Wild cooking / survival

[Redkite]

Has anyone done any wild cooking (a là Bear Grylls)? How does this work for people with type 1? Do you have to "cheat" and take carbs in your kit?

 

[trophywench]

Why Redkite? Nutritionally, carbs are not actually necessary. However, we would need to have a vague idea of the carb count of whatever we may encounter cos if there are any, we'd need to bolus. If there aren't any (eg baked hedgehog) then just eat it. If there might be - roots? fruits?? then we might.

What sort of scenario did you have in mind, or were you just randomly wondering?

 

[Redkite]

It's a school activity day planned for July. For people who aren't insulin dependent you can manage on carb free food, but if my son's roaming about the woods and doing climbing and abseiling, he's going to need some carbs!

 

[heasandford]

I am unsure about the comment about the unnecessary nature of carbs, but I am one of those who tries to manage my intake rather than giving up on them altogether!

Glucose is certainly biologically necessary, it is the brain's only form of fuel. How it gets it can be the complicated bit, especially for people with diabetes. The shortest, quickest metabolic pathway to glucose is using carbs and insulin. If very active, there is no doubt that carbs will get fuel/energy there fastest. Are they expecting all the students to manage without any fast-acting energy source? I know that there are other ways of getting glucose from both fat and protein although we do still have a requirement for insulin whether we eat carbs or not, getting the liver-stored glucose into our cells. (It is also true that there have been no respected long-term large scale studies on diets without carbohydrates.)

I suppose the reason I have said all this is so that your son won't suddenly stop using insulin because he's not eating carbs!

 

[Copepod]

Yes, I've done this sort of things. I always have emergency food available, but if I don't eat carbohydrate, I don't need to inject insulin.

I doubt the climbing done at a school activity day will be particularly demanding - usually it's a mobile climbimg tower on a trailer, with lots of holds for feet and and hands, unlike the sort of climbing on rocks / crags that I do occasionally. If he's never climbed / abseiled before, it's liable to be more a case of taking account of adrrenaline than expending energy.

There won't be much to forage for in July - too early for blackberries, for example. My guess is that wild cooking will actually be making damper mix [flour & water] to wrap rounnd a stick and toast over a fire, which the students may light themselves. Unless the school grounds have woodland, then firewood will have to be provided, too. There might be a chance to try a dried locust - probably juts one per student, as they're expensive to buy / provide, so no need to test before eating.

I doubt they'll have hedgehogs. Perhaps a dead rabbit per group to skin, gut and cook. Again, not carbohydrate. That's what I did as a Ranger Guide on a Ranger / Venture leadership course based in a disused watermill in West Midlands in November, with snow on ground. It was colder than the summer I spent 6 weeks camping in Greenland, but OK with decent kit and common sense.

If you get any more details, let me know, and I'll try to help. If it's Compass Adventure providing the activity day, then I have some inside information. Their activity days usually involved camping, though.

 

[DeusXM]

For people who aren't insulin dependent you can manage on carb free food, but if my son's roaming about the woods and doing climbing and abseiling, he's going to need some carbs!

I think that's the wrong approach.

I realise there's various practicalities involved but what you're really describing here is feeding the insulin. The reason people without diabetes don't need carbs to carry out activities without risking low blood sugar is because their pancreases stop releasing as much insulin. So the same logic applies here - if your son is going to be climbing, abseiling etc., rather than 'adding in' carbs to stop his insulin sending his blood sugar low, stop 'adding in' the insulin. If his basal rate is reduced AND he is exercising, providing he gets the right balance, there's no need for extra starchy carbs to stave off hypos.

I know, it's a lot easier in theory, than practice! But this is a really good habit to get into. I think as a whole, everyone with diabetes, when they're having trouble with low blood sugar, always defaults to adjusting their diet first, rather than considering insulin.

My rules are generally if your problem is low blood sugar, it's your insulin you need to change, and if your problem is high blood sugar, it's your good you need to change...and possibly your insulin too, but food first.

I think with the 'wild cooking', it's perfectly fair for your son to carry glucose tablets and I bet they're not so rigorous as to prevent the kids from bringing drinks with them, so a Coke or Lucozade in a backpack should probably be fine and then at least there's a corrective treatment for low blood sugar available. If they're making twists (that's what I called Copepod's damper mix when I was a cub scout!), they'll probably have jam as well.

I guess really though, it's about knowing what to expect. Have you asked the school what exactly is meant by 'wild cooking'? It might be they know exactly what food is going to be available on the day (I can't imagine they'd take a bunch of kids out in the wood without at least some sort of guaranteed food plan), in which case you can build a plan based around that.

 

[Austin Mini]

In the Scouts for my backwoodmans badge (we are talking 1958) I had to snare a rabbit, skin it and bbq it whilst living in a bivi in the woods. Got my badge ok. Then in the early 1960s I found myself in the Paras where we lived off anything we could find (ughh worms and berries) whilst we were persued by the SAS somewhere in the Brecon Beacons. It was called escape and evasion. You didnt want to be caught by them at any cost.

 

[Redkite]

Thanks all. The wild cooking day is one of a list of activity day options which are being offered to years 8, 9 and 10 in July at the end of term. They have to rank their preferences and will be told later on which activity they've got, at which point we will be able to get more information (so it's all a bit sketchy at this stage). The options are paired with a second day doing a different activity, so for example if you want to do the wild cooking you can do it paired with a trip to Thorpe Park (he would hate), a trip to Cadbury World (he would love 😉 ), or another activity day with archery and pot holing etc. (which he likes as well). Or he could not do the wild cooking at all, and opt for a trip to see a West End Show (but would have to do a drama workshop on the second day) or various other options.

Re the wild cooking, I have heard of kids simply building a fire and toasting marshmallows on it! Whereas others have actually foraged and had to skin rabbits and gut fish. I believe it's taking place at a Scout camp near us.

Wouldn't fancy trying to evade the SAS Austin Mini! Presumably you couldn't even risk cooking the worms in case the fire gave you away?!!!

 

[Copepod]

When you know the details, then come back - we're hear to help youngsters adapt their diabetes to their lives, so they don't have to adapt their activities to diabetess [apart from a few things like joining armed forces etc].

Although my guide / Red Cross cadets / sea ranger / ranger / venture experience was more recent [1977 - mid 1980s] and my TA medical unit experience also more recent [early 1990s], before I developed type 1 diabetes, I have continued to do such things. I ran activity birthday parties for children at a country park until summer 2013, skinning & gutting rabbit / plucking & gutting Canada goose donated by my country park boss, who had ferreted rabbit and shot goose, both as pests, so it seemed disrespectful not to eat them, and he had all the rabbits / geese he could cope with at each time, so wanted to give them to someone who could prepare and eat them. I've also taught single pitch climbing and abseiling as an instructor at PGL and various Scout camps. For about 3 summers, I worked at a school in Cambridge, leading groups of 13 - 14 year olds doing community service projects eg painting garden panels at a centre for people with learning disabilities, organising a games / bingo session and tea party at an old people's home and running a session planting seeds with nursery children. All of which inolved lots of walking between school, service locations and supermarket to collect supplies. At that school, pupils did community service for 2.5 days and spent the other 2.5 days at an outdoor activities centre in Norfolk.

So, do ask, when your son has made his choices and knows what he is doing.

 

[Redkite]

Thanks Copepod, I will do 🙂