Hunter Gatherer Society

Journal of Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca (1542) Translated by Fanny Bandelier:

While with them it happened many times that we were three or four days without food. Then, in order to cheer us, they would tell us not to despair, since we would have tunas very soon and eat much and drink their juice and get big stomachs and be merry, contented and without hunger. But from the day they said it to the season of the tunas there would still elapse five or six months, and we had to wait that long.

Tunas are the fruit of a prickly pear cactus.  He is living with a hunter gatherer society in South Texas.  When they can’t find anything to eat, they go hungry.   Agriculture gives more certainty to the uncertainty of hunting and gathering.  If society collapsed, a lot of the 325 million people in the US would start hunting.  The deer and wild hogs would soon be pretty scarce.   So how do you guarantee you and the family don’t go hungry?  You grow enough food to meet your calorie and protein needs.  You always have something to eat.  Your hunting then supplements your food supply but if game cannot be found everyone still goes to bed with a full belly.

Growing your main source of calories and protein in different than the garden most people in the US plant.  This also shows on of the main deficiency of the “prepper seed packs” that are being sold on the internet.  These seed packs are nice “supplements” to a meal, they don’t make the meal.  The second issue is that the same seeds are marketed all across the US.  Growing tomatoes in Montana is very different than growing tomatoes in Texas.  In south central Texas “beef steak” tomatoes only produce for a few months before it gets too hot to set fruit, even for high heat tolerant tomatoes.  Gardeners in Ohio would have better harvests of these tomatoes and have success with a wider range of tomato varieties.  So what should you do?

Grow staple crops that are well adapted to your growing season, rainfall, and temperature.  Here at the Seed Vault Company we have put together a Survival Seed Pack that provides you with all the calories and protein need for a 3,000 calorie per day diet.  This pack is for the south eastern US and assumes average harvests.  If you are a great farmer, then you wouldn’t need to plant as much.  More Survival Seed Pack details on the products page.  Shop Now!