Hunger can make anything look like food. As winter wears on, the wild foods tend to become scarce. Squirrels finish off the last of the tree nuts, and other animals put a dent in the remaining wild forage. After awhile, the only stuff left out there is the stuff that nobody eats – neither man nor beast.

So if you get stranded out in the wild this winter, you’ll want to skip the following list of plants.

While teaching an Urban Survival class this past weekend, the topic of storing your own drinkable water came up in conversation many times. How much water you should have on hand, how you bottle it, and where you store it are the three most common concerns.

So let us suppose for a moment that your town’s or region’s normal water supply has been cut off. You’ll be on your own for drinking, cooking, and some basic hygiene. In the realm of water, being prepared for emergencies means keeping water on hand, and also being ready to disinfect more water as needed.

Throughout much of North America, tree sugaring time is near or already underway. Depending on the weather and your latitude, you will have trees with running sap between January and early March. Some of these trees can be sources of water if you get caught without anything to drink. Other trees can provide live-saving calories at one of the roughest times of the year for survival.

Some mammals, like mice, can produce their own vitamin C inside their bodies. Unfortunately, human beings are not on that list of critters. We need vitamin C, which we get from outside sources, because it performs such an important variety of functions in the body, including increasing immune system health, tissue repair, and iron absorption. Without enough vitamin C we can develop symptoms of scurvy, such as fatigue, weakness, capillary fragility, and gum disease.

Fortunately, if you ever get stuck somewhere away from your normal food supply, there are several great sources of vitamin C in winter edible plants.