I imagine that most of us find the ability of being able to ‘live off the land’ appealing: being able to go into the jungle and survive indefinitely using only our wits and skill. The Orang Asli can do just that (although their diet is, arguably, not a very balanced one) but these are people who have grown up learning which plants to eat and how to hunt and fish.
To reach the same level of skill as the Orang Asli would take more time than most of us have to spare, however, you can learn some of the key plants that will, at least, provide the carbohydrate intake you need.
So, rather than trying to learn every plant that can be eaten, I would recommend learning the most important ones first – the staple foods of the jungle.
To give you an example: back in 2006 a surveyor was lost for 22 days in the Gua Musang jungle. He knew one plant that he could eat – Kacip Fatimah – and it sustained him until some Orang Asli happened to stumble across him (you can read the article here).
Similarly, I would learn to fish and find food from rivers before trying to learn to hunt on land – it’s simply an easier way to find protein. Now you might find yourself in an area in the jungle without rivers but, honestly, that is the exception rather than the rule.
There is a widely held belief that the jungle is full of fruit than can be picked at your leisure. Not necessarily so: the trees you find might not be in season (or the fruit is not yet ripe); the fruit itself is usually high off the ground and you may not be able to reach it and, perhaps most importantly, you would be joining the back of a long queue of hungry animals who have been eagerly waiting for the very same fruit to ripen.
For example, when the durian tree’s fruit ripens, villagers are sent off to camp nearby and wait for the fruit to fall. Why do they do this? Because the macaques also love eating durians (and, astonishingly are able to open this lethally spiked fruit with their hands) and will quickly take any fruit that falls (and often pull them from the tree itself).
In this video I look at the banana tree and the amazing resources that it provides. Banana trees are a pioneer species – they grow only where the forest has been disturbed or where there is sufficient sunlight (e.g. near rivers or where a large tree has fallen and created a clearing) so this tree (or, strictly speaking, herb) may seem like an odd one for me to suggest learning about. The reason I do recommend knowing about the banana tree is that is so incredibly useful (it can provide fire, shelter, water, food, medicine, cordage) that it would be very unfortunate if you came across one during a survival ordeal and didn’t know how to unlock its potential.
Most people would imagine (understandably enough) that the use of banana trees in a survival situation would come from the bananas themselves. Not so, wild bananas are not good to eat (and chances are they won’t be ripe anyway and, if they were, some animal would already have taken them), can cause digestive problems for those with a weak stomach and the seeds, if ingested, can cause bowel blockage. However, the centre of the stem, the bud and the flowers are all good too eat, can be eaten raw and are easy food to get at.
When I was in Taman Negara I came across some banana trees deep in the forest – a tree had come down and created a clearing and banana trees had magically appeared. Around my house the banana trees grew without any assistance from me, they simply appeared from nowhere and took over. So when people say that you won’t find banana trees in the jungle what they really mean is that you won’t find them where there is a thick canopy and not much light reaching the forest floor – but the jungle isn’t uniform and is constantly changing (sounds like an oxymoron!) – emergent trees come down and then the pioneer species have their day in the sun until the canopy is reformed and they die out again.
But if you need any more persuading then read this article from the excellent ‘eat the weeds’ website – the author describes how his neighbour escaped the Khmer Rouge and (at the age of only seven!) survived for two years in the jungles of Cambodia and Vietnam; and one of the key food sources for her during that time came from….banana trees.
I am constantly impressed with the quality of your videos. I was especially impressed and greatly enjoyed your video on the banana plant. I grew up partially in the tropics. We had banana plants in the back yard. Yet I learned more from your video than from the plants themselves.
Hi Mikhail,
Many thanks for the very kind words – I really enjoy learning about some of the uses of plants and you look at them differently when you appreciate all things they can do for you and the way they support the wildlife. Funnily enough I was back in the UK recently and realised that my knowledge of plants from my own homeland was woefully poor! I guess I’d better watch some UK based bushcraft programs and improve it!
Cheers!
Paul
Great videos,you should take over Bear Grylls spot!
I’m a Brit living in Taiwan, although it’s sub tropical I’m gonna get in the forests here and try this st uff out.
Thanks!
Geoff
Hi Geoff,
Many thanks for the commet and great to hear you’ll be getting out into the forests in Taiwan (I’ve heard they’re quite nice). Don’t think I’m the one to take over from BG though as I hate running around (I smoke too much for that!) and not keen on hotels either…but thanks for the thought!
Cheers!
Paul
If you want to eat the bananas, look for a bunch where the top few fruits in the bunch are starting to turn yellow or have been eaten by animals – the rest will ripen in a couple of days. Cut down the bunch and hang it in your camp. Cover it with a plastic bag, or wrap it in banana leaves, to keep the fruit bats off it, and just wait a couple of days and it will ripen. Wrapping it also makes it ripen faster as it traps the ethene gas that the fruits produce and that makes them ripen. Once they turn yellow you can eat them but its a bit of work sucking the pulp off the seeds. You can then plant the seeds in a sunny spot to get more banana trees.
If you want to save the seeds for planting later as a gardener, leave them in a bit of water to ferment for a couple of days to get the pulp off them easier, then wash off the rotten pulp by putting the lot in a laundry mesh bag, the kind used to contain socks in the washing machine, and rinse off the pulp, then sun dry the seeds. They sprout more readily when fresh than when dried though.
I think it may be possible to eat the banana corm or underground stem from which the pseudostem grows, but that will kill the plant. But you can always save a shoot / sucker or two from it and it will grow back again. In Ethiopia the main food consists of the stachy corms of Ensete which is related to banana.
See here for a video showing Orang Asli using bananas and other things:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pNmykfZoOE
Indians use the leaves as plates for food.
Yes bananas are not so common in the deep primary forest, but sadly there isn’t much primary forest left in Malaysia these days.
For water getting, you can get water just by cutting off the leaves, it will drip from the leaf stumps. Then cut off the top of the tree and drain that and hollow your bowl high up in the stem. The next day if the water is not so forthcoming you can cut it lower and carve a new bowl, and so on down the stem.
Hi Beng Tang,
Many thanks for so much fantastic info on banana trees! I’ve just watched the video link about the Orang Asli pre war – brilliant video and not one I’d seen before so many thanks for that too. Interesting to see the Orang Asli using bamboo so much – same today.
As you very rightly point out there isn’t that much primary forest left anymore and bamboo/banana trees etc are more likely to be found than most people think simply because there’s so much secondary jungle about. Where I live the jungle is sort of in-between – i.e. it’s been logged but is growing back but the species are more secondary than primary – I notice the difference when going to places like Taman Negara where, all of a sudden, there’s much less bamboo around and travelling through the jungle is so much easier.
I’ve got loads of banana trees growing around the house so I’ll try some of your techniques in a minute, particularly interested in seeing how much water the leaf stumps will generate.
Anyway many thanks again for taking the time to write in with so much useful info.
Cheers!
Paul