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If you are someone who likes to be prepared for emergencies, you may have already done some research on how to find food in the wild. However, most of the information you’re likely to find on this topic deals with woodlands. It’s another thing entirely to find food in a desert landscape.
By definition, a desert is “a region so arid because of little rainfall that it supports only sparse and widely spaced vegetation or no vegetation at all.” So, knowing how to fish with limited supplies, roast acorns, or forage for roots and berries will not be of much use in a desert.
However hostile an environment a desert may seem, it does offer a variety of ways to sustain yourself – if you know where to look. Before we get to a list of some of the food sources in a desert, though, it is critical to point out that your first step is to find water.
You can survive for a few weeks with little to no food, but you will not survive for more than a few days without water. Furthermore, eating food without water only serves to hasten the dehydration process.
If you have enough water and need to find something to eat, here are some plants sources for food in the desert.
Cactus
These common desert plants are sources of both water and nutrition. Let’s look at three varieties found in the Sonoran Desert, the largest desert in the U.S., that are useful as a food source.
- Prickly Pear Cactus. The prickly pear plant has three different edible sections, which are high in water, sugar, and fiber content. The sections are the spiky leaves (pads), which can be eaten like a vegetable; the flower petals, which can be used in salads; and the pear (tuna), which can be eaten as a fruit.
- Saguaro Cactus. This large cactus grows edible flowers in the early spring and then bears edible fruit over the next couple of months. The plant’s spongy interior is an excellent water source at all times of the year.
- Desert Christmas Cactus. The small berries this small plant produces contain Vitamins A and C and have a sweet strawberry-like taste.
Agave
The leaves, flowers, flower stalks, and seeds of the agave plant are edible. Boiling makes these parts of the plant easier to eat. Some of the species also produce a nectar, which has become a popular natural sweetener.
Chia Sage
The entire chia sage plant is edible. Even its seeds are nutritious and can provide a short-term energy boost. The plant’s flowers and leaves can be eaten raw or used to season soups and stews.
Mesquite Tree
You may recognize this tree’s name for its use as a seasoning. Mesquite trees also produce pods filled with beans that look like peas. The beans can be roasted and ground into flour.
Piñon Pine
This tree produces small nuts, called pine nuts, that you can eat raw or roasted.
Yucca plant
The yucca has about 40 species, and the stems, flowers, emerging stalks, and fruit of most types of these plants are edible.
The desert also is home to some edible animals, including some lizards, snakes, jackrabbits, and other small mammals. Experts recommend that you conserve your strength and your water supply by using trapping methods rather than hunting methods when considering desert animals as food. You could catch a small lizard with a fishing pole, for example, or a standard mousetrap.
Whenever possible, use the Universal Edibility Test before eating a questionable plant. Here are the steps.
- Separate the plant into its components—stems, leaves, buds, and flowers, and roots.
- Test only one part of the plant at a time. Some plants may have poisonous and safe-to-eat parts.
- Smell the food for strong or acid odors, which can indicate the plant is unsafe to eat.
- Do not eat for eight hours before starting the test. During that time, test for contact poisoning. Place a piece of the part you are testing on the inside of your elbow or wrist. Wait 20 minutes to see if there is a reaction.
- During the test, consume only purified water and the plant part you are testing.
- Select a small part of the plant and prepare it the way you plan to eat it.
- Touch a small portion of the plant part to your outer lip. Wait three minutes to see if there is a reaction, such as burning or itching.
- If there is no reaction on your lip, place the same plant part on your tongue for 15 minutes.
- If there is no reaction on your tongue, chew a piece of the plant, holding it in your mouth for 15 minutes.
- If there is no reaction in your mouth, swallow the food.
- Wait eight hours.
- If you feel any ill effects, induce vomiting and drink water.
- If you feel no ill effects, eat a quarter cup of the same plant part prepared in the same way.
- Wait another eight hours.
- If you experience no ill effects, the plant part is safe for eating as prepared.
Do not assume that a plant part that passes the Universal Edibility Test when cooked is safe to eat raw.
In conclusion, it is important to remember that harvesting certain plants and in certain locations is against the law. Unless you are in a survival situation, please check with local and state regulations before foraging, hunting, or trapping in the desert.
For example, it is illegal to collect or pick fruit within 100 yards of a highway or road in California. It is also against the law to collect food in a protected area, including a state or national park.
Another point to keep in mind is made by author David Alloway in his book, Desert Survival Skills. “The blueprint for desert survival is found in the plants and animals that live there. If we can imitate their survival strategies, we can become part of the desert’s ecosystem instead of an antagonist. Learning to sit out the heat of the day, equating water with life, and becoming nocturnal are not only easy steps but basic desert survival skills.
“Learning to travel, work, and rest with the rhythm of the desert, we do not waste time and energy struggling against things we cannot change.”
