There is a Gaelic proverb, "Tha an t-acras air", which is commonly thought to say "He is hungry." The literal translation, "Hunger is on him", refers to the dance with starvation that was well-known by the Celts of old. In this day few of us know a hunger more extreme than being late for a meal. Those of us drawn to the wilder places know that starvation yet lurks, waiting to battle - and hopefully claim - another life.

Imagine you're out in the wilderness, far from civilization. Your food provisions are gone, you've been hiking for days, and you're getting nowhere. Every step burns and you have gone beyond hungry - you are famished. There is no one to help - no one to rely on but yourself. You suddenly realize that you could die.

What would you do -- start trapping for easy-to-get rodents? Maybe you could catch some frogs with little effort, or you might gather some wild greens you are familiar with. These things seem to make sense, and yet you would probably still die.

Why? Because you would be starving yourself. I have rescued people who were finding plenty of food, and yet they were wasting away. They had full bellies and still they felt like they were starving. They looked like concentration camp inmates-skin and bones, lethargic, despairing.

What was missing? Two things:

• Initial health
• Nutritional knowledge

Few of us have the metabolic strength or intestinal fortitude to survive entirely on wild foods. Most of us are hypoglycemic, which means our blood sugar peaks and crashes, giving us energy surges followed by slumps. Most of us are not aware that we are hypoglycemic because we mask it either by snacking to keep our energy level up or by stimulating ourselves with caffeine. The condition is probably caused by an over-consumption of sugar and starch (we are designed to get most of our energy from fat).

Because most of us live mainly on soft, starchy, sterile food, we do not have the intestinal fortitude to digest and assimilate wild foods. They generally have five times the fiber of the fare we are used to and half again the nourishment. Just by living outside we can't help but ingest microorganisms our systems are not accustomed to. It takes time for our intestinal flora to adjust to these new foods and buggers, and in the meantime we can suffer extreme weight loss and dehydration from intestinal irritation and nutrient malabsorption.

Compounding that is our lack of real, living, hunting-gathering knowledge. Even though someone might be quite expert in a specific area, such as trapping and snaring or edible plants, one cannot live off of rodents or vegetable matter, much less using it in an effort to regain strength. The saying, Too much knowledge is dangerous, certainly applies here, as this type of specialization generally encourages overconfidence, which interferes with an individual's ability to be adaptable and listen to his body's needs.

Field guides, as impressive as some of them are, yet tend to bolster a false sense of security. In order to survive, a broad-based, general knowledge of plant and animal foods is needed.

So why is this not taught? Two reasons:

• The way to get ahead in our culture is to specialize, so we think it should work in the wilderness also.

• Most people are taught wilderness survival skills outside the wilderness, by people who have never stared Tha an t-acras air in the face. It is like expecting to learn how to swim while out in a cornfield.

Now lets get back to the starvation scenario I started with, and the question I posed, "What would you do?" I would suggest doing what any self-respecting Celt (or Aborigine, or Indian) would have done - Stage Foraging. It is a time-proven way to restore energy and rebuild strength that I learned from my native elders, and from watching famished bears, who the natives say they learned it from. Here is how it works:

Stage 1 -- Fruit