Extreme Food: What to Eat When Your Life Depends On It by Bear Grylls

Extreme Food: What to Eat When Your Life Depends On It by Bear Grylls
Copyright 2014
William Morrow - Nonfiction/Survival
272 pp., incl. index, picture credits and appendices

If you've seen Bear Grylls eating disgusting things on television, you probably have a decent idea what you're in for in Extreme Food but it's far more than worms, birds' eggs and snake meat (although, ugh, I've seen him cook all of those on TV and that egg and worm omelet . . . just, no).

Let me back up a bit. What I expected of Extreme Food was entirely different from what I got. Grylls talks about food, but he also mentions things you should carry in your backpack if you're going out in the woods, how to build a proper fire, how to make a container in which to do your cooking, which plants are best raw or cooked and what he considers the best way to cook them, how to build a number of different traps to catch edible animals, how to best approach an animal you want to hunt, various ways to kill animals and how to make the tools to do so (including a number of different methods of fishing), how to distinguish animal tracks, which animals to avoid entirely and which of the various hunting methods are typically illegal and should only be used if you are in a life or death situation.

That's a surprising amount of information crammed into such a small book. However, there's a down side. The chapter about fungi, for example, describes both edible and poisonous mushrooms. Unfortunately, Grylls says many are so difficult to tell apart that it's best to purchase a more comprehensive guide and study them. Not helpful on the fly. Nor are some of the illustrations all that clear; although, to be fair, some are quite good.

A few things I learned:

• An air rifle is "the only gun you're allowed to carry unlicensed in the UK [. . .] and the same goes for many other parts of the world too." Interesting from an American perspective. 
• The most important single tool you should carry is a good knife.
• There are a lot more ways to fish than I could have ever imagined.
• Death by alligator would seriously suck.
• I'm definitely more of a roots and nuts type of gal than the shoot-and-skin variety but I was much less horrified by the thought of capturing and cooking animals in a desperate situation than I expected.

One thing that hasn't changed:

• I'm still convinced I'll be the first to die if I'm ever in a group of people stranded in the wilderness. And, the others will eat me. But, it doesn't hurt to learn how to try not to die. 

The bottom line:  There's a lot of interesting information in Extreme Food and it's an enjoyable read, if occasionally a bit disgusting. But, it has its downfalls. If you're looking for a single survival manual to keep handy in the event of disaster (to tuck in your automobile trunk or keep handy if you're camping or hiking), this isn't the book I'd choose. I think you'd be better off reading a more comprehensive manual like that put out by the S.A.S. or the U. S. Army. Having said that, I think anyone who has a general interest in survival may come away from the reading having learned something, so I recommend it but it's definitely not my favorite of the survival guides I've read.

My apologies to anyone on my feed who has seen three versions of this post. I made a mistake in the first version, updated it, and then decided I needed to add a few more thoughts.

©2015 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Catch-up #1: Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck, A Survival Guide for Life by Grylls, Tomorrow We Die by Grady

I had such a fantastic reading month in September that my sidebar has been taunting me for ages. Yes, true, I am under no obligation to write about every book I read (I do skip a book if I feel like there's nothing to say and the book in question is from my personal library). But, the whole point of blogging is to keep a record of what I've read and my thoughts about each of those books so I'm going to do some catch-up posts. The following were either recently purchased or on my home shelves. I absolutely loved and highly recommend all three.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck - I just found out I'm not the only person in America who missed out on reading and discussing Of Mice and Men in school, yesterday! Whew! Good to know.

Short version of the storyline, lacking spoilers: Two friends travel around working odd jobs together. Lennie is intellectually challenged; George watches out for his friend. When they end up in trouble -- which invariably happens because Lennie has difficulty understanding boundaries and doesn't know his own strength -- George takes charge of their escape. When Lennie does something so horrific their lives are both put in danger, what will George do?

I love Steinbeck. For such a small book, Of Mice and Men certainly packs a wallop. Definitely one of my favorite reads of the year. I wish I'd read it in a group setting. When I closed the book, I was dying to discuss the moral dilemma.

I love Bear Grylls and have been thinking, "I need to read one of his books" for quite a while. So, when I indulged in some stress shopping in September I went in search of a book by Grylls. Any title would do -- and since I was looking at a discount website I took what was available.

A Survival Guide for Life by Bear Grylls is about achieving your goals, with focus on paying attention to what makes you happy, maintaining enthusiasm, dealing with adversity, working on strength of character -- really great advice. The author refers to the book as "self help" within its text. I'm not generally a fan of self-help because I've found the majority of such books are not particularly helpful or their effects are short-lived. However, I do love books on positive thinking and have several favorites that I periodically reread when I need an upper.

A Survival Guide for Life definitely falls into the "uppers worth rereading" category. Although much of Grylls' advice is common sense or already in practice here, there is still plenty to think about and his infectious can-do attitude just can't be beat. I haven't yet talked my youngest into reading the book because he's been reading business books recommended by his father while working on his second degree but I think there are aspects to A Survival Guide for Life that are particularly relevant to young people on the verge of entering the work force so I hope he'll find the time to read the book soon. In the meantime, I may even give it a second go. A Survival Guide for Life is definitely a book I plan to reread repeatedly. And, I would especially recommend it for those who need a little mental boost. It would also make a fabulous graduation gift. Bear Grylls is truly an inspiration.

I've already talked about Tomorrow We Die by Shawn Grady a bit, here, but without describing the storyline.

Jonathan Trestle is a paramedic working for a private ambulance service. When he's called to a cardiac arrest, he manages to revive the patient, an unkempt man who may have overdosed. Before the patient slips back into unconsciousness, he hands Jonathan a note and tells him to give it to Martin. Of course, Jonathan has no idea who Martin is.

There is so much going on in this book that I realize now why I didn't post a synopsis, before. First, there's the patient with the note. Jonathan tracks down the patient and goes in search of Martin. There's an old girlfriend Jonathan keeps running into; they have a lot of baggage but the mutual attraction is still there. His alcoholic dad is fading. Jonathan has flashbacks to his mother's death. And, when the ambulance company gets after Jonathan for not meeting the city's standard response time because there aren't enough ambulances to cover the quantity of calls coming in, he stumbles across a corporate cover-up that puts his life (and the lives of several other people) in danger.

I have a feeling there's more that I've forgotten but the bottom line is that Tomorrow We Die is action-packed, well paced and the pages absolutely flew. I loved this book. My only problem with it was that it could be a little too descriptive. But, that's something you just have to be prepared for when you're reading a book written by a paramedic. The things they see are not pretty. I'm currently reading Bringing Out the Dead by Joe Connelly (yet another novel written by a paramedic) and it is equally stomach-turning, at times, but I love this stuff. Tomorrow We Die was definitely the most exciting novel I've read by a paramedic, so far. We'll see how the next one goes.

©2014 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery  or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.