Immerse the nuts in a running stream and secure them so they don’t wash away. Tightly woven baskets are the traditional method of straining them. Clean socks or pillow cases are great, if you have them. You could also do a leaching process in moving water with a cloth bag. For ideas on what to do with the leftover tannic acid, click here. This water bath leaches out the tannic acid, which causes nausea and digestive distress when consumed. ![]() If the acorns are still too bitter, soak them in warm water for a few more hours. Soak them in warm water for a few hours, then pour off the water. Next, separate out all the shell fragments and place the nut meat pieces in a pot of warm water. Whichever “tools” you have at your disposal, you can smash the nuts open in one or two strokes and save yourself a lot of time. Use two big flat rocks in your backyard or in the wild. Use a sidewalk and a cinderblock in urban environments. Simply set out 20-30 acorns on a hard, flat surface and smash them all at once with a wide, heavy object. You could crack them one by one with pliers or smash them individually with a rock, but the native folks of this land figured out a much better technique: mass breakage. Processing acorns starts out by shelling the nuts and leaching out the tannins that make them bitter and nauseating. Many areas with oak trees are loaded with acorns this year, so it’s proving to be a great year to harvest this wholesome native food.īut what are you supposed to do with them? Here’s an easy method for processing them, and five different ways to eat this humble and ubiquitous tree nut. It seems that the average person has no idea they are crushing valuable wild edibles underfoot. “I didn’t know you could eat acorns!” It pains me to hear this phrase, and I hear it often. This story was originally featured on Outdoor Life. More on that later.Īnd finally, the last major benefit that acorns have is that they are filled with calories, so they can give you a quick energy boost when you most need it. For this reason alone, they are highly valuable as a survival food.Green acorns, ready for processing. Otherwise, you can pry the more difficult ones off yourself.Īnother reason why acorns are so valuable as a survival food is that they are incredibly easy to prepare for consumption and can be used in a number of different recipes. As long as you can find oak trees, you can find acorns, and they are particularly easy to harvest in the fall.ĭuring late fall, usually September and October, all you have to do is shake the branches of an oak tree and several acorns will come loose and fall to the ground. There are many reasons acorns are a great survival food, some of which we have already touched upon in the introduction.įirst and foremost, acorns are very plentiful across North America, and in virtually all geographical regions except for deserts and more arid areas. ![]() Want to save this post for later? Click Here to pin it on Pinterest! What Makes Acorns One Of The Best Survival Foods? In this guide, we’ll talk about how to select acorns that are safe for consumption, the types of oak trees that produce acorns, how to prepare them for eating, and specific recipes that use acorns. And in addition to being high in calories, acorns are very nutritious, containing lots of potassium, folate, manganese, vitamin B6, and other important nutrients.
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