the lunch rush is over and they are bored during the 3-5pm lull. Fast food and other restaurants with better peak time management and inventory control give you little chance to talk to the staff and convert them to a free handout. Baristas at non chain places and sandwich and sub places during slow hours are also good targets but often there is not the filling food at a coffee shop like the pizza shop has.

After a few paying visits where you keep them company, leave a buck or two tip or share a cigarette. Once you establish a rapport ask for a free slice or two from the stuff that has sat for a while in the single slice case. Be cynical, you are hungry and broke, remember that you are there for food not to convert the unwashed masses so don't attack his political positions to harshly but play up his labor rights. If there is no tip jar complain how terrible that is and make one out of a cup and post-it for them. Once that door is open use it again, but don't attack the stale stuff every day at first and watch how they react when you do, some people get weirded out by the mooch so avoid that guy when they work. Even if you get toppings just ask to pay for the plain pizza. In the places where this mooching the stale stuff has worked several times we offer to let the employee smoke or stay seated and you will make yourself up a slice that you then pay for to get them comfortable with you in the kitchen. Wait until a day when there is no stale pizza say you forgot your wallet and ask permission to slap together a small pizza. Once you have permission to walk back there the first time to make free food just keep it up sometimes paying sometimes not, although only if there are no stale slices to mooch. This is all about pushing the comfort zone slowly.

Always clear and wipe your table and others nearby especially when he is busy so the person on duty feels like he owes you something. Our experience is that you should do everything except touch the register, when you do your own pizza or drink. Always show them that you are leaving the cash behind the counter near the register when you do pay, they are responsible for the total at the end of the day and if you ever touch or hang out near the register they will always blame you if they ever end up short and you will ruin the scam. Lastly once we know the employee is 'cool' a joint or two for after they get off work will probably lock up your free pizza scam for good.

Delivery

Folks with a phone number, an address, and no food in the house can call some restaurants to take food to them. Most delivery places specialize in pizza or Chinese food because of good hold times on that food. However, bigger and more upscale areas may have more choices while someone out in rural areas may have none.

Delivery is not cheap. Most of the time, there are minimums to the dollar amount of the order and the prices can be inflated without deals. You are also expected to tip the delivery person.

Delivery can refuse to go to an area for many reasons. Sometimes hotels make deals prohibiting guests from purchasing any food in the hotel except theirs. Additionally, the management can refuse to go to certain areas for it merely being populated by certain ethnic groups, real or imagined high crime, or history of high complaints/no tips from drivers.

It Has Been a Long Time and My Food Is Not Here!

”30 Minutes or Free" type of deals have fallen out of favor due to concerns about speeding tickets and bad press. Instead, most businesses have a practice of adjusting the estimated time based on volume and weather. If the food takes longer, they usually have a policy based on how late it is as to how much money to take off. If your food really is late, use this to save cash.

Discounts can be given sometimes even if the customer is in the wrong. It is possible to give a bad address with a new phone number to get free cold food. Modernized delivery places keep a computerized database of phone numbers associated with first name, address, and what you order. If the first address given is wrong, the delivery driver will try to call you. If you cannot be reached, the driver will take it back to the store. Calling again after this can get it for free or at least a major discount for a future order from that phone and address. Do not do this too much as the manager can rightfully refuse to deliver to you as a bad customer.

Be sure to tip the delivery driver if you try to pull this. Having to redeliver cuts the amount of runs they do and total tips. Bad runs screw them out of the meager compensation for gas,vehicle wear, and cell phone minutes by the greedy corporate office.

Restaurant Waste

Much usable food is thrown away. Usually any food the staff does not claim gets mixed in with used plastic straws, dish room chemicals, and half eaten food. Any used grease gets recycled. The middle class calls thrown away food 'food cost' or 'wastage' and sets up rules to reduce this so the owners and stock holders can make as much money as possible. Sources of 'food cost' come from these sources:

• Pre-prepared food past hold time is the majority of edible food waste. Some food takes much more time to prepare than a customer can wait. Typically, this food is kept in some kind of hot box or steam line with a date label. Using data from food researchers on the spread of bacteria, there are industry wide temperatures maximum length of time these must be stored. Good restaurant managers keep logs of how much food was used in the past on different days to try to keep from over anticipating sales and cooking too much food. Usually, only the manager on duty, cook, or dishwasher has access. Strict control over to-go containers and outside containers (supply cost) are designed to keep cooks from intentionally cooking too much to be able to take home or give away food. If you can get the food that is fixing to be thrown away off a steamline or hot box, you are in for a good meal.

• Bad orders can be a major source of food cost if the place deals with finicky customers or staff mistakes. Most restaurant managers watch this, too. Industry accepted procedure is to immediately remove the dish that is being complained about from customer view. It gets handed to the manager on duty or the cook to decide the plate's fate. If it is something that can be fixed by being under cooked, it is recooked and put on a fresh plate or re-wrapped. If it has any bites out of it, most staff immediately throws this into an 50 gallon trash can. Anything without bites taken out of it can be offered to staff or done with what the manager pleases. If you are in good with the staff, sometimes you can get these bad orders if the staff has not dug in already.

• Dishroom waste is inedible and is laden with chemicals. Half eaten food is combined with lemon rinds, bones, plastic straws and cups, broken glass, and mostly eaten food. Mostly eaten food is always removed from customer view as quickly as possible. The food from the plates is removed and thrown into garbage. Only front staff and the dishwasher has access to eaten food before it hits the garbage. Managers avoid this stuff. The workers usually have access, but meal plans and the stigma of appearing 'nasty' to the supervisor by eating this is a real concern. The only useful portion of this is limited to desperate staff in places without meal plans. Who wants something that has been slobbered on and may make someone sick? Many sit down food dumpsters have little edible food because it is mixed with this dishroom waste.

• Used grease from fryers is inedible and is dangerously, permanently scarring hot when first taken out. Used grease is always poured into a large special dumpster to be collected and reprocessed to eventually be made into lady's cosmetics. No matter how desperate, NEVER try to dip into the grease container out back.

Supermarkets

CorpGov spends big bucks in research to scientists to figure out what what motivates people to do things. Of course, most of this research is not in any particular best interest, but to motivate you to spend more than you need. Everything from simple store layout to what actors or actresses folks would identify with in commercials are heavily planned out. Some gas stations even have TVs now at the pumps to force you to watch ads to buy stuff and big stores like Walmart even have in-store radio to suggestive sell to you!

Supermarkets will go over frugal shopping, some things to watch out for, and some common scams.

Shoplifting is a amoral discussion if an emergency need arises to take something from one of these places.

Getting Food Extra Cheap

Sample Surfing

Many large chain deli's will give you a sample if you ask, enough corpgov fat and batter to tease but not enough to satisfy. Hit several stores and you might get enough to fill you up, many stores also have one day a week where vendors give lots of samples in the aisles.

Discount Stores

In some poorer neighborhoods, you can often find discount grocery stores that sell odd-lot packages of food. Often these are over-runs of stuff meant for regional chains with unfamiliar or ripoff brand names (Oat Loops instead of Cheerios, for example), stuff that's close to the expiration date or major label items that were meant for export with English-language labels slapped on them (so don't be surprised if you see Arabic corn flakes or instant oatmeal with Chinese text). Many of the major odd-lot stores like Big Lots, Dollar General and 99 Cents Only sell this kind of food at a major discount. If something is in stock and you like it, buy it, since the supply of these bargains is spotty at best.

Bakery Outlet type stores sell breads, crackers, cakes, pies and cereals that are weeks (if not days) before their freshness dates expire. If you have access to a freezer, stock up!

Coupons

The Sunday newspaper sometimes has coupons in the circulars. Most of the time, these are for newer products or seldom bought items while coupons for staple items are rare. But, sometimes a decent coupon can be found. It usually is not worth it just to buy a paper for coupons. If you already have a Sunday paper, though, it cannot hurt to look.

Shopping List

Instead of reaching for the prepared foods try grabbing these foods which will last for a few days unrefrigerated. You can add or subtract items from this list by figuring the cost against the food value. Staple Ingredients (for staying put and saving money):

• Flour white or wheat

• Eggs

• Oil, shortening, or margarine

• Vinegar

• Baking soda

• Pasta

• Vegetables, assorted for stew and stir fry

• Dry beans

• Rice

• Oatmeal

• Sugar

• Tomato sauce packets

• Liquid soap

• Kerosene, charcoal, or Sterno fuel- as required for cooking

Used in smaller amounts:

• Salt

• Yeast- in a jar

• Baking powder- sealed can

• Aluminum foil-as needed

• Spices and condiments- as budget allows

• Ziploc and plastic grocery sacks

• Parmesan Cheese-as budget allows

• Vitamins

Ready to Eat(good to have in you pack if you have to move out):

• Ramen

• Fruits fresh and dried

• Canned meat or fish

• Crackers and bread

• Peanut butter

• Cheese

• Canned soup and vegetables

Scams

Nothing wrong with feeding yourself.

Self Check-Out

Make the self checkout lane work for you! Ring up more expensive foods as cabbage or bananas; they tend to be sold pretty cheap by the pound. There is usually one employee (if that) not very closely watching over four or more self checkout lines. Be aware of any product recalls, because if a product has been deemed unsafe (salmonella, e coli, etc) the clerk will be alerted if you enter the code for that product. This is probably not too big of a risk, as this happens around the summer once at least every three years.

This also works quite well if your grocery store has a bulk foods section that sells grains, cereals, candies, cookies, etc. When purchasing bulk foods, you're typically asked to shovel the amount you want into a bag, then weigh it, enter the item's PLU, and print a label that gives the total cost and bears a barcode for scanning. In order to get a great deal of high quality food for very little money, you simply enter the PLU of a much cheaper product (ideally one that looks a lot like what you're actually buying) and print that receipt instead. For instance, you might have filled a bag with organic quinoa at $6.99/lb., but enter the PLU for conventional bulgur at $2.49/lb. The clerk watching the self-checkout line is guaranteed not to notice a difference. Of course, if you're especially bold, you could just fail to print a label at all and discreetly slip the item into your sack while checking out. Without a label, no alarms will sound when you leave the store.

Lifting a Meal

If you feel like eating, it is generally a better idea to load up a basket and then go into the bathroom and eat in one of the stalls. Leave a few items in your basket so you don't look suspicious. Then, you can put everything back or just take it. If you eat in the bathrooms, don't be stupid and remember to wash your hands. Nobody wants a sick Yippie. Another more risky option if the bathroom is out is you could eat some food (including deli food, just ask for them to bag it and you will pay with your other items) in a quiet aisle and ditch the container behind some boxes. Be careful, in some places you can be busted for shoplifting as soon as a security agent or employee sees you take only one bite, chances are they will probably kick you out on the first offense. But 'sampling' food can get you caught for 'theft for the purpose of consumption' or something sounding similar to that. Better to check the dumpsters in back and avoid a chance for quality time with Officer Friendly.

Marketing Scams

Most packaged, branded food is marked up like crazy. Healthier and noname foods tend to be cheaper. Good for you, if it turns out you have to pay. Look for these foods on the very bottom and top shelves. The brand name items the supermarket is pushing will be at the average person's eye level.

Munchies and Hungries

Most of us end up shopping (and shoplifting) when we are hungry or worse stoned and munchy. You will end up wasting your money on cheap packaged foods with little nutritional value. Plan shopping trips and take a list, stick to your well planned shopping list, corporations have special employees who plan the store shelf layout very carefully to seduce idiots into buying expensive junk. Plan your nutrition, make a diet to plan shopping, like an overweight person on a diet does, but count nutrients and calories for energy and value not weight loss. Marketing 101: Corpgov marketing strategies are known to work much better on hungry supermarket customers.

Papers Please

Another method is to enter a supermarket armed with shopping bags and a receipt(from said supermarket). Put what you want into a shopping cart. When you've got what you want, find a low traffic, low security area(The bedding section, garden center, discount aisle) and put your goods into the shopping bag(s). Then just walk right out(with the receipt in hand). If you're stopped, hand them the receipt, they usually won't take the time to check for each item. This works best during medium to peak business hours.

Gift Cards

Go to the corporate store and find the gift card on the shelf, the first one in the stack preferably. Walk around the store with it and memorize or write down the security information on the back of the card. It should be a series of numbers. Then return the card as if you decided against purchasing it. Then wait a month or two and check online to see if the card is activated because it was purchased. If yes, then use the card to make purchases online. Don’t worry about ruining Johnny’s birthday. Most of the corporate stores set up refund programs to stop bad press and keep people buying the cards. Please use the card in support of progressive causes (such as donations to legit nonprofits) because we should be using these skills to help everyone.

UPC Tricks

Many supermarkets have a section near the back with marked-down items that are old or damaged, with the UPC written over with a new price. Cashiers ring up these items using the new price no questions asked, so one can do this for any item.

If you can find an old CueCat or other cheap bar code scanner you can scan some inexpensive or generic item that you find in the trash and then print new UPC's on sticker paper to stick onto goods at the market, be sure the description is close to what you are sticking or a sharp checker might bust you. Don't try this scam too often with the same checker or at the same store in case the management starts looking for you.

Photocopying UPC's and gluing/sticking them onto more expensive items should work especially if you are in a self service scan point. It is important to remember that most self service checkouts weigh the items as you add them to the bag so only fake the UPC on same weight items.

Bakery Coupon Scam

One of our writers sent a letter to a large US bakery company saying that French students were coming to the high school and that there would be a presentation on American foods. They were asked to donate products for the exchange students to sample. One week later four coupons arrived worth five dollars each for that corporations bakery products. This is a great totally legal way to get some basic food if you are low on cash, because even most junk food companies also make bread and other products that are better for you. This also works if you write a polite letter to complain or compliment their products or just to ask questions, this sometimes also works if you call the 1-800 info number.

Club Card Warning

As tempting as a few pence off sounds, don't use a Clubcard. Ever. These little bastards will keep track of all your purchases, how you paid, when you bought them, and even what store you shopped at. Think of it not so much as giving you savings, but charging you for not being able to track purchases! A Clubcard is the easiest way to destroy any alibis you might need later on -- so don't use them. The best way to deal with Clubcards is to simply patron stores that still do not use them. But, if this is not realistic due to location or savings, there are ways around this.

Most stores allow use of your phone number in place of a Clubcard, since people can be generally forgetful. This allows two methods to get past this. You can use someone else's phone number or create a card with a fake name and phone number. You may be able to get another's phone number if you are watchful and happen to see someone key it in. However, be cautious in using this as sometimes they can tell if more than one person is on the card. Especially if you move to another city and use it. Creating a fake card is fairly easy depending on place. Some do not check for ID and most well let you fill it out anyway if you say you left your ID at home. You can just fill out an card application with a false name and number. Just make sure it is a non-local number that could be not taken.

By far the easiest way to get ClubCard discounts is to use the simple excuse, "I left mine at home". Most Supermarkets have generic ClubCards at each register, and the cashiers will have no problem swiping for you. Even if this is not the case, other customers will probably have no problem swiping in for you to move the line. The other easy way is to use the self check-out lane. Many Supermarkets either have a button on the bottom of the self check-out screen such as "Forgot my Card," or it would be under something like "Product Look Up" for things without bar codes.

The US Department of Homeland Security openly claims to purchase an updated database from all major club card stores and credit card companies (credit and debit) so that they have instant access to who is buying what and when to fight "terror". Even a stolen club card number can be quickly attached to your profile even if your name is unknown and can be used to follow shopping and travel patterns.

Working at a Store

If you work at a store where the dumpsters are kept outside, then they can be used to smuggle out stock from inside. Particularly useful is if you work at the kiosk: When restocking the shelf with cigarettes, dropping some into the waste paper bin will mean that the cigarette pack will end up in the dumpster as soon as the bin is emptied. Simply return that night and retrieve! Also can be done with multipacks of alcohol: With crates of canned lager, the cans are normally smaller than usual. Thus, if one of the cans is damaged, the rest will have to be thrown out, as they can't be resold individually (they normally lack a barcode too). Again, retrieve them from the dumpster that night!

The Dumpster

Of course, if all else fails, there is always the dumpster located usually in the back docks of the store. Sometimes, if you are lucky, you can find usable items in here. However, you may also be in for a gross, sticky mess. Avoid going into the compactor model dumpsters as most of the time it destroys anything useful and is highly dangerous. Dumpsters are also a place that attracts disease and maggot carrying insects and harmful bacteria that can make you very sick. Try to stick to packaged or canned stuff you may find or obviously fresh things if you must do this.

Some places may have a separate dumpster for expired produce, but more and more places are switching to the compactor models and box recycling to save money on trash disposal bills.